Last year I got the idea to build a custom 7mm PRC barrel for my Blaser R8. It didn't take long and a gunsmith made the barrel. The blank was from Bartlein. It is a Remington varmint profile 27" long and has a 1-8" twist.
Unfortunately I was not able to shoot it until a month ago. But finally I was able to load a few rounds and go to the shooting range. The first ever group from the rifle measured 1 moa (4 shots) exactly at 100m. Next group was 2/3 moa (4 shots) and from that on I haven't shot a group bigger than 1/3 moa. The best group measured 1/4 moa (3 shots) at 800m. I guess quite some luck was involved .
Until now I shot 31 shots from the barrel. And measured the velocity of 30. One shot was on a deer so no velocity measurement on that one. I need to point out that after the first 10 shots I completely cleaned the barrel.
So velocities for all 30 shots (with cleaning) produced an average of 2795fps with an SD of 7.2fps. This was just a load that I put together.
The load is:
Hornady brass
195 berger EOLs
66gr of Vihtavuori N565
I know that the velocity is a bit low for a 27" barrel but I will continue shooting this load for sometime to see if the barrel will speed up… In the end I would like to get to 2900fps.
Rifle specs:
Blaser R8
Carbonomix HUNTTECH carbon stock
27" Batlein barrel 1-8" twist
Tier one Evolution bipod
Zeiss S3 6-36x56 on a 20 moa rail
Stalon XE149 suppressor
Unfortunately I was not able to shoot it until a month ago. But finally I was able to load a few rounds and go to the shooting range. The first ever group from the rifle measured 1 moa (4 shots) exactly at 100m. Next group was 2/3 moa (4 shots) and from that on I haven't shot a group bigger than 1/3 moa. The best group measured 1/4 moa (3 shots) at 800m. I guess quite some luck was involved .
Until now I shot 31 shots from the barrel. And measured the velocity of 30. One shot was on a deer so no velocity measurement on that one. I need to point out that after the first 10 shots I completely cleaned the barrel.
So velocities for all 30 shots (with cleaning) produced an average of 2795fps with an SD of 7.2fps. This was just a load that I put together.
The load is:
Hornady brass
195 berger EOLs
66gr of Vihtavuori N565
I know that the velocity is a bit low for a 27" barrel but I will continue shooting this load for sometime to see if the barrel will speed up… In the end I would like to get to 2900fps.
Rifle specs:
Blaser R8
Carbonomix HUNTTECH carbon stock
27" Batlein barrel 1-8" twist
Tier one Evolution bipod
Zeiss S3 6-36x56 on a 20 moa rail
Stalon XE149 suppressor