NRA High Power Sporting Rifle
ga...@ggsportrifle.com
NRA has a competition category that is usually
a match within a match. This is the high power
sporting rifle. I'm considering working on
tools and techniques for this category. My
quandary is the choice of caliber and items
to make the rifle. My varmint days were with
22-250 and 25-06. I feel very comfortable with
22-250, but much may have changed. Like the
6mm for example.
My current design (abbreviated) for 22-250 is:
Rem. 700 BDL action, pillared & glass bedded
24" fluted (8) Shilen #5 SS Select Match .22CF 1x14 free floated barrel
McMillan Anschutz Silhouette stock
Jewel Hunter/Varmint trigger
Leupold VX-III 6.5-25X/50mm target, dot scope
Tubb Titanium firing pin
Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad
Cryo & heat treated barrel & action
Outdoor range is 100yrds and 200yrds only for
competition. Shooting is all year; hot, moderate
cold, Northern CA. Hand loading all rounds.
Any suggestions or inputs are welcomed and
appreciated. Category shooters' input especially.
gary g.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Win a Fulton Armory tactical carbine in MPFO's rifle raffle
and defend liberty at the same time! Details
http://www.direct-action.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
Learn rec.guns at http://www.recguns.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
Asa
is the high power sporting rifle... My quandary is the choice of caliber and
items to make the rifle. My varmint days were with 22-250 and 25-06. I feel
very comfortable with 22-250, but much may have changed. Like the 6mm for
example.
Outdoor range is 100yrds and 200yrds only for competition. Shooting is all
year; hot, moderate cold, Northern CA. Hand loading all rounds.
Any suggestions or inputs are welcomed and appreciated. Category shooters'
input especially.
Gary,
I don't shoot Sporter Rifle (too busy shooting highpower), but am familiar
with the rules. Some things to remember:
1. You're on a weight limit, 9 1/2 lbs with all the accessories (I think).
Even with a fluted barrel, your rifle may well be overweight. Consided
changing the scope, as a 50mm objective adds a lot of weight for marginal gains
(at least for the use you intend for it.)
2. Because it's a 100/200 yard match, super efficient bullets are not needed.
A fast twist barrel is not needed, because boat tailed bullets don't give you
any advantage.
3. Rounds have to feed smoothly. Some .22-250 rifles don't feed well from the
magazine. Then again, some .223s seem to be subject to this too.
4. Recoil is not your friend. With a light rifle, you'll feel the effects
from firing 40 rounds of 30-06. .22-250 Is a good choice, though a .223 would
be better. A 6mm is a good choice, though they can be:
a. Difficult to get to feed right. The 6mm BR is a highly accurate
cartridge. Problem is that the case is relatively short, and fat, so feeding
is a problem.
b. Wildcats, such as the 6XC, 6mm-.250, .240NMC. The brass for these is
made from .22-250 casings, though 6XC brass is now commercially available.
Dies and chamber reamers aren't cheap, so building one of these will be pricey.
These cases are long enough that feeding is less problematic than a 6BR.
c. Hard on barrels. A .243 Winchester can go through a barrel in as little
as 800 rounds, depending on the loading. A .243 feeds very reliably.
5. Muzzle brakes are forbidden, so heavy recoiling rifles are at a further
disadvantage.
6. Long, heavy barrels aren't seen very often. The short distance, low number
of rounds fired, and weight restriction make it possible to build a good rifle
using a fairly light barrel, or a short barrel.
Rifle choices. Sounds like you're pretty serious about building a good rifle.
For off the shelf solutions, consider the following choices:
1. Remington LTR - Short barreled (20"), H-S Precision synthetic stock.
Out-of-the-box weight is 7 1/2 lbs, so you have some leeway in mounting a
decent scope with good rings.
2. Tikka 595 or T3 Hunter - Solid rifles, at a good price. Very smooth
actions, with a good trigger. Detachable magazine is a single stack design,
very reliable. For the T3, the webpage is
http://www.tikka.fi/rifles_hunter.php
3. If it's an option, an AR-15. Light recoil, reliable feeding and fast
reloads. Can't beat the availability of accessories.
4. CZ-527 American - Mauser pattern action, single stack detachable magazine,
free floated barrel, and a factory installed set trigger. Set up for scope use
only, comes with a set of scope rings. At 6.2 lbs, really light - lots of room
to mount a big scope if desired. See:
http://www.czusa.com/product.detail.php?id=10
Hope this helps.
Asa
Support the US Palma Team!
www.uspalma.com
Bart B.
# My current design (abbreviated) for 22-250 is:
I'd pick a different cartridge as the .22-.250 isn't shaped well for
reliable rapid fire feeding and tends to wear out barrels pretty fast;
accuracy starts to fade at about 1100 rounds. Even the .243 Win.
barrel life is about 1500 rounds. A .260 Rem. feeds well in rapid
fire, will deliver about 2200 rounds of great accuracy and is easy to
shoot very accurate due to its mild recoil. It's very popular these
days in highpower competition anyway.
# Rem. 700 BDL action,
Winchester's Model 70 action is easier to operate and more reliable
rapid fire, near three times as stiff as the Remington and epoxy beds
better than any round receiver. And their firing pin can be removed
for cleaning without special tools which the Remington needs.
24" fluted (8) Shilen #5 SS Select Match .22CF 1x14 free floated
barrel
Shilen barrels are very accurate, but they don't last very long in
highpower competition. Knowledgable highpower competitors shy away
from them for this reason. Krieger, Obermeyer, Hart, Chanlynn, and
Medesha barrels are just as good as Shilen and they last about twice
as long. Get a 26-inch one, then after a few thousand rounds, have it
set back a couple of inches and it'll then be almost like new.
Fluting a barrel, for the most part, does nothing but make money for
the shop that flutes it. With button rifled barrels (such as Hart,
Medesha, Hart, Douglass and others) fluting enlarges the bore/groove
dimensions under the flute. On hammer forged barrels, fluting shrinks
the bore/groove diameter under the flutes. And there is no proof that
fluting a barrel makes it more accurate. Fluting makes a given barrel
less rigid because metal has been removed from the outside which means
there's less of it to resist bending. Cooling is not an issue in
highpower competition; not now and never has been. But if you must
have a fluted barrel, get a cut rifled barrel fluted such as one from
Obermeyer, Chanlynn or Krieger which are fluted before rifling is made
and lapped to uniform diameters.
Freeze-treating a barrel is nice, but really won't be needed until
you're winning half the matches you shoot and can't sleep well until
you win all of them.
# McMillan Anschutz Silhouette stock (pillared & glass bedded)
A McMillan Winchester Marksman or Baker Special stock is better
designed for rapid fire in sitting or prone positions. They don't
have a cheek piece to get in the way like the silhouette ones do. And
pillar bedding is not needed these days with synthetic stocks having a
hard section in the receiver area. Pillar bedding was required years
ago when the first synthetic stocks were soft around the receiver.
Conventional bedding hasn't been improved on in wood or proper
synthetic stocks. But most folks don't know this and think pillar is
the only way to go.
# Jewel Hunter/Varmint trigger
Good choice. Set it for about 2 pounds.
# Leupold VX-III 6.5-25X/50mm target, dot scope
You'll do better with a good fixed power scope of about 6X with
adjustment knobs that are easy to read at a glance and large enough to
make changes easily when you're sighting in you rifle for off hand and
other positions as well as correcting for wind. The scope will have
to be mounted quite a ways forward to use in position for rapid fire.
Scopes mounted for standing (off hand) use are mounted too far back
for position use; they'll ring your eyebrow or forehead. Special
rails are available for this.
# Tubb Titanium firing pin
Nice, but not needed. I've used one for years and haven't really
needed it. Replace the Winchester factory 23-pound recoil spring with
a 28- or 30-pound Wolfe spring and that's all you need.
< Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad
Not needed. People have withstood the recoil of an 8- to 10-pound
.30-06 in highpower competition since 1903. It's easy to manage and
97 percent of it doesn't happen until after the bullet's left the
barrel anyway.
Hunter's Shooting Association
match. This is the high power sporting rifle.
Just to avoid any confusion. . .
High Power Sporting Rifle is its own separate discipline started in
1985, complete with its own rulebook (the green cover) and
Classification system.
As the name implies, it is based off of High Power and intended for
sporting (hunting) rifles.
Some High Power clubs offer unofficial "hunting/sporting rifle"
categories for new shooters who don't own legal HP rifles. A true
Sporting Rifle event uses its own course of fire, as per the SR
rulebook, and must be shot with a legal rifle. Nearly any hunting
rifle is legal for SR.
While the course is good (but not great) for hunters, the biggest flaw
is the NRA's inability to promote it. The NRA's American Hunter
magazine is mailed to nearly 1 million members, but there are only
about one or two thousand folks who have shot enough SR to obtain
classification at *any* level (and you get Marksman just for showing
up!) Yeah, that works out to a 99.8 percent no-show rate.
#> [questions and advice about the "best" rifle for SR]
You guys are really over thinking this!
Sporting Rifle is intended for basic, stock hunting rifles shot for
record at 100 or 200 yards. The shooter/rifle need only produce 3.5
MOA groups from field positions (prone, sitting, etc.)
The whole point of the exercise is to shoot stock hunting rigs. A
good hunter-shooter can, and should, be able to obtain Master level
scores (300 points out of 320 possible) with generic, boring
equipment.
If you want something more involved, go straight into High Power and
shoot a Match rifle.
Fast X,
John Buol
HunterShooter.com
H F
"Hunter's Shooting Association" <jb...@HunterShooter.com> wrote in message
news:c1os38$air$1...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
# The whole point of the exercise is to shoot stock hunting rigs. A
# good hunter-shooter can, and should, be able to obtain Master level
# scores (300 points out of 320 possible) with generic, boring
# equipment.
This could be why it isn't popular. What good is a gun you can just pick up
and shoot w/o $1,000's of modifications & bright-colored replacement parts?