Sounds like we will have another great "Whisky-moment" in RSA Looking forward to that Martin!
October is buisy for me with hunting but a trip to UK to do some shooting sounds really great! We can discuss it further in RSA in a month or so. I have a good friend here that is building a rig for this new form of shooting here in Sweden, I´ll talk to him about joining me if I decides to go to UK.
I am shooting a 6.5x55 in F-Class here in the USA. There is only one cartridge that has been shot more in competitiion throughout the world than the 6.555 and it is the 22LR. That 6.5x55 has been shot since the 1890"s. I use a 28" barrel with H-4831 powder it is like N-160. I have shot the 130gr Norma bullets but after Bergers, and Lapua I have settled on the 142 Sierra Match King. My twist is aa 1/8. One rifle is a Lothar Walther in 1/8 twist. The Norma bullets liked H-4350 which is like N-150. When it is all said and done I don't believe that 200FPS will make up for a lack of markmanship. Good luch as you are on the right track with the 6.5x55.
Please tell the people on this website how many shooters will attend the major international matches in the scandanavian countries just to give us some prespective.
The local "fieldshooting" matches use to attract hundreds of shooters here just 10-15 years back. The past winter when me and a few other shooters joined the local fieldshooting match with our scoped rifles there where a total of 89 shooters attending........
I don´t think that we will se several hundred shooters again at these local matches but there will for sure be a increase in number of shooters here now when the F-Class style is growing here.
There´s discussions regarding the rules and regulations for the scoped rifles in fieldshooting right now. The fieldshooting people have hesitated a little to invite us to the big matches but after we finally been there and shot a big match they have welcomed us with open arms!
The fieldshooting is done in the wintertime here and things are a bit slow at the moment here now. I´m also about to pack up my BR-gear for the WBC-10 in Southafrica next week
There really is no question of "over-stabilization" so 8:1 is really no problem.
I'm currently building a 6.5 creedmoor with a 8:1 and frankly if I were using a rock creek (i'm using a 8:1 kreiger) I would probably use something like 7.65:1.
all in all - just enjoy (and try not to second guess yourself)
Looking forward to that Martin!