To weigh or rim gage ammo, Calfee

K

Kathy

Guest
My friends:

A story about weighing and rim gaging ammo, for what it's worth...

In 1992 I built Selby Wright a rimfire benchrest rifle....was on a fine 52-C Winchester action with a fine 37 Remington Barrel....had my old 1 degree and 45 minute straight sided chamber.....Selby did the bedding...

At that time Fiocchi ammo was kinda in the spotlight.....

Selby started developing that rifle using Fiocchi ammo, but was having, what we all have sometimes, flippers.....Selby was a thinker so he figured that rim gaging and weighing might eliminate the flippers.....

Selby didn't want just any old rim thickness gage....he designed his own..

He had a machinist make a holder, very precision ground, that he could drop a round into......he had a precision surface plate with a fixture holding a .0001" ( ten thousandth inch) dial indicator in a vertical position over the surface plate...

Selby would take a round, drop it in his holder then run it under the dial indicator with the base of the holder resting on the surface plate...

Here's what Selby determined.....by accident, with this fine Fiocchi ammo..

He eliminated the flippers, not by weighing, or, rim thickness gaging, as we normally think of it, but, he found that some of the heads of the cases were canted slightly....his gage allowed him to quickly, and extremely accurately check the case heads for cant......

Selby rejected the cases with canted heads.....

Did it work? At the BR-50 Nationals in Lexington Kentucky in 92' Selby blew the field away using that fine Fiocchi ammo after the canted heads had been eliminated.......

Did Selby do this with other brands of ammo later.....my friends, I just don't remember, I'm sorry..

Your friend, Bill Calfee
 
I would throw the B.S. flag as inclusive proof- too many variables, too long ago and no body knows what other changes the man made. Brent i'm surprised you went for it, lol. joe :)
 
Why be surprised? It is an interesting idea - one I have not heard of before and that sort of thing is the reason I watch this darn website.

Modern ammo may well have corrected this to the point it is a nonissue, but it is interesting nonetheless. And any data is better than no data, which is the only alternative at this point.

Brent
 
jGEE, if your gonna throw the BS flag, you gotta have a flag. You can borrow this one.

bsflag22.gif
 
Why would canted case heads cause "flippers"?

A tight match chamber would prevent the case from any lateral play, certainly the case is not canted in the chamber. It would go so far and stop at the point where the rim contacts the breech, regardless of cant.

Besides, how much cant are we talking about?
 
That is interesting. I think one of the reasons that measuring the rim thickness went out of style was because people realized that you would get different readings depending on how the case was turned. Maybe we all missed it, or maybe some of us didn't.
 
Flippers

Keith23 said:
The canted case head would also screw up ignition. If you want to do a little test on current modern "match quality ammo try this: Either make or buy a rim thickness gage. There are many designs, but the one I'm talking about is the Bald Eagle type. They advertise in P.S. Replace the fat pin that is installed on the gage with a small offset pin. Just drop a round in and rotate it around and watch the needle move.

The "match" ammo I seem to buy aren't all square, nor are they equal. :eek:

If you find a lot of ammo that are all the same, I think I would buy as much as I could afford.
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Mr Calfe:please explain flippers. Are they anything similar to bullets that go up and talk to Jesus or the ones that go down and talk to the devil. Thank you. garrisone.
 
How much play is in the headspace on a properly chambered BR rifle? One or two thousanths on a nominal rim thickness that you are set up for? I can't see how a rim could be canted (or lopsided) significantly enough to cause ignition problems and not be able to feel that when closing the bolt.
 
O-boy here we go again, thanks Mr. Bill !!! and i just now found this site, how long you guys been doing this -it's fun fun fun!! joe :)
 
My friends:

Just came from the range re-testing SPEC52..

I noticed that there are 302 "views" on this thread I started about "canted heads", weighing and rim thickness......it's the 24th of Feb, 2009.....

Your friend, Bill Calfee
 
I've a deal for you

Please purchase and weigh, sort or what ever else you want to do, and then send me the ammo. prepaid, and I will then shoot it and give you all my cash winnings for your effort.
 
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garrisone said:
Mr Calfe:please explain flippers. Are they anything similar to bullets that go up and talk to Jesus or the ones that go down and talk to the devil. Thank you. garrisone.
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They're the ones that just when you think you've got it right, they flip you off.
 
guaging/measuring?

Todays high dollar match ammo should not need guaging. Afterall, it costs extra because of extra quality control.

Back in primative times, we shot Fiocchi "Silver Stardust" and all was good. At $400. per case, we sure had it good as it shot super. Then the bean counters at Fiocchi realized that they were not making a profit and were even producing the world's best at a loss. Raise the price? No, they stopped selling the good stuff and changed the ammo and it came in a dark blue box. The lube was still great but you had to weigh segregate and headspace sort. You scrapped 40% but the remainder was as good as the Silver Stardust and all was good again....Then they came out with the red-orange box stuff and not many had any success with it.I'm not sure that sorting would have helped that stuff.

Think how good it would be to have world class ammo at $400. per. I gotta quit living in the past.
 
Selbly Wright

I second that one for sure.I learn a lot from him just watching him shoot and dope the wind.Yea that was back in BR 50 days at Indy,with Silver Star dust I beleive.He aslo won the BR 50 Nationals in Lexington that year in the most unbeleiveable weather conditions the man was top shelf:)
 
I met Selby at the Lexington BR-50 Nationals and what a gentleman he was. I remember the clock cleaning that he gave everyone, but did he go around bragging..?? Absolutely not, you would think that he finished last instead of 1st.. Selby was not only a gentleman and a great shooter, but he was an excellent machinist. I have one of his Winchester 52C triggers, that he built into a 2oz match trigger, in my 52-C bench rifle and it is a sweet trigger..
We lost a great competitor when Selby passed..
Rest in peace, my friend

Dave
 
Kathy said:
Just came from the range re-testing SPEC52..

I noticed that there are 302 "views" on this thread I started about "canted heads", weighing and rim thickness......it's the 24th of Feb, 2009.....

Your friend, Bill Calfee
Click to expand...

And your point is?
 
Cypher 101

gzig5 said:
And your point is?
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Mr gzig5 no disrespect towards you but your cyphering skills are a little rusty, there is a 'special decoder class you can take for Mr. Bills post, let me help you with this one.

Mr Bill is asking if anyone has an arm sling he can borrow, he just throwed his shoulder out of socket again pattin himself on the back, got evryone out on another snipe hunt, roll down your window- you can hear a big guff-haw comeing from up north he's just feeding the guppies, lol....

Bill did that cant look like the leaning tower of Pisa?... i'm just askin- joe:):D:)
 
gzig5:

Actually Bill was just trying to get a response out of someone and it worked.. You bit...:D

Dave
 
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