The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

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Denis
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Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:29 am

Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Denis »

Just to be difficult... I have a Steyr SSG in the safe, and I think it looks pretty spiffy with its green synthetic stock and black metal/scope. We call it the 'green meany'.
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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Netpackrat »

Merry Christmas, and fuck you for living in Alaska. Apparently Bell and Carlson doesn't ship to AK, so I wound up ordering from Midway, which I hate doing because they charge extra for shipping here, but even with the extra charge their shipping is not really a horrible deal for odd sized packages like a rifle stock. Went with the textured black, because 300 Blackout. Hated ordering the B&C stock even from a different company after seeing their shipping policy, but the choices got worse from there. First was HS Precision, which is totally #$#$&*#$&*#$&* unacceptable under any circumstances, a couple wood stocks which would need to be bedded and aren't what I want anyway, I think Manners makes one for big bucks, and then there is an aluminum chassis that takes AICS mags, made by the company whose AICS mag I couldn't get to feed right with the PTG bottom metal.

Ordered a 1" Latigo Sling in matte black from Brownells to go with it. Unfortunately they only listed the stock in one color (olive) as a special order taking many weeks, while Midway showed it in stock.

With luck the stock will arrive before Mrs. NPR's winter break is done and I am back to watching the kids every weekday, so I may get to shoot this soon. I probably would have waited longer on the stock, but I found the scope I wanted on sale and jumped on that a few weeks ago.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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Denis
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Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:29 am

Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Denis »

If it's any consolation, even Midway won't ship to me, and their overseas affiliates are now all just local Brownells resellers with an enormous markup... I am very lucky to know you guys will forward stuff.
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Netpackrat
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Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Netpackrat »

B&C stock arrived this morning. It's a much better stock than the factory Remington plastic fantastic, maybe even $200 better. I had to relieve the aluminum bedding block slightly for clearance with the Timney safety, but otherwise the fit is near perfect. The barrel is 100% free floated, and although there is a bit more of a gap on one side than the other, I am fairly pleased with it for a "drop in" stock. Installed the Brownells Latigo Sling and took a picture with the new Saker on the Beach Towel of Death. Scope is Nikon M-300 BLK.

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Still haven't range tested the rifle or the can; probably won't for a while due to cold temperatures and house hunting/packing and hopefully moving is going to be the all-consuming project for the next few months. Given the amount of work I am looking at, I might not get to test fire this until April or May. But at least it is done now.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Netpackrat »

Image

Image

FINALLY had the opportunity to get to the range today and try the new rifle. Accuracy seems comparable to my 300blk AR SBR (which does about 1.25" with the same ammo), with a slight edge in terms of absolute accuracy going to the bolt gun, but the bolt action seems slightly more susceptible to heat effects, which makes sense given it has a relatively light profile 16" barrel compared to the 10" SBR. I had a couple groups that opened up a bit when I let the rifle get hot. I didn't save the sub targets, but the Model 7 seems to also be slightly more accurate with subsonic ammo than the AR.

Where I did notice a real difference, is the SBR prints Blacktip to roughly the same point of impact as the UMC 120 grain, maybe a quarter to a half a inch higher at most. Out of the Remington, blacktip easily prints an inch and a half higher. I will most likely keep this rifle zeroed for the 110 grain blacktip. All of these groups were fired with the Silencerco Saker attached. As with my SBR, it seems to shoot tighter with the can on.

Had a couple minor issues. First, I shot up the last couple boxes of the UMC 220 grain ammo that has been flawless out of my SBR, but in the bolt gun I experienced a handful of light strikes that all fired on the second try. Second, at least one of them did go supersonic out of the 16" barrel. I will note that nowhere does Remington claim this ammo as subsonic, but my experience so far is that you can generally expect it to be so out of a short barrel, but if you are shooting a full length gun, maybe choose a different load. The yellow and green box Remington subs were flawless, as usual.

The other issue I had was related to the Nikon M300BLK 1.5-6X variable scope... I have the same scope on the SBR and liked it enough to buy a second one for the bolt gun, but I had some trouble getting it to zero until I figured out that the clicks are 1/2MOA, despite the fact that the turret markings say they are 1/4MOA clicks. I don't remember having had that issue with the scope on my SBR, but I think it has been over a year since I messed with that rifle's zero. Anyway, despite that I continue to be fairly pleased with the Nikon scopes, although I probably wouldn't have bought them if I'd had to pay full price. I purchased both of these at significant discounts.

Anyway, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I still kind of wish I had gotten the PTG magwell to work, but the factory magazine is OK for the most part too.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: The 300 BLK Bolt Action Project

Post by Netpackrat »

Back at the range with it yesterday. My main intention was to refine the zero with the black tip ammo, and see how much the zero shifts without the can. Ended up not getting the black tip to group real consistently. It started out OK but as the gun would heat up, it started throwing flyers. Doesn't seem to do that as much with the 120 UMC for some reason, and the rifle just loves subs. My SBR is doing well to produce fist size groups with subs, but the bolt gun appears to be averaging about 1.5 MOA with factory Remington 220 grain (green/yellow box) subs. Here is my best group of the day with them:

Image

Now for the rest of the bad news... When the last shooter I was sharing the range with left, I took off my earpro, and realized that every round of the "subsonic" was going supersonic. Previously I had been able to detect that only with the UMC 220 but with my muffs removed it was pretty obvious even with the better grade of subs. So, once I can get my reloading equipment set up again, I am going to have to work up a load specific to the 16" gun.

Also going to try some other hunting loads for groups and hopefully find one that the rifle likes.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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