Heresy preached regarding wind flags . . . .

It's time to read a few books

Buy a few books .
Or check the library including the "interlibrary loans" department.




The Accurate Rifle Warren Page


The Ultimate in Rifle Accuracy by Glenn Newick


Applied Ballistics for Long-Range Shooting
by Bryan Litz


Extreme Rifle Accuracy
by Mike Ratigan

Tony Boyers book


The Benchrest Shooting Primer
Edited by Dave Brennan



Glenn:D
 
Pete,
You have been given some very good advice, even if some was a bit over the top. I am older than you by 3 years, so listen to what I have to say. I have two gunsmiths. One in my local town that I have known for 40 some years and is a good friend. We even go fishing together. But my Benchrest smith lives about 75 miles from me. He has been in this accuracy game since the late 60's, and has the knowledge and equipment to build accurate rifles. Thats what I pay him for, his knowledge and ability. On the other hand my local guy can build you such a beautiful rifle it makes you drool. He can make any part for any kind of weapon and his woodwork is absolutely beautiful. He finishes the wood in a rubbed oil that when finished, looks like you could swim in it. And his checkering is supurb. But he is not capable of or, does he truly understand what is needed to build a Benchrest rifle. He makes tuners and odd things for me that I come up with. But he is happy if a rifle he builds shoots 1/2 MOA groups. He has to my knowledge never ordered a select match barrel. This is just fine if all you want to do is shoot rodents or targets on your own range. But if you want a rifle that is capable of shooting groups under 1/4 MOA consistantly, you will have to use a Benchrest gunsmith. And it will only do that if you learn to read the wind. Plain and simple. The two smiths do not necessarily go together. When you said it took over an hour to design the rifle was a big "give away". I would bet any BR 'smith could tell you in about 10 minutes what he thinks works best. But on the other hand you may not want a true Benchrest rifle. They are really not very practical for anything except competition shooting. And I can tell you one thing, if you ever shoot a true Benchrest rifle for a little while, all other rifles will seem uninteresting to you. I wish you good luck on your quest for your dream rifle.

Donald
 
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My personal view is, there should be a major reduction in the amount of flags being put out at short range events. It's the main reason I will not shoot at the shorter events. The range flags should be enough. It works for long range. There should be nothing between the bench and targets but space.

Could you imagine Camp Perry with a few thousand whirly gigs down range??

I'll shoot the 1-200yd, if and when the personal flags are gone. I will not be holding my breath tho. Until then there are other events to shoot.
 
Interesting, I happen to be the smith that is building Pats rifle.

I am fully capable of building a BR quality rifle, I’m just not sure Patrick wanted a true short range BR rifle when he came into the shop.

Our situation in Wisconsin is a bit different than most any other region of the country. Ours is a Palma/ F-class state, with a little bit of Hunter BR competition. So if Pat wants to shoot BR in Wisconsin he will need a rifle under 10.5 with the required 6X scope, chambered in 30x47.

What Pat ordered was a rifle that he could recreational shoot, would not break his bank account, and could shoot in some local matches. In that regard He will need a rifle that will be capable of 600 yard prone shooting, for any NRA sanctioned short range f-class. Pat if I am off base with this by all means lets correct the project to fit your needs.

We do have some informal unlimited BR matches in Wausau, where anything goes as far as equipment. We also have other clubs that hold “LR cold bore shoots” and “egg shoots”. The rifle Pat ordered is a fast twist (1-8) 6br for LR and heavy bullets. This rifle will be fully capable of shooting the high BC bullets under .250MOA

Here is two examples; 600 yard guns shot at 100 yards.
Rifle; http://www.centershotrifles.com/gallery/img/6mmBR_Savage_P1010003.jpg
Target; http://www.centershotrifles.com/gallery/img/6mmBR_Savage_P1010003_target.jpg
The above rifle/target was shot by the owner, who has never competed in a match his whole life.

Rifle; http://www.centershotrifles.com/gallery/img_rifle/Savage_BC_6mm_8T_Broughton.jpg
Target; http://www.centershotrifles.com/gallery/img_rifle/Savage_BC_6mm_8T_Broughton_trgt.jpg

http://www.centershotrifles.com/gallery/rifle.php

Wind Flags. I have one wind flag on my personal 600 yard range and I do use it. I and many of the top f-class shooters concentrate on the mirage during our shooting, and the range flags that are set-up by the range for any given event. Any reference to wind flags in my discussion with Pat was in reference to the type of matches predominantly held in WI. I will be the first to admit I am not a close range BR shooter. I am a 600-1000 yard shooter. So In the discussion with Pat I can admit I may have sounded a bit hesitant about sending him off with his limited budget to spend money on some BR flags.

Patrick, I hope this post doesn’t offend you it is defiantly not my intent. If you want to change something with this build so that it falls in line with short range br, let me know and I can write up the changes.

Jim See
Center Shot Rifles LLC
 
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Good post...good looking rifle...excellent groups. On this site, when someone says Benchrest rifle, and does not add 600 yd., 1,000 yd., or F class, we tend to think 1-200 yd. As to flags, I think that you should practice with what you will have at matches, except perhaps when working up loads. For that, some sticks with surveyor tape, that cost almost nothing, would be just fine. Peter, when you take delivery of your rifle, it looks like you will have a rifle that anyone would be proud to own.
 
Perhaps some of you Wisconsinites can chime in here and provide Pete some match location info. He has picked a fine caliber, especially for long range benchrest. Pipe up and give him some clues.

virg
 
To all, and esp. for Jim S.

I am totally happy with my plans Jim and I worked up for my rifle build.

I asked an honest question to start this thread, but with a lack of knowledge. I got back some sensible, helpful replies, and some very "over the top" loony-tune replies.

If you visit Jim's site, you will see that some great shooting has been done with Jim's products, including the Wis . state 1000 yd championship one year with Jim's rifle, and other exceptional recorded scores.

Frankly I am totally pleased with Jim's assistance in planning the rifle with me. I apologize for unintentionally creating some controversy --- ultimately, "much ado over nothing."

Jim -- I am totally happy with our plan for the rifle, and want to thank you for the generous amount of time spent working with me to detail out our "build." A fine rifle, but "on a budget."

Jim exactly describes what I wanted-- a rifle that was legal in F-Class, and could be entered in an occasional sanctioned event, but a rifle that probably would be used often in a casual way on sunny afternoons to just go out and punch paper.

Thanks to all--

Pat
 
As some of you know I have been spending a lot of time on woodstocked customs. I have made acqaintence with a whole lot of the pretty talented rifle builders. They are very up to date with the BR chambering methods. I will have to say that there are many smiths in our old USA that can build a great accurate rifle even if their name isn't on the equip. list.
I do know that you can't be a even good shooter without some indication of wind direction and velocity. I don't know much about Camp Perry, but it is a different game. It is not as precise as BR either long range or short range, but relies more on the shooter.
Butch
 
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No problem Patrick, These things come up on occasion and I want you to be happy with your rifle. Discussing them now makes good sence.

Please continue to seek advice on these great forums, they are a vast resource for information and will help gear you up for your first custom rifle.
Many of the guys here forgot more than I know.

Jim
 
I know this if hard to understand but not all gunsmiths think the world of benchrest shooters.

A few years ago I had a fine gunsmith who was highly recommended re-barrel my pet model 700BDL with a sporter barrel. I wanted a good target grade stainless steel barrel and I followed his recommendations. He trued the action and chambered the barrel into a 22/250 like I had and I installed a premium stock. It is a thing of beauty and it shoots great for the first three rounds but will not keep up with a benchrest rifle for five rounds. It will still hit a deer in the eye or somewhere near enough at 200 yards if I do my part. That is all I want out of that rifle.

The man I chose for my gunsmith is very capable of competitive benchrest work. He has been a competitive benchrest shooter for a number of years and had built many winners for the benchrest shooters. He told me that he preferred not to do work for the competitive benchrest shooters because they always thought that they knew more about gun smithing than the gunsmith from all they had heard. They would not give the gunsmith credit for building a winning rifle but were quick to place the blame if the rifle wasn't shooting just right.

He had plenty of work with fine custom hunting rifles to fill his plate. I can understand that. I will probably use him again in the future. By the way, he is the person who suggested this forum to me.

Concho Bill
 
Looks to me as though Mr Jim See is well qualified both as a builder and as a professional businessman...

Kudo's Jim for handling this thread very well. You could have got your back up.

You didn't

Good Job

al
 
Montana Pete said:
Two months ago I worked with a custom riflemaker to design a benchrest rifle.
</snip>
Click to expand...

Montana Pete,
I think the confusion and responses you received at the start of this thread is from your use of the word “benchrest” without a qualifier.
Benchrest, “benchrest shooter” or “benchrest rifle” refers to 100-200-300 yard registered group competition.
Any other form of benchrest needs a qualifier like “long-range benchrest” or “rimfire benchrest” or “score” or "club benchrest".
Hope this helps.
Jim
 
So, just what size groups would your "Benchrest" rifles shoot with just 1 range flag??????
 
Wind Flags Needed

You can make your own wind flags. Just Google - Wind Flag making - even have YouTube videos. If I bring out anything for precision shooting, wind flags always come with me. If I'm just shooting my ole 8mm German mauser with iron sites, they stay at home. The ones I use now, I bought used from the wife of a benchrest shooter who passed away. In the beginning if you shoot a match, you may get by without them because there will be flags in both lanes beside you that you can read. But I am sure you will soon want to get your own and you may still use flags that other shooters set up along with your own.

This dump your gunsmith advice, I don't know about. A great gunsmith could be blind and missing one ear and a leg. :p How many rifles has he made? How many of his rifles has won competitions and who else owns rifles that he has made and what are their opinions. All said and done - if he makes winning rifles, bet the winners use wind flags.
 
TRA said:
So, just what size groups would your "Benchrest" rifles shoot with just 1 range flag??????
Click to expand...

Shooting @ Gallatin on Saturday, with one flag @ 100 yards, I could have shot a .1 or 1. depending on the luck of the draw when I pulled the trigger. @ 200 it could have blown up to a couple of inches. If a shooter has 7 flags @ 200 yards, they could well be doing 7 different things at any given time. It's tough enough to shoot accurately when you can actually see what the wind is doing, without some kind of indicator it's virtually impossible.

Rick
 
I think the confusion here is that "Benchrest Shooters" believe they are the only ones capable of accurately reading the wind, just because they use an outrageous number of flags. Other shooting disciplines all over the world have shooters very accurately reading the wind, with a limited number of flags. I'd venture to say that the flags take a lot of the skill out of it.

I know very well why "Benchrest" uses so many flags. There is really nothing about it to not understand. But when y'all start trashing a gun builder , and saying he's not capable, because He does not consider flags to be an accurate measure of his talent, then it is "you" that needs to come to terms as to what it takes to be a talented shooter.

This is of course my opinion and is what keeps me from shooting "Benchrest"
 
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TRA,
How many short range benchrest matches have you competed in? I believe that your assessment is in error. If you think that less skill is required, shoot an agg. according to Benchrest rules, and then look at the match results, from a match shot in similar wind conditions.
 
Tra ...

TRA said:
I know very well why "Benchrest" uses so many flags. There is really nothing about it to not understand. But when y'all start trashing a gun builder , and saying he's not capable, because He does not consider flags to be an accurate measure of his talent, then it is "you" that needs to come to terms as to what it takes to be a talented shooter.

This is of course my opinion and

is what keeps me from shooting "Benchrest."
Click to expand...

I notice you've posted 49 times at this site. If Benchrest is a nonperformance discipline for you, and some might say ... even leaves you with disdain,

what brings you to this meeting place and motivates your posts?
 
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