Sorry for the delay. Family stuff and then the drive back up to Wickenburg interfered. Plus, I have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, so this will be short.
I drove up to the Casa Grande public range this morning after getting a late start. I did, however, remember this time to bring both range bags, so I had my spotting scope, chronograph, and laser rangefinder with me. I set up my target frame at a measured 28 yards downrange and proceeded to put ten rounds on target through the chrono getting the scope adjusted. The last four rounds went into one hole, as expected. I don’t have the data sheet in front of me, but IIRC, the average velocity was 2360fps with an extreme spread of 60fps and a standard deviation of just over 20. I was shooting Lapua Scenar 139 grain BTHP bullets seated out to an overall length of 2.880″ over 36.0 grains of Varget, touched off by CCI 250 large rifle magnum primers. (USE THIS LOAD DATA AT YOUR OWN RISK – I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BLOW UP YOUR GUN BASED ON DATA YOU GOT OFF A BLOG AND DIDN’T CROSS-CHECK WITH OTHER SOURCES.)
I was amazed at the lightness of the recoil (and no, I’m not kidding!) That muzzle brake WORKS. Oh, the pistol jumps a bit, and it is also LOUD AS HELL, but it doesn’t kick. I wore muffs and plugs, and I was sitting behind it. I’m pretty sure I drove off some other shooters who were off to my left. (I was on the right end of the range.)
Because of the pressures of time (I had a family commitment in the very early afternoon) I was only able to put another 15 rounds through the pistol this morning. One very impressive thing, at least to me, was that I strung five shots horizontally right along the zero elevation line of my target at a measured 300 yards. The pistol needs some trigger adjustment for sure – I’m blaming that shot string on me, though. That group ran just over four inches wide.
I settled down for the last five-shot string and got another four-inch group in the standard cover-with-palm pattern. I’m certain that this specific load will shoot better than that if I do my part properly. I was seeing a little bit of primer flattening, so I think my next loads will drop by about a half-grain, and I want to see just how far out I can seat those very long bullets before they touch the rifling. I also want to try the 120 grain Scenars to see how they perform, but their ballistic coefficient is not as good as the 139’s. I also want to take this pistol to the Tucson Rifle Club and try it out on the 500 meter rifle silhouette range to see if I have enough elevation in the scope to reach out that far without putting more offset in the rings.
This is going to be a very fun pistol!