Help with my bag setup?

A

alinwa

oft dis'd member
I've recently converted a HV 6PPC to a 6X47L for 600yd use. The rifle is a Borden, I believe the stock to be a glass R&M design. The rifle was built in '99.

I've got it weighted to 17lb and it balances right on the boltface, slightly butt-heavy when compared to where it balanced as a 6PPC.

The gun shoots. It shoots lights out as a PPC and it shoots really well in its current configuration BUT I CAN'T SHOOT IT!! :mad:

It tears up the bags....... I can sometimes get through a string and do really well and then just blow up all over the place. It bounces and rocks and displaces the bags. I've readjusted my position many times until I'm now catching it straight, it returns to battery in line instead of glancing sideways but it still changes its set in the bags. By the end of a string it's "rocky" in the front rest. I'm shooting it on a first generation Farley front and a 15lb rear. The rear is rock solid, I feel that the front bag is my problem.

The rear bag is hard, the front bag is hard. I've wrapped electrical tape around the front bag in the middle to pinch it down in the middle, the 3" wide front is riding on the outer edges of the bag. The pinching action made the front bag even harder. The bags are formed very well to the rifle. I thought that I had it fixed by pinching down the center of the front bag and leaning into the rifle but it didn't work for me today, I'm still getting a bullet and a half of vertical at 100yds, I can't get it to shoot flat without wrapping up and deadmanning the rifle.

I suck too bad to wrap up in the gun and ride it. I can do it sometimes but I lose it in trying to run groups.

I'm trying to get the rifle to work free recoil because I can shoot PPC's this way. I've been badly spoiled by the ease of shooting PPC's free recoil.

This rifle is beating me :eek:

I've been told that perhaps I'll be better served by making one bag softer but this rifle twists wickedly..........

Any ideas other than building a whole new rifle with a longer forend and a keel-type stock? Are any of you shooting a rig similar to this?

Or should I just practice more :D (I don't want to build BAD habits though...)

al
 
rest assured....

HI Al,,,dont despair....just about everyone has their doubts about their equipment at one time or another (some on a daily basis..) ...I have a cupla different front rests and rear bag combos...I change em around and seem to keep coming bak to the basics....(I dont have a Farley front rest) ...If I am having doubts about one of my combos I change to another...to see if it goes away or gets worse!!!...just like tuneing the load..sometimes we need to fiddle with the equipment....some of the best shooters in point blank and/or long range are the ones who shoot only the one discipline,,,and with usually one gun weight/bbl. length/balance combo.....when you start using point blank equipment at long range or vice-versa "sometimes" your equipment will make you "talk to yourself"......
I sorta am rambling here....but my best advice is get to the range and shoot with your buddies...and set your rig over in their sandbags and see if things change....(better-worse-same)...or let someone else shoot it ...either in your set up or thiers....sometimes a fresh set of eyes/hands can spot the truble ...they are looking at it from a different perspective....I am pretty luky ...there are several good shooters here in my neck of the woods that are always shooting/testing/tinkering....just like me!!!...Dont set and keep doing the same thing wrong....
It is a constant struggle to get a rifle shooting well...then a constant struggle to keep it there....and by the time you get it shooting ,the bbl is usually wore out,,,Grrrrrrrr.....OBTW...make shure that the vertical is not in the load....it will bite the best from time to time.....
Let us kno what u find......I hear that you are doing great for a realatively new competitor....you certainly do your share of testing and trying ...and are one of the most helpful shooters out there....I hope something I have babbled about will help.........Roger
PS....practece -pratice-practice...see even change that...You keep going down the road to Portland and shooting with those guys and after a culpla matches this summer you will see a hughe improvement in your shooting...there is nothing like shooting with people who know their "stuff"....there was a time not too long ago when you and I culdnt tell what a bullet and an half of verticle was ...not we can spot it instantly!!!....I was at a "BIG" match ..once...and when the announcement was made that the range was open for practice...the best in the world marched out to the line and started shooting....someon said ..."why is he practicing ...he doesnt need to??!!"....and somone else said..."that is why ..he doesnt need to!!!".....HOW TRUE..
 
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I'm not sure I can offer any help, in part because I've been a bag squeezer all my competitive life, until father time turned me into a Farley-user. But my bags are still packed like an old bag-squeezer -- i.e., not so tight.

I do shoot free recoil. I don't expect either a point-blank rifle or a 1K rifle to return anywhere near battery. I DO NOT square myself behind the rifle (I don't try to be a wall the rifle bounces off), but rather sit more or less parallel to it, and kind of wrap my shoulder around the butt, then pull the shoulder off about an inch. Just before touching the trigger, I make sure to relax that shoulder -- drop it, if you will, so the rifle can push back on it & not bounce off it. Recoil pads are nice, but I have shot a small 6mm (still bigger than yours) without one. My small 6mm does not use a muzzle brake

With a brake, I've shot rifles as big as a 6.5/06 AI this way.

Taking a completely different tack, Joel Pendergraft favors using the left hand (the forearm hand) to control the rifle. He grabs the forearm pretty hard, and pushes it against the rest stop, while also pulling down. That lets the right hand (trigger hand) not get caught in any miss-steering. I've been known to do the same with .30s, except I don't push against the rest stop. I just hold on to the forearm and pull down, sort of letting the arm hang, which adds the weight of the left arm to the rifle. If I have to, I "gently muscle" the rifle into position. I'm sure such a thought drives the table technique guys wild, but it seems to work pretty well. (I think Henry Rivers uses something close to this with his .30BR Heavy Varmint short range score gun.) Anything larger than a .30 and you just have to hang on to everything.

Aside from shooting style, other things you could try would be an Edgewood bag for the Farley, and a rabbit-eared rear bag. IMSLTHO, the rear bag is best when the rifle rides in the bottom groove rather than only on the ears, but doesn't flop around in the bottom groove. Not a pound-in fit, but not loose, either. Pack the ears to give some support to sides of the rifle, but not terribly tightly.

You could also add a muzzle brake. I don't have one on my "small" 6mm, but a lot of other people do. A brake on a 6/6.5x47 will result in less recoil than a 6PPC.

Remember, there are guys shooting a .338 on a full length 404 case or a .338 Lapua in LG. Now that is a handful! But they also get their share of wins.

Hang in there, you'll give them all a good thrashing in due time.

Charles
 
al your balence is off.your rifle should balence 2-3" in front of the recoil lug.too much weight in the front will make the gun ride the bags like crapp.if you add a muzzle brake that will make it worse.subtract some weight from the front some were and add it to the rear.if you don't beleive me just set a 2-5lb sand bag on top the rear of the stock and shoot your set up and see what happens.or just shoot a group with you off hand on the holding the rear of the stock down in the rear bag. good luck:D
 
6.5 fan:

As I read Al's original post, he says

"it balances right on the boltface"

The boltface is usually just a bit behind the recoil lug -- unless you mean the bolt lugs -- so following your prescription of 2-3 inches in front of the recoil lug, Al's rifle is too butt heavy, and he should add weight forward.

I don't think he should do that.

BTW, I shoot a muzzle-heavy 6mm, and while that makes it fussy, it can be shot with accuracy.
 
butt heavy.....

just like most of these mountain women around here.....
Charles you beat me to the keyboard....(Im out in the yard shootin..ahhaah.)...the center of gravity follows the weight...if the weight is in the rear then the center of gravity is near the rear...just like lulu...
I am wondering just how and where Al weighted the gun...I like to put the lead as near the bottom of the butt stock as possible...to me it seems like it resists torque more than if it was up near the bore C/L....does this make sense to those of you who do your own stock work..??!!! /.....Roger
 
I like to put the lead as near the bottom of the butt stock as possible...to me it seems like it resists torque more than if it was up near the bore C/L....does this make sense . . .
Click to expand...

Not to me, but I'm not an engineer. My analogy is the butt is a lever, the force being applied to it is at the centerline of the bore. The bag is the object to be moved, or more accurately, resist the force. I'm not sure changing the mass in any portion of the lever really matters, but the usual "lever analogies" don't deal with such light forces as the torque from a small 6mm. If I had to bet, I'd say you want the toe as light as feasible.

But I did have a thought. As I remember, Joel Kendrick ("quartersnatcher") shoots a case almost exactly the size of a 6/6.5x47 for 600 & 1,000 yards. He uses a short-range BR rifle with one of Terry Leonard's (short range) stocks. His long-range setup may even be short-range HV legal. Maybe Al should make contact with him.
 
Sounds like Joel might be a resource for me all right.

Here's what I did. I milled out the butt of the Borden stock leaving only a quarter-inch of material around the edges. I filled the entire butt of the stock with lead. Surprisingly enough I very nearly ran out of room! I poured a massive lead weight that's screwed to the AL buttplate and then filled the rest of the cavity clear to the pistol grip with little lead shot filled bags. The bags of shot are all weighed on my little scale and the weight's written on them. I've fiddled with the bags until the weight is within an ounce of the 17lb limit. The barrel is a Shilen HV left at full length of 29". I've moved the CG back to about the boltface.

The stock is deader than it was, deader than it is as a PPC (which shoots great.)

Shooting the 108's at 3200 the stock rings like a gong. For comparison it now pushes PPC bullets over 4000fps and doesn't ring doing it.

I'm gonna' go down now and play with it. I'm going to start by shooting off of a bag of shot and then I'll probably try shot bags filled with Zircon , fine dredging sand and coarser mason's sand.


BTW Charles, I've used a modification of Joel's method. Boyd Allen explained a similar thing where you center the rifle up free and then pinch the forestock with the fingers while NOT pulling down nor steering the rifle...... use the fore hand as a brake mechanism. I've found this to be fairly consistent. But not good enough.

I've also reached out and PINCHED the stock down into the bag and can feel it lifting at the shot. This didn't help.

Just hanging my grip off of the forend wasn't consistent for me.


What SEEMED consistent was leaning in until the rest picked up, backing off and deadmanning the recoil...... until yesterday when I found that my bony shoulder was steering the gun. (I think?? :rolleyes: ) My shoulder was getting tender and I was inadvertently flinching? changing? I was just letting my head flop (Medulla Elongatus ;) ) and that got old but it was WORKING........ until yesterday. The other Bad Thing is that I was examining my match targets yesterday and found a definite correlation. I was blaming the vert on mirage but now I think that as much was just me sucking on the gun.

Free Recoil is my goal. If that's a pipe dream then I need to learn to shoot on the rifle.

IME I can't hold under .250

Please don't take away my coffee cup, I do this for FUN! :D

LOL

I go shoot now :cool::cool:

al
 
my two cents

if the rear weight bias is not working, try moving the CG forward. On my F class rifle, I have my balance right infront of the action. Then I space the front rest forward so the rifle "sits".

I also found that some paints are sticky so went with a auto vinyl trim. If the stock is touching the electrical tape, it might be causing some excessive drag.

With a 6.5 Mystic pushing 139gr Lapuas at 2900fps, there is zip for rock and roll with a 20lbs rifle.

If the rules allow, try widening the buttstock too. My stock has a 1.5" flat on the bottom. Sure helps control rifle torque.

Enjoy...

Jerry
 
Eureka

:)

I lissened to y'all......... and I tried stuff. Hanging onto the rifle didn't work for me. I tried the dead-hand grip, the hanging-off-the-forearm grip, the thumb-pressure grip and the pulling-it-into-the-shoulder-like-a-hunting-rifle style and found no joy........ It would still group the "base-load" of 3200fps but only with a stout lean-into the forend stop.....STOUT, like lift the rear leg and then back it down. Very much being steered by me. Nothing else would hold it.

Besides my goal is to get free-recoil to work.

I did not change the wid'ness of the buttstock but I DID make up a new rear rabbit-ear Dohrmann design Protektor, softer....

Sooooo, I changed it all up. I SOFTENED the front and rear bags (thank you Charles :) ) picked a nice solid spot in the bags and basically went at it like tuning a PPC. I started backing down off my MAX and shooting a flat-line target series. The results were startling! About 75fps below max she was calming down and by the time I'd backed down a full 100fps she was shooting flat :) I went clear down to -150fps at which point the groups started to open, not just tall but wide......three-shot triangles.

I had time to work back up to -100fps and found tight and flat again. I started to mess with seating depth and found some exciting gains and then ran out of time. I'll try to post a pic of the final 9-group series of the night if I can get it scanned.

RIGHT NOW I'm very excited about my results at 3100fps as opposed to 3200fps...... the rifle seems very well-behaved right now. We'll see what another day brings.

Thank You all for your ideas!

:)


al
 
Accuracy not fps

Al
Accuracy. I think you are on the right track.
I believe too many people preach fps. (Let the flaming begin). I seldom chrono a load, and try shooting groups at the yardage I will be competing at. I do not admit to being a world class shooter but it seems a little common sense is in order. Practice at the yardages you will compete at, Oh did I already say that? Shooting at 100yds is informative but in reality tells you nothing about 600 or 1000yd grouping. I have learned than controlling that gun is huge in the accuracy realm also, along with loading abd such.
Keep up the feed of info, sounds interesting.
 
An update for those interested.

At the bottom of the page is my last workup target from last night. Pic's a little dark as it almost was, dark that is. Took me 10 exposures to get this light...... it won't make much sense but to those who've played with these VLD boattails it may bring a smile.

I may be onto something regarding shooting this monster free-recoil :):) Dave Dohrmann was kind enough to call me and help me out too (Thanks Dave!) My latest "fix" includes both his rear spacer (a tall one at 1.5") and his rear rabbit-ear bag with the slickery-cloth on it.

The flatline workup is started with a "baseline......... The first two groups are my "base load", the same load that I recently used in a 600yd match (and got creamed BTW, din't even place :( ) They look terrible when compared to a PPC load but they're what I had worked up.....108 Eubers @3200fps. The first two grps (3 shot) are my baseload with the rifle PINNED to the forend stop.....riding the gun. I suck at this but on a good day can keep the groups around .300 for 5 shots. Groups are round with no weirdnesses (VLD guys can relate ;) ) This could have placed OK at the local comp with a liddle luck......I couldn't hold it, I spewed.

The third grp (5shots) shows what the rifle does free recoil!!! This group if fired with one of my PPC's would have been one little 1/4" wide slot on this day fired this way.

The remaining groups are from my load workup after dropping off 100fps+ to 3100 and playing around from 3075 to 3125.


This whole sequence was shot over the course of two hrs with no sighters so cut me some slack eh..... nothing was left out.


The LAST hole, first on the second line is just one round, put there to use as reference for my next load workup series.




-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BTW, as an aside I'm using a Chrony. I believe that it's fairly accurate for comparative shot-to-shot analyses but that it reads as much as 100fps DIFFERENT day to day depending on lighting. THIS DAY my 3200fps load was clocking in at 3245-3259 so I REALLY dropped probably 150fps for this new load workup. A Henry Childs quality analysis this aint ;)

Loads are weighed to +- one kernel of powder (prox .025gr) and ES hangs around 10-15fps.

I feel that this explains some of my exhorbitantly high 6BR readings of up to 3000fps+ from the past. I call my hot 6BR load "2900fps" because that's what it reads most days. Some days it's down to 2870 and some days up to 2935. Under lights it's 2900.

The "same intensity" load in the new 6X47L is 3200fps. "Same intensity" means that the primer pockets hold up tight but the primers are flat and cratered and if I don't watch the temp I'll pop a primer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


All groups were all fired to conditions, no holdoff.

I cleaned the rifle twice, no foulers were fired off target.

The middle group with the crosshairs on it looks funny because it's actually 6 shots (2 separate 3-shotters fired 10min apart because I'm loading between test-grps. I figured that the trigger guard hit me..... be that as it may, the last 3 went into the hole)

I won't bore you with the details but there are 4 powder charges and 2 seat depth changes in the 6 targets following the free-recoil "base line" group. Some Flattening Of Ye Group has definitely occurred. :):) FREE RECOIL!! :):)


ALSO NOTE that prior to shooting this series I'd fired 10-12 groups on other targets just to find the +-3100fps setting. I'd worked downward in 1/4 klik increments and watched the groups come together around 3100fps. At about 3150 I was already noting a definite "softening"..... the stock was no longer ringing my ears. Down around 3000 the groups were opening back up to .400 or so. Riding good but no-shootie......

I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of this 3100fps'ish load.

Time for some 5-shot groups eh.....

Thanks guys

al
 

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Alinwa

Hey Al Jerry Tierney won the nationals last year or the year before shooting a gun that jumped like crazy.He uses a Farley front rest as well.I think he played with the front rests position on the forearm by moving it back and forth and the jump went away.
He won a second nationals as well.
Lynn
 
Thanks Lynn,

That's what I've been doing too. I've tried 3 rear bags, three front setups and have been playing with both hardness and position of the bags. I've filled 4 sheets of notebook paper with notes and am showing progress. Maybe I'll post the next two lines of targets on my workup sheet....... they're getting better, gradually.

My limited success has come from a combination of BACKING DOWN on the load to 3100fps, SOFTENING the bags and running the front a little further forward, I took off the forend stop. I haven't reached the "5-shot group" stage yet but I've surpassed my previous best. I've got this thing shooting like a good 6BR. And the slow shots are still going high ;)

al


BTW, this workup at 100yds is showing something that Jackie mentioned a year ago........ at 100yds these heavy bullets are blown around just like a PPC. (But from 100yds on out they really flatten out) The first buffet as they enter the fish-pond is horrendous, I set my Wind Probe at 15yds and used it primarily, it over-rode my 4 flags set further out. I currently believe the first 10-20yds to be hyper critical for VLD's. From 100 to 350 on my range they simply ignore the wind compared to a PPC, showing less than half the wind dispersion in my mind. Right now if I had to bet on myself I'd use this rifle and load over my good PPC's at 300-350....... this may just be because I suck though :)

(((NOTE that I did say "in my mind" .... :D )))


LOL


al
 
Alinwa

Al there is a post by Stugotz entitled something to the affect of-Incremental Load Development on this forum.If you look up his pictures and read the responses you can very quickly find your load.

I realise everybody has there own method but the one done in his post will save you so much barrel time its well worth it imho.It would be interesting to have two different reloaders develop a load for the same rifle using different methods and see if they come up with the same results.

On a side note my father and I each have a few 6BR's and our best load has always been at 2970 fps.
Lynn
 
My "2900fps" 6BR loads are from 26"-28" barrels using VARget.

The problem here isn't really "finding my load" yet. It's about getting this gun to track when shooting free-recoil. IMO 3200+ with 108's in my 17lb gun using a PPC stock is causing some unrelated problems. Another fix would be to bite the bullet and put a 1000yd stock on the thing. My next one will be purpose-built and should go a long way toward eliminating my "problem" ;)

I'll probably take this particular combination no further than to wear out this bbl, it's really just a cobbled together test bed for the new case. I'll put this rifle back into its original trim as a Heavy PPC where it shoots like a dream.

New reamer, New action (drop port??), new Tooley designed stock........ OOHHHH YEAHHHH!!!!!!

I'm actually thinking of using my Obeche Big Dawg for this case and welding up a metal stock for my Heavy 30. I spent some time Sat looking over a collection of SS, AL and Ti stocks at a friends house........ metal seems the way to go for a 45-60lb gun. I won't shoot a brake. Tuner maybe ;) but no brakes for me........

al
 
To Jimm,

This is the thread.

"VLD workup" is referring to getting Very Low Drag bullets to group without weird fliers. This is an entirely different ballgame than short-range BR.

al
 
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