So ask him
al
Al, you're as close to a pure experimenter/tester as we're apt to find on BR Central. And that's a different kind of shooting than match shooting. Not better or worse, just different. I've been known to experiment too, but I always get back to testing in competition.
When I was competition testing 1,000 yard combinations, I'd use a summer's shooting to draw conclusions. That would perforce include different weather -- different wind, temperature, mirage, but always against other people shooting at the same time. That just gives you different answers, it s a different measuring stick.
This question is in the "General" forum, so it's anyone's guess how to respond.
For my money, & allowing this may be a different yardstick, with the 6mms at, say, 200 yards, what the 6BR may buy you is a bullet less affected by conditions. As long as that bullet is physically the equal -- or close to it -- to a typical 66-68 grain short-range bullet, there is a gain. To use that bullet, you need a faster twist. That mean you can't take two identical barrels & chamber one in 6PC and one in 6BR and compare results, because that misses the point.
For what it's worth, R.G. decided that for a number of his bullets, esp. the flat base that aren't offered anymore, 10-twist would work, barrels over 26 inches offered nothing significant, etc. etc.
What Pindell offered was that repointing gave still better performance, at the expense of yet more work. The bullets he was using probably required an even faster twist, I don't remember if he shared that with us.
As for repointing -- While I don't agree with some of the improvement numbers being tossed about, I have found it is beneficial. You have to be careful, as with anything.
But I'm still talking match shooting really, Doing better than the rest of the relay at 1,000 yards, or lowering your group aggregate by .020 or so at 200 yards. When I was what I considered a pure experimenter (you may have a different view/goal/take on things), a number like .020 wasn't enough to count. I was always looking for much better than that. And usually not finding it.
It's like guys and recoil. "Oh," they say "I can handle recoil." Well, there is handling and handling. I can shoot a .338 Lapua in a 17-pound rifle for a couple five shots and not let it get to me, usually. I can't do that so well for 10 shot groups though, let alone a day of 50 shots. Those .010 and .020 mistakes (in short range terms) are just going to creep in, and that's the entire advantage I could get, given right back.
The other thing about match shooting that people forget is, for most of us anyway, each shot isn't a conscious decision. It's like being in the zone -- whether or not you're actually in the zone. And to be there, you have to know, down in your spine, where the bullet is going. To know that, you have to be quite familiar with a load & how it shoots, you can't be thinking "lessee, xyz means I gotta..."
