Kirby Allen’s “no load development” load development method.

[Fiftydriver]

What new powder is that?

 

[Joe King]

More speed out of Kirby's guns!?!? The AM's are way out on the edge already! lol

 

[submoa]

rick I'm sort of in the same place with a guy I work with. He wants a rifle he can shoot milk jugs ect. at 1000yrds with, but he doesn't want to even go through assembling a rifle, wants to keep his costs to $650. His words "I don't want a rifle I have to mess with, it'll just shoot out of the box" I told him ok! Tikka then! I also showed him what he could assemble a savage for. From low end using prethreaded, chambered Shilen barrel, BC duramax stock.... and High end using one of Shilens better barrels, and a McMillan stock (keep in mind I was only showing him what he can assemble not build along with what it would cost) and pointed out that one of his neighbors does this and can help him out. My money is that he'll go buy as cheap a rifle as he can and still wish for more. To my mind if a guy can't swing a full custom rifle, assembling one based on a savage that will fit what your after is money far better spend than to be left wishing for more, and assembling a rifle doesn't have to be done all at once you can spread it out to absorb the costs easier.

Plus one here I'm slowly building a Stevens 223 varmint rifle and its so much fun watching your groups just keep getting smaller and smaller ;-)

Right now I have lapped the bolt and lugs installed a riflebasix trigger put rifle in a stockys long range thumbhole stock pillared and glass bedded. Next well be a biggie new barrel and recoil lug and then new one piece game reaper mount and vortex scope.

I do have a question for you pro rifle builders is haveing the action trued and blueprinted a need to thing or a want to?????


P.S. as of right now I have less than $600 in my rifle and it shoots sub moa out to 500 yards maybe more

 

[rick523]

rick I'm sort of in the same place with a guy I work with. He wants a rifle he can shoot milk jugs ect. at 1000yrds with, but he doesn't want to even go through assembling a rifle, wants to keep his costs to $650. His words "I don't want a rifle I have to mess with, it'll just shoot out of the box" I told him ok! Tikka then! I also showed him what he could assemble a savage for. From low end using prethreaded, chambered Shilen barrel, BC duramax stock.... and High end using one of Shilens better barrels, and a McMillan stock (keep in mind I was only showing him what he can assemble not build along with what it would cost) and pointed out that one of his neighbors does this and can help him out. My money is that he'll go buy as cheap a rifle as he can and still wish for more. To my mind if a guy can't swing a full custom rifle, assembling one based on a savage that will fit what your after is money far better spend than to be left wishing for more, and assembling a rifle doesn't have to be done all at once you can spread it out to absorb the costs easier.

I totally agree with you. My smith is only about 15mi. from me and after I talked with him and told him what I wanted that is basically what I did I paid for parts up front as he orderd them in since the lead times were so long . He would have done the same for my buddy, but for some reason he (my friend )was hesitant to have a gun built by someone he didn't know. I think he wanted to see what my rifle was gonna do. I figured if a guy says he will build me a rifle that will do better than 1/2 moa and put it in writing and give me the gun at no cost if it dosn't I'll take a chance. I knew he is a BR shooter and builds all of his own rifles. I didn't find out till later he has won several gun smith awards. He called me yesterday when he got back from Raton N.M. where he finished second in the 1000 yd F class shoot I beleive he said. anywayI took a chance on his work the only regret I have is I am going to shoot the barrel out of this gun sooner than I should because it is so much fun to shoot an accurate rifle.
Good news is I know someone that can rebarrel.Lol
Rick

 

[rick523]

Rick, I'm about 30 miles SW of South Bend.

About 150 mi. away a little to far to meet for coffee sometime. I do get up that way sometimes I'll pm you next time I come that way. Too bad we can't use our rifles at home for deer season makes me wish I lived in Wy.

 

[esshup]

About 150 mi. away a little to far to meet for coffee sometime. I do get up that way sometimes I'll pm you next time I come that way. Too bad we can't use our rifles at home for deer season makes me wish I lived in Wy.

Sounds good. We can use the rifles - on a deer depredation tag. I'm a listed shooter for a farm up by South Bend, but they didn't get the permit until the corn was tall, so the deer had lots of places to hide. The farm is about a mile and a half wide by 3 miles long.

 

[FEENIX]

Plus one here I'm slowly building a Stevens 223 varmint rifle and its so much fun watching your groups just keep getting smaller and smaller ;-)

Right now I have lapped the bolt and lugs installed a riflebasix trigger put rifle in a stockys long range thumbhole stock pillared and glass bedded. Next well be a biggie new barrel and recoil lug and then new one piece game reaper mount and vortex scope.

I do have a question for you pro rifle builders is haveing the action trued and blueprinted a need to thing or a want to?????


P.S. as of right now I have less than $600 in my rifle and it shoots sub moa out to 500 yards maybe more

My latest project was a Savage 110 L/A and my smith said, because of Savage's bolt design, all it need is to square the action to maximize full contact of the new barrel and lug.

 

[Fiftydriver]

My latest project was a Savage 110 L/A and my smith said, because of Savage's bolt design, all it need is to square the action to maximize full contact of the new barrel and lug.

Savage Arms Floating Bolt Head - YouTube

This is partially true but the bolt head also benefits from being trued as well. The bolt lug surfaces and the bolt face surfaces are seldom perfect and can be brought into the same plane which improves consistancy especially with larger magnum chamberings.

But your smith is correct, the Savage is a great platform for reasonably priced accuracy builds. No question there.

 

[Fiftydriver]

Had a customer come up yesterday, finished his new 300 Allen Xpress last week. He took the rifle home, did the barrel break in and brought the rifle back yesterday morning to work on the drop chart. I had used my "No load development" system on his rifle and came up with a load that produced 3330 fps with the 200 gr Accubond out of his 26" barrel length.

We went to the range, we chronoed three of his loads that averaged 3380 fps with his lot of powder. Ran the numbers, and we set up at 650 yards. He shot two shots and both landed well under 1/2 moa but they were 4 moa high. Moved to 810 yards and shot two more shots. Easily under 3/4 moa and again, 3-3.5 moa high.

Made a scope adjustment and he took two more shots at 810 yards. Impact was dead on the money. Moved back to 650 yards, dead on the money. Stepped back to 480 yards, drops again dead on the money. Then tried 375 yards and again, right on. Then moved to 1010 yards and drops were right on.

I shot 12 shots to do the load development. He shot 25 rounds on the barrel breeak in, and he shot 14 shots on the range testing his drops from nearly 400 to +1000 yards and his rifle is ready to use. 51 shots total from the rifle coming off the manufacturing bench to ready to hunt with.

That is what my system is ment to do and it works if done properly. After the scope adjustment my customer would have been able to hit even a rockchuck sized target with every shot he put downrange and this guy had never shot past 500 yards before.

Just one of MANY examples of his this system works, works fast and works with very few rounds down range. Again, many ways to skin a cat, this is one of many.

 

[barnesuser28]

Kirby, are you going to try some Rl-33 in your AX? I think it would add another 100 fps, not that its needed gun).

 

[FEENIX]

Kirby,

Congrats on another job well done. A happy customer is a repeat customer.

Ed

 

[Bart B]

That could not be farther from the truth.

If a factory receiver is trued correctly it will most often shoot extremely well but it has to be blueprinted and is square with receiver threads trued to the axis if the receiver bore and a good barrel fit and good chamber and crown, yes they shoot extremely well.

BUT, you can not put crap in and get gold out. Some factory rifles shoot extremely well. I get the "My Rem 700 will shoot sub 1/4 moa groups all day long!" comments all the time from those that do not believe factory rifles are worth the expense. For them, that is true because in all honesty, most of them do not need a full custom rifle for what they do in the field.

I hear this comment all the time that their factory rifles will shoot every bit as well as a full custom rifle. If possible, I generally call them out on their comments and invite them to a day of shooting to compare their favorite factory rifle to one of my full customs.

Of the probably 100 shooters I have invited to a shooting session over the past 10 years, only 5 have agreed to the challange. Of those, all said their rifles were sub 1/4 moa rifles but they really start to sputter when I set them up on a 1/2 moa sized target at 600 to 800 yards yards and set up the video camera. I will even help them get their rifles on target at that range as none of them have had their rifles set up for anything but conventional hunting and shooting ranges.

Two of those 5 shooters could consistantly hit a 1/2 moa sized target at 600 yard and they were using Rem 700 Senderos, one in 7mm Rem Mag and the other in 300 RUM. The other three could not put two shots in a row on my 1/2 moa gong at 600. None of them could put shots consistantly on my 1/2 moa gong at 800 yards.

The first comment out of their mouths after proving what their amazing factory rifle could do was "I ment its a 1/4 moa rifle at 100 yards, not 600 or 800 yards!!" I just smile at them.

They usually they get puffed up and challange me to shoot my custom rifles that well and my reply is NOPE, I am not going to be shooting my rifle, YOU ARE!!!

I set the rifles up, generally I take my original 300 Allen Xpress on my very first Raptor LRSS rifle.

Of the five, every one could easily keep shots on my 1/2 moa gong at 600 yards. One of those guys intentionally pulled his shots to try to prove his point. He was a bit humbled when I ran a magazine full through (3 rounds) and rang the gong every time. When he realized he was coming off as a child be shot the rifle as he should have and also made consistant hits.

Not only that, but every one of them also put consectutive shots on the 1/2 moa gong at 800 yards as well. Certainly there were some misses but the vast majority were solid hits.

Now, I have seen a few factory rifles, but that I mean right out of the box rifles that with their preferred loads would shoot as well as any custom rifle. There have only been two of them over the years and they had to be loaded with their preferred loads and would not shoot most loads as well but with their preferred loads, they shot extremely well. If that was the norm, I would be out of business but that is CERTAINLY not the norm.

So your comments are no where near true.

The smaller the chambering the less critical it is for receiver machining to be perfect. I have seen some 223 Rems that had one bolt lug completely floating that would easily shoot 1/2 moa three shot groups. As you increase case size, especially case head diameter, its becomes more critical to have everything perfect.

Anyone can build a super accurate SMALL rifle, its easy. Its MUCH more challanging to build an accurate rifle on the RUM or Lapua or 408 CT parent case. Its just attention to detail and using quality componants. Not rocket science but it needs to be as perfect as possible or you WILL see it down range.

Again, your comment could not be farther from the truth. We now know your opinion, its wrong but your welcome to it even if it is wrong. On average, there is no comparision between a factory rifle and a full custom rifle in the areas of strength, rigidity and consistancy with a variaty of loads.

Again, seems like your simply trolling but this is getting old fast.

Your comments are often repeated by many 'smiths. But there others who know and do otherwise.

If your rifles and ammo, Kirby, can consistantly put 20 to 30 shots fired in almost as many minutes inside 1/2 MOA at 1000, they you've got my attention. Otherwise, find someone to tell this to who might be ignorant enough to believe it.

 

[Fiftydriver]

When have I ever said I can put 20-30 rounds into 1/2 moa at 1000 yards.

Nice try making up your own comments about what I have said. Put up or shut up and do not mis quote me.

You have no idea how I accuracy test rifles now how many rounds I put through them other then what you have made up in your head. WHen your true thoughts come out, as usual, they are inaccurate and flat out misleading.

Not the first time and sure not the last. My job when I build a rifle is to take it out and see what it will do. I have done this enough times to be able to take a rifle out, shoot it at long range, see how it performs and know if it will be up to my accuracy standards in a very limited about of shooting. Most that have any real experience can do this easily and tell if a rifle is sound and ready to ship.

I never have said that my rifles will shoot into 1/2 moa groups all the time. In fact my main point to my rifles is that once they are set up properly, they will put your first shot out of a cold more within 1/4 moa of your point of aim at any realistic range for that class of weapon system DEPENDING on conditions your shooting in. Conditions are the big limiting factor but that is the reason I designed my wildcats, to make it less of a factor with high ballistic performance to give us humans a larger margin of error.

I do not build rifles to shoot groups. I build rifles to put the first shot through the vitals of a big game animal at any realistic range that that rifle should be used at.

Again, nice try trying to make things up which simply are nothing but your poor opinion and incorrect opinion at that. Like I said, you have done this many times before and I am sure it will not be your last time trolling the waters of LRH.

Anyone that would say a rifle is a sub 1/2 moa or even 1/2 moa rifle all the time is, well to be blunt, not telling the truth or had very little experience at long range shooting.

 

[JackinSD]

Bart B,

Have you considered working for someone that is running for some type of political office? Baiting, twisting, and your out right changing the facts seem to be your forte.

And I thought I was tired of the politicians.