ReBarreling for 1000 yards.

[7mm Eclipse]

I have a 7mm WSM Browning M-1000 Eclipse that has been a good rifle for target shooting and whitetail deer hunting. Before I burnt the throat out of the stock barrel, the rifle and I could shoot less that 1 MOA at 300 yards. The loads that seems to work OK were 62 gr of VV560 poured into a Winchester Brass, Federal 215M primer with a 168 VLB Berger at .010 off the lands giving 2850 fps, or, 58.5 gr of IMR4831 with the same brass and primer but with a 168 Serria Match King which gives the same 2850 fps.

Now that hunting season is over, I want to setup to 1000 yard target shooting and eventually move up to hunting western Antelope, Muley's and Elk. Can y'all recommend some changes I should make to the new barrel fo the Eclipse and the bullet load to prepare for 1000 yard shooting. The old barrel is 26" without a muzzlebrake.

 

[ol mike]

The vv5 series powders burn hot and are abrasive -i'd change to a hodgdon extreme powder [4831sc] or a vit. powder [n-160 or 165 ? maybe].

Then when you travel from atlanta where it's 1500' in elevation and humid to wyoming where it's 4000' and dry your gun will/should shoot the same.
The 168 berger vld will do fine on the critters you mention.
Put a barrel on the same or close to the same diameter so you don't have to sand out the barrel channel.
A 1-9" twist will shoot bullets up to 180gr no problem.
Good luck and welcome to LRH.com -Mike

for 1000yd game animals you might try the 180gr bergervld !

 

[7mm Eclipse]

Ol' Mike,

Thanks for the response and info. Does increasing the barrel length to 28" give 1000 yard accuracy improvement over a 26" barrel that justify the inconvience of the additional length while hunting?

Muzzle brake or no muzzle brake?

Are there any improvements that have the gunsmith make to the bolt, action or bedding that should be considered when changing a barrel?

Thanks again. I know y'all's shots are 1000+ yards frequently. Here in Georgia the average shot at a Whitetail is 75 yards. The longer shots, 300 to 400 yds, are over harvested corn and soybean fields or in pulp wood cleared hardwoods.

I am really looking forward to shooting at 1000y. Camp Perry is about 1.5 hours south of here.

Thanks for the welcome to the forum. There is a lot of great information and marksmen with excellent experience that we newbies can learn from. Great Site!!

Mike

 

[Shootin4fun]

7mm E-

Well its 3 years since your posts but I am wondering...Did you get your Eclipse rebarreld? What kind of barrel, and did you take it out to 1K yards? How'd it do?

I'm considering buying an Eclipse in 7 wsm, mostly for LD target shooting and maybe some hunting (after I know a deer traffic area and can stake a spot). Our deer hunting in Calif is mostly spot & stalk over mountainous terrain so something a little lighter like an Xbolt or A-bolt might be better for that. The seem to have the same degree of accuracy as the Eclipse but of course felt recoil is significantly more due to 3 lbs less weight.

 

[7mm Eclipse]

Shootin4Fun

I decided to have a rifle made rather than rebarrel my 7mmEclipse.

About a year and a half ago, I had Nate at SSG build one of his 7mm 300WSM LRH Rifles for me. I have been using it for beanfield whitetail deer hunting here in Georgia. It has performed excellently using Berger 180 VLD's at about 2800 fps. There are are additional barrel vibration nodes at higher velocities but the 2800 fps node gives me both good hunting and targeting shooting results. Hopefully, at the lower velocities, my barrel should last a lot longer.

I have killed a few whitetails with it and the 180 VLD took care of business out to 460 yards, my longest kill shot.

I have been using it for long range target practice on the Silhouette Range out to 500 meters and on the 600 yard HP Rifle Ranges learning how to shoot at longer distances.

Just this past Monday I shot at a 1000 yard range for the first time. With winds at 2 to 8 MPH, 95F, 32% Humidity, 30.23inHg and elevation of 850 feet measured by my Kestrel, I was happy to see that the calculated range dope for elevation gave me near center vertical impact on the F-Class Targets I was using. The picture below is of my best group of about 0.25 MOA at 1000 yards using the initial MOA elevation setting given by my Ballistics Calculator. Working on getting 5 shots like this.

The gusting wind during the session was another story. I have plenty of room for improvement in reading wind.

This has given me a lot more confidence in my Chrono, scope, rifle and cartridige ballistics. Really looking forward hunting season this year.

In regard to the 7mm Rifles, I have been very happy with both my 7mm Eclipse and with my SSG Custom 7mm 300WSM rifles. They are both more than adequate for my needs.

I agree with much that I have read here on the forum by a large collection of very experienced Long Range Hunters that up to 1000 yards the 7mm should do the job on whitetails. For shots on Elk, Bear and the larger northern whitetail deer beyond 1000 yards, I would use a larger caliber rifle.

 

[Shootin4fun]

7, that is really some excellent planning and execution at all levels, from hand loading to the paper. Congratulations for the 2.5" group @ 1K! It seems you are ready for F class comps! I would be turning cartwheels if I did that, and I'm sure my wife would argue with me about framing the target and mounting it above the fireplace mantle.

Did this target fall to the the 7mm Eclipse or the custom SSG 300WSM?

I have also found that aside from Barnes bullets, my most accurate loads on 3 guns are usually mid and sometimes low end of the velocity range. I found that max loads/vel (as mentioned by someone here) yields the tightest groups with the Barnes.

Yea, this site seems to attract a good group of contributors and is chock full of useful information for any rifle/accuracy enthusiast.

Good job, Len!

 

[7mm Eclipse]

Hi Len.

I used my 7mm 300WSM LRH Rifle with Norma Brass. I have shot sub 0.25 MOA groups with my 7mm WSN Eclipse on the club 600 yard range.

I had the SSG Gun built so I could get the additional 200 thousandths throat and so I could use Norma brass on the rifle that Nate makes specifically for the 168 and 180 Berger VLDS.

Prior to building the new rifle, I did fire form some of the Norma brass and found that I got tighter ES and SD groups with the Berger bullets in the Eclipse using the H4831sc powder.

I didn't rebarrel the Eclipse because it still shoots good enough for hunting around beanfields. The local gunsmiths I talked to about rebarreling the Eclipse said that it would be expensive since the Browing Rifle requires some special tooling.

Here's the 7mm 300WSM that I have really enjoyed shooting from the moment it arrived. Thanks Nate!

Good luck with your decision on your new rifle. I hope this bit of info is useful.

Have a great weekend and best of luck this coming Hunting Season.

Mike

 

[7mm Eclipse]

Hhhh

 

[Bart B]

After a good friend broke the old 1000-yard scoped rifle record at the Nationals in 1970 with a borrowed 7mm Rem. Mag. and ammo, I've followed the use of different 7 Mags at long range events. They've had an interesting history. Especially when it was over a decade before consistantly good heavy 7mm match bullets were available.

28 inch barrels were the norm in competition rifles, not for accuracy but for a bit more muzzle velocity with 168-gr. match bullets.

Sight settings at 500 to 1000 feet elevation had to be 3 to 4 MOA higher that those used at 4000 to 5000 feet for 1000 yard targets. 'Tis the higher air density at lower elevations that slows the bullets down faster.

Powders producing best accuracy were IMR4350 and IMR4831 or other extruded ones in that range. While slower powders typically shot the same weight bullets out faster, those faster bullets didin't land as close together on paper a long ways down range.

As with any long range rifle and ammo intended for accuracy, don't get too enthralled about the smallest few-shot test groups you shoot. Pay attention to the largest ones; they're the size you can count on all the time with the load that shoots them. Whatever suite of components gives the best accuracy for a 15- or 20-shot string is the load to use. A good way to go about it is to decide what's the greatest distance you want to miss your point of aim at the target. If it's 4 inches at 1000 yards, then find a load that you can shoot into no worse than twice your max miss distance; 8 inches at 1000.

 

[Shootin4fun]

7,

So you said you were shooting Bergers in your Eclipse...There's been talk about the 180gr VLDs seated out where they should be are too long for Rem 700 SA actions / magazines. But my question is, did you use the long seating position with 180gr Bergers in the Eclipse? Were there any feeding or length issues with the SMK 175s or Berger 180s?

Your SSG custom is an awesome looking stick and apparently is a world class shooter as well!

BTW, I'm not Len. I was giving Len a high 5 for his site.

Thanks again for your relaying your experience with the Eclipse. If I get a heavy gun like that I want to be sure I can go the full distance with the 180s.

-Tim

 

[7mm Eclipse]

Bart B. - Thanks for the info. It is appreciated. I will definitely incorporate your recommendations into my future work to get some really good 5 shot groups for target practice, and for getting a workable group for long range hunting out to about 600 yards. I need a lot more practice at 1000 yards before I would attempt a hunting shot at that distance.

I also found that the IMR-4831 worked well with the 7mmWSM. It gave me some really good groups. I switched to the H4831sc after finding a lot of the good press it got here on the forum by a lot of 7mm shooters. I also liked the temperature stability of the Hodgdon Powders with the very low ES and SD's produced by the combination of this powder with the 7mm cartridges.


Tim - I did seat the 180 VLD Burget Hunting Bullets into the lands about .005 for a while. I found that I could get similar accuracy and precision when I seated them out about .020 off the lands. I didn't like the idea of seating the bullet into the lands because while hunting if I needed to unload a chambered round, it could possibably pull the bullet out of the caseing resulting in the powder being dumped into the rifle.

For the Custom Build, Nate gave the rifle a longer than standard throat which was by design to allow the use of both the 168 and 180 VLD Bergers. The magazine was built to allow the use of the extremely long 180's to reduce the concern for how the cartridges would cycle into the chamber. It works great with the bullet into or off of the lands.

Regards,

Mike

 

[ivo]

I have been using the Berger 180s for the past 2 years in my PGWDTI Coyote with great success. Under 66.9gr of RL with Fed 215M primers the average group at 300m is about an inch. A lot of guy have found success with 162 Amaxs but I couldn't get them to shoot whatsoever. The 168 gr Bergers shot well but not as good as the 180s, and the 150gr Swift Scirocco actually performed pretty good too but again not as well as the Berger 180gr.

I live this calibre and found that even out at distance it seems to fly great and hit very heavy.

A good friend of mine has his heart set on the Eclipse in a 7wsm, I hope it shoots as well as yours!

 

[7mm Eclipse]

ivo,

I saw the same thing with my 7mm Eclipse. It definitely likes the 180 VLD Berger Hunting Bullet and the 175 gr SGK. Other bullets includins some you mentioned didn't do very well.

I hope your friend gets a good Eclipse. Each rifle is different. You never know until you get a new one out on the firing line.

The best combination I found for my Eclipse was:

- Neck Size
- Trim to length
- Chamfer inside with a VLD Chamfer Tool

- Winchester Brass (sorted)
- Federal GM215M
- H4831sc: 57 grains in my rifle gave 2700fps and really good groups.

Mike