F-Class shooter Gary Wood was recently testing his 6.5-284 rifle at the 1000-yard range in Coalinga, California, tuning up for the up-coming long range matches. In practice, Gary nailed a witnessed 1.859″ five-shot group, with four of the five shots well under an inch.
Gary reports: “Monday morning I was load testing with 5-shot groups. Each group was shot on a new F-Class center and pulled by Ret. Master Chief Jerry Pullens and spotted by an other long-range shooter. The second 5-shot load group looked really small … by our reckoning four out of five shots measured under an inch. I was amazed. What’s more, when I shot the group, the 4th shot blew the spindle out of the 3rd shot. My spotter saw that in his scope and Jerry Pullens told me about it afterwards”.
As measured with the OnTarget Software, using a scan of the target, Gary plotted the group size at 1.859″ total for five shots, or 0.178 MOA. Gary noted: “I had everyone sign the target which I saved and photographed.” Yes, Gary, this may be the wallet group to end all wallet groups. You should have that target framed.
Gary’s Load and 6.5-284 Rifle Specs
Gary’s load was 48 grains of Hodgdon H4350 and CCI BR-2 primers, pushing 142gr Sierra MKs, in Lapua 6.5-284 brass. The rifle features an F-class, single-shot Surgeon action with a Bartlein 5R barrel chambered with a no-turn neck. Gary says “The barrel only has 70 rounds through it… yep, I think it will shoot.” Gary did all of the gunsmithing and barrel work himself.
Did Gary have any special reloading tricks? Apparently not: “Other than weighing the cases and the powder very carefully, there really were no magical reloading secrets used. The Sierra 142s were moly-coated straight from the box of 500, but they were not weighed or checked for bearing surface. The powder was dropped with a RCBS Chargemaster then checked with an Acculab scale (to under a tenth). The Lapua cases were not neck-turned, but I did weight-sort them. The five cases for the small group weighed: 195.05, 195.03, 195.03, 195.03, 195.01.”
Congratulations, Gary, on your splendid shooting, and you deserve praise for building such a great-shooting rifle.
Remarkable…..what you can do in practice.
Now go for the Gold.
Comment by Jay Dugan — October 30, 2009 @ 3 pm
I always let Jay shoot my lomg range guns a the interservice and camp perry when we were members of the US Navy Reserve Rifle team cause he was a better rifle shot than I was ( Olympic quality)
Comment by Gary Wood — October 30, 2009 @ 4 pm