Eddystone P14 - Centenary CMP Competitor?

[ArtioZen]

I had time to return to a clinic with more tweaks and better weather - 50 degrees, sunny with scattered clouds, winds gusting 15-30mph generally heading into 12 o'clock. 1907 sling on upper and butt swivels, borrowed a mat and a scope (will be getting my own when poss.)

In the standing position I shot a personal best of 78, with 6 in the black and only one miss - still room to tighten this (practice, practice, practice!). Other positions gained a few points - with mostly all in the black and well centered. Need to practice reloads with various stripper clips and dedicate the best for rapid legs (needs to be looser and snag free). Got all shots off during rapid sitting, with one left for rapid prone - reloading being the key.

Overall score was 428 / 500 a personal best with the P14 and drawing lots of kudos, attention from other competition and day shooters. To manage fatigue I sip sugary drinks between legs and close my eyes to let them rest and preserve vision - My groups were staying steady through the ongoing legs as others were increasing due to fatigue.

I invested in a case trimmer and set all case lengths equal, squared mouths and added a neck thickness trimmer - observing that the HXP lot I have has a large amount of variation in all these parameters. When done the previously weight sorted case lot had generally shifted down 1 grain in total weight and increased the grouping around the average weight - making for even tighter weight matched cases dedicated to each leg / position. I also switched to a collet bullet seating die with micrometer stem for the Sierra 180grain FBSP. These upgrades gave a further group reduction of around 1MoA to give around 4MoA for groups of 10 /20.

The manufacturer’s website for the trimmer sells spare shaft assemblies for $14 - so I now have one for each tool and can change them in seconds and preserve standard trim settings.

Load research has led to tests with various projectiles - Sierra 174 grain match kings, Barnes 150grain, Woodleigh 0.312" 174grain with small variations noted over 39 grains Varget. Interestingly the current lowest size test groups (just over 2 MoA with 5 rounds) are observed with Hornady 0.308" 150grain BTSP. Quite a different result from my 1945 No4Mk1 T - which test these lots simultaneously and predictably prefers the Sierra 180grain FBSP over everything else.

Time to clean, resize - check dimensions and weights and try again!