yellowfin
02-01-15, 19:54
Hey folks, I need to borrow some brains here. I tripped across a steal of a deal in my local shop this week. I was looking to buy a used 700 to build on for a precision gun, the less expensive the better, and in left handed. What I ended up finding was one someone had already built, though with some different preferences (had 3 sight bases on the barrel, I guess for irons, and internal mag instead of detachable box), and less desirable to many people because it's chambered in .30-06 instead of something more fashionable like .300 Win Mag, .308, or 6.5-284. However, I'm not going to change the barrel because it's a Hart stainless 26" (or 28"...didn't measure yet) heavy contour 1 in 10" which is exactly what I would have picked. It would cost me almost twice as much to swap out as I paid for the whole thing. Yes, that's right, I got the whole rifle lacking only a scope base for $350 out the door. (Oh yeah, minus optic...but that's a given.)
So, currently lacking another 600+ yard gun right now, I'm looking to go with this as it gets me up and running cheaply in F-class and possibly other stuff, and definitely teaching myself to do more. I'm going to thread the muzzle to be able to run my can on it because I VASTLY prefer suppressed when shooting anything with a substantial blast to it. Now what I need to figure out is what kind of loads I'm going to feed this thing. As I look at Hodgdon's data and Sierra, Hornady, Berger, and Nosler's bullets I see a lot of potential here, but not much really to go on other than just pick a powder, pick some bullets, burn some, and see how it goes. Researching other sites yields a lot of "yeah, but .308 and .300 Win are more accurate because 06 is a long skinny case...", but I don't think I currently have the skill level to outshoot its theoretical capabilities, and by the time I will it'll be time to swap the barrels anyway, right? I'm definitely thinking 180-210 grain stuff to take advantage of higher BC's and maybe to crowd some of that powder space to lessen that whole theoretical shortcoming of a long powder column. I know a lot of guys run 175's in .308 but that's said to be because longer bullets wouldn't have the case capacity which I have with this.
Whatcha think, guys? Any concerns about powder burn rate with the can on it, or at that length should I be good with everything? Also, I will probably put it in a chassis at some point--will that significantly change what loads it likes, negating load tuning done prior to the change, or just POI?
So, currently lacking another 600+ yard gun right now, I'm looking to go with this as it gets me up and running cheaply in F-class and possibly other stuff, and definitely teaching myself to do more. I'm going to thread the muzzle to be able to run my can on it because I VASTLY prefer suppressed when shooting anything with a substantial blast to it. Now what I need to figure out is what kind of loads I'm going to feed this thing. As I look at Hodgdon's data and Sierra, Hornady, Berger, and Nosler's bullets I see a lot of potential here, but not much really to go on other than just pick a powder, pick some bullets, burn some, and see how it goes. Researching other sites yields a lot of "yeah, but .308 and .300 Win are more accurate because 06 is a long skinny case...", but I don't think I currently have the skill level to outshoot its theoretical capabilities, and by the time I will it'll be time to swap the barrels anyway, right? I'm definitely thinking 180-210 grain stuff to take advantage of higher BC's and maybe to crowd some of that powder space to lessen that whole theoretical shortcoming of a long powder column. I know a lot of guys run 175's in .308 but that's said to be because longer bullets wouldn't have the case capacity which I have with this.
Whatcha think, guys? Any concerns about powder burn rate with the can on it, or at that length should I be good with everything? Also, I will probably put it in a chassis at some point--will that significantly change what loads it likes, negating load tuning done prior to the change, or just POI?