Two votes for a sticky....
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Two votes for a sticky....
The problem that arises with this is that - and you'll have to forgive my less than patronising almost to the point of insulting view, so sorry before I go on........... for the average enthusiastic amateur, bless 'em, is that you get the '.......all the gear and no idea syndrome'. You know......... full set of gauges and all the tools and all the......... you get the idea....... When all you need to know is that the rifle is accurate. And when the accuracy starts to drop off, THEN you start to investigate, starting with the bleedin' obvious.
Here's an example...... During the era of the No4, we had all manner of bore and body gauges. In fact, the Chief Examiner had a whole inspection tray full of them plus the others for this that and the other. So a good accurate No4T for example would come in with what looked like an area of corrosion or pitting or whatever that was proving a bit tough to scrub out - only to find that the XY gauge would enter more than Z". So on that basis alone, the rifle would have the barrel changed - and when that happened, maybe it couldn't CHS and so it'd be ZF'd. We've all seen barrels as bald as a badgers ars........, er....... bottom or shining like a sewer pipe and wonder how the xxxx the bullets get out of the end. And we've all seen almost new L96's that are simply incapable of grouping
Those days are GONE.............. Now, the criteria is 'does the GO gauge run freely?' If so, 'does it pass the accuracy test?'. If it does, then that's the end of the matter. But for a sniper rifle, we let the final arbitrator be the sniper. I suggest that this is the criteria you stick to.
I could be wrong of course
All true Peter but reloaders can be a puckered cheek bunch when it comes to finding the "perfect load".
Peter,Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I'm not sure why your so scorned? If amatures want to be more proficiant isn't the best way to ask questions?
Sure if you know nothing about firearms and all you want to do is shoot them then your statement is very true.
What if you want to be more than "All the gear and no idea" Shooter? Should we all just not ask any questions and leave it up to people like yourself to discuss the in's and out's of guns. Sounds like you have 'tall poppy syndrome'
Your 'In My day' Speel provided nothing to the thread and I appologise in advance if I come across rude.
So far you haven't provided any uselfull information to this thread so I wonder now...Who is it that has all the gear and no idea?
I don't think Peter is scorned here at all. Most of us hold our breath and read his posts carefully. There's wisdom to be had. If you don't get what he's saying then read again. He's telling you not to worry about your barrel size and just get on with it. I'm a reloader. I've probably loaded more ammo than most will ever see. I got past the anal part of reloading years ago and have very successful loads for accuracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal Enfield
Among folks who give out sound advice on firearms, there are those who have education, those with practical experience, those with intelligence, and a very few with plenty of all three. One of these few, Peter Laidler, is giving you the best advice I've seen on this thread. While others have tried to help fix your measurement technique, he has pointed out that your efforts are misdirected - specifically that measuring the barrel's dimensions is pretty pointless when compared to a practical accuracy test.
In general, bore and groove sizes are meaningful only to advanced handloaders who may select the size of their (cast) bullets in an attempt to fit them to the individual barrel. It this doesn't describe your situation, you're expending thought and effort for no practical result.
Sorry if you feel like that Mal, but as I say fairly often on the forum, the place I learned about straight talking and no mincing of words was in Australia! And to be fair, I did apologise even before I continued. You're right, someone did ask the Q. so I answered as best, truthfully and above all, as honestly as I could. That said, it's not all '....in my day.....' although 'in my day.....' second best was never good enough. I actually SAY that in my day, in the 60's, we did do all this stuff. And to be honest, it was a load of crap compared to currrent thinking. The CURRENT way is to just VIEW the barrel for straightness (better than any 'GAUGE, testing straightness of bore believe me.....), see that the calibrated bore gauge runs and accuracy test it on our test range. There's nothing 'in my day.....' about that. It's just good plain bleedin obvious to me!
And JUST to prove my point, I'll ask you how we do our current megga accurate sniper rifles (both sorts.....) Yep, you got it in one. View the barrels on the rollers, dry the bore, run the gauge through ensuring that it drops on its own weight and then accuracy test. Passes all of that and he gets it back!
Peter Laidler
Pete the Pom.
Australian Army 1967-70
I have been blunt on this forum but I get warned for it. You can talk about scrapping a barrel for how it shoots but you are missing one element that you admit to knowing nothing about and that is reloading. Just because a rifle shoots poorly with the military ball load does not mean it will not shoot well with other ammo expecially handloads. And I don't mean highly developed handloads. I mean ordinary handloads put together with care, using an appropriate bullet and powder. That is, no experimenting beyond the first 20 loads. And so what if I do burn up 50 or 100 rounds if I save a barrel for another 1000 rounds? Your barrels get a little gauging, a little run out check, an accuracy check and you throw them in the trash if they fail?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
Yes, quite rightly too!Quote:
Originally Posted by ireload2
Peter is writing about the military environment, where the user does not normally make up his own reloads. The rifle must produce satisfactory results with "off the shelf" ammo. Maybe snipers are permitted to select ammo, but surely not the non-specialist troops. As private persons we may indulge in spending a great deal of time and material on experimentation to our heart's content, but if we were to cost that in proper commercial terms, then in many cases a new in-spec barrel would be cheaper and faster.
Of course, we are also babying along many ancient weapons for which there is quite simply no replacement barrel available. Or the original bullets, let alone ammo. Can anyone point me to a source of a new original-spec barrel for an Egyptian Rolling Block? I doubt it. I am one who indulges in the above-mentioned entertaining activity of individually-tuned reloading, and successfully shoots with battered old smoke poles that may look ghastly on the outside, but work - sometimes after a lot of faffing about. But loading long, fat flat-base bullets as far as possible out of the case in an attempt to overcome worn throats and bores - "to save a barrel for another 1000 rounds" - is not a solution for a professional soldier. In such cases, Peter and his colleagues would rightly say "bin it". We are, however precisely we may go about it, still really entertaining ourselves with "boys toys", not being dumped in the back of nowhere in a situation in which lives may depend on the equipment functioning flawlessly without any fussing and fiddling.
Which was, for instance, the doom of the Ross rifle in WW1. Considered by many, at the time, to be a better target rifle than the Lee Enfield No.1, it was apparently plagued by malfunctions in the mud and muck of battle, dumped by many soldiers as soon as they found a SMLE. Which would still work with ammo that had been dropped in the mud, stepped on, picked up and wiped down on the battledress trousers, and popped into the magazine without checking for the last 0.001" of seating depth, the special bullet, the ideal powder etc. etc. It just plain worked. And thoughtless reloaders ever since have been griping about its tendency to split reloaded cases if they are fully-sized. But that's another story...
Reloading is for hobbyists, not soldiers.
The above point is correct...I've loaded ammo to the highest degree with pulled 147 ball for .308. I was careful to only use bullets that weighed correct. Not up or down. I weighed 600 bullets and came up with 55 that were correct. I carefully loaded them to match spec and shot them, they could only do about 4 inches at 100...I then tried a few hunting rounds I loaded and they were all on top of each other. Loaded the same, but the bullets made the difference. That was when I understood our ball ammo wasn't quite what it might be...
Point of the story is, try something other than factory ball for accuracy before you give up.