6.5 Range Time

[airedale]

So today I got out the 6.5 PRC Winchester Model 70 and the Howa Super Light 6.5 Creedmoor for sighting and ammo testing. At the end of last year's hunting season I changed the scopes out on both rifles. I went with a little more power on the Winchester mounting a Burris 4.5x14 Timberline, the Super Light Howa got the same power scope but a different model, a HD 1X5 Leupold replaced a Leupold Vari X 3 1X5. I also went with a different set of mounts on the Howa using a Tally setup.

Things did not go as I had hoped, the Howa with the factory base and Millet rings shot great for me last year. The new setup presented me a problem, the HD Leupold ran out of vertical adjustment printing my groups about 4 inches high at 75 yards, I was not happy. I had two choices, go back to the original scope mounts or try to shim the rear scope ring enough to bring the point of aim down where it belonged. I chose the latter and I shimmed the scope with some scope shimming material which consisted of very thin adhesive backed aluminum foil cut to fit inside the ring. I have yet to test it out as I did not get at it right away but it should solve the problem, I aint got to go down much.

I had the Winchester to test out with some handloads loaded with 120 gr Barnes, to be honest they did not group quite as good as I had hoped. The speed was right on the money, a little over 3200 FPS out of a 24 inch barrel, they were advertised to be in the 3300 FPS area out of a 26 inch Barrel. I am going to play around with the overall length and see if I can get things tightened up. I have a couple of more loads to try out if these do not do what I want.

This is the kind of stuff that makes things interesting and gives great satisfaction if the problems can be ironed out.

Al