Building a benchrest rifle

[cmillard]

Outstanding job Lee!!

[Lee Martin]

Match #94
Cavalier Gun Club, Montpelier, VA
IBS 200 & 300 Yard VFS
_____________________________________________________

My friend Chris Allen just held his first two yardage match at Cavalier. Virginia’s heat wave didn’t let up. It reached 95 degrees by mid-day with intense sun. In spite of that, the mirage was manageable. The wind wasn’t too bad either until it was. Cavalier’s air currents tend to bend bullets more than the ribbons and propellers suggest. I’m still learning how to shoot the place. I’m also still getting used to benches that move.

We started at 300 yards and immediately noticed a problem on the warm-up. In the morning, the sun directly hits the back of the target frames. Put holes in the paper and that sun shines through. The light washes out the hole enough to make them difficult to see. Fortunately, I brought black trash bags that we stapled to the frames prior to match targets. Problem solved.

I shot a terrible first record, dropping 4 points. At 300 yards, points are going to fall up and down the line. The top shooters occasionally stay clean, but there were no 250’s at 300 last weekend. A 248 took the win. I finished in 9th place out of 15 with a 242. Half of those fell on target #1. My sighters were very solid. I put together a few incredibly tight 3 shots groups. Those translated into nice “inside-the-10 ring” scores, only to be followed by a wild 9. Shoot 2 or 3 straight 10’s, see nothing change on the flags, quickly try another shot, and watch it go left. The story of my 300 yard day. With the exception of one drop, all of my misses were 9:00 nine ring. There was something with the wind I was missing.

We reset and rotated 6 benches for 200 yards. I decided not to clean the barrel in between and it paid off. There was no warm-up at 200, just a 3 minute sight in period on the lower right square. I went down 16 clicks and immediately found the middle of the 10. Often after cleaning, it’ll take some fouling before the barrel settles in. I didn’t want to waste time and bullets with only 3 minutes. I finished 4th out of 15 at 200 and 6th out of 15 on the two-yardage agg. Not as good as I had hoped. Still, it was incrementally better than other finishes at Cavalier. For all the lumps that range has dealt me, I like the place.

View of the 200 yard frames before all the flags are set. We’re going after a 1/8” dot.







Match Director Chris Allen talking to competitors:



-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[Lee Martin]

Match #96
Fairfax Rod & Gun Club – Manassas, Virginia
IBS Virginia State Championship - 100 & 200 Yard VFS
___________________________________________________________

This two day match was held a few weeks back. Typical for August in Northern VA, the weather was 90+ degrees. Wind was mild and didn’t throw us many unexplained shots. Saturday began at 100 yards and I used my Martin action. The gun performed well, giving a 250-21X score which took 3rd place. Good friends Chris Allen and Wayne France placed 1st and 2nd respectively. Both shot 250-23X’s with Chris taking the tie breaker.

Sunday moved to 200 yards and I decided to enter my backup Stingray. It was sighted for 200 and did well at Cavalier a few weeks prior. The wind was light but quite switchy. That forced me to shoot more sighters than usual. This worked for the first four targets, staying clean throughout on the 10-ring. On the last frame the mirage and wind picked up, mostly right-to-left push. I took my time and lit up the sighter box. The gun wanted a 4 o’clock hold just outside the 10-ring, steering the bullets into the mothball. My first 3 bulls were solid tens with a wipeout X. Before moving across to bull #4, I decided to play it safe. Quickly dropping to the sighter, I found the 4:00 hold to still work. From there I came back to the record, held low right, pulled the trigger, and watched a hole appear just outside the 10. My perfect 500 weekend was over. It seems the wind either let up or some left-to-right switch negated my hold off. Yet coming off the gun, the flags didn’t show either. Nevertheless, the shot landed exactly where I held. I went back to the sighter, aimed 4:00, and it stuck middle 10. I quickly finished on bull #5 hitting the 10. In the grand agg I placed 5th (499-27X). Wayne France won the event.

Lessons learned - sighter strategy matters. It’s not enough to know how to use test shots to adjust POA. You need to know when to trust your gun and run a steady condition. In this case, I should’ve trusted the rifle. The left side of the target was solid. Had I moved quicker on #4 I may have taken the 10. Conversely, shooting through a condition when you don’t trust your gun can bite you. When in doubt, the sighter box is your best friend.

.30 Stingray @ 200 yards before the last frame:



-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[bradshaw]

Aug 19, 2020 19:40:16 GMT -5 Lee Martin said:

Match #96
Fairfax Rod & Gun Club – Manassas, Virginia
IBS Virginia State Championship - 100 & 200 Yard VFS
___________________________________________________________

This two day match was held a few weeks back. Typical for August in Northern VA, the weather was 90+ degrees. Wind was mild and didn’t throw us many unexplained shots. Saturday began at 100 yards and I used my Martin action. The gun performed well, giving a 250-21X score which took 3rd place. Good friends Chris Allen and Wayne France placed 1st and 2nd respectively. Both shot 250-23X’s with Chris taking the tie breaker.

Sunday moved to 200 yards and I decided to enter my backup Stingray. It was sighted for 200 and did well at Cavalier a few weeks prior. The wind was light but quite switchy. That forced me to shoot more sighters than usual. This worked for the first four targets, staying clean throughout on the 10-ring. On the last frame the mirage and wind picked up, mostly right-to-left push. I took my time and lit up the sighter box. The gun wanted a 4 o’clock hold just outside the 10-ring, steering the bullets into the mothball. My first 3 bulls were solid tens with a wipeout X. Before moving across to bull #4, I decided to play it safe. Quickly dropping to the sighter, I found the 4:00 hold to still work. From there I came back to the record, held low right, pulled the trigger, and watched a hole appear just outside the 10. My perfect 500 weekend was over. It seems the wind either let up or some left-to-right switch negated my hold off. Yet coming off the gun, the flags didn’t show either. Nevertheless, the shot landed exactly where I held. I went back to the sighter, aimed 4:00, and it stuck middle 10. I quickly finished on bull #5 hitting the 10. In the grand agg I placed 5th (499-27X). Wayne France won the event.

Lessons learned - sighter strategy matters. It’s not enough to know how to use test shots to adjust POA. You need to know when to trust your gun and run a steady condition. In this case, I should’ve trusted the rifle. The left side of the target was solid. Had I moved quicker on #4 I may have taken the 10. Conversely, shooting through a condition when you don’t trust your gun can bite you. When in doubt, the sighter box is your best friend.

.30 Stingray @ 200 yards before the last frame:



-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

*****

Lee.... maddening. As I read this report, I call (in my mind) your dropped shot a flier. Reading on, a churl of wind is evident: "the shot landed exactly where I held.”

Benchrest plays at the extreme edge of accuracy man made and imagined. I have not played this game where shots are cut like a milling machine. Or have I? All who shoot in the heat of others hungry to win seek to control each & every second on the Firing Line leaving nothing to chance. Yet the unforeseen enters and that is the chance we take. To remain in forcus one must relax. My definition of relaxation is the elimination thought. This isn’t entirely true, for the shot must be made.... evaporate distraction. I’ve thought the exact same way, tracking a whitetail buck, armed only with a sixgun----the equipment is not in doubt. Yet, I have shot to win with a revolver which could not deliver as tight as its ammunition, a nearly intolerable situation when the chips are down. Fortunately, compared with a benchrest dot a silhouette is a mastadon. Nevertheless, pushed far away, the steel beast shrinks tiny.

The job of the shooter is to DELIVER. To have his or her equipment squared away so he or she is free too sail. Doubt takes a thousand forms, but none must be allowed at the party.

Until I read on, I thought you had cranked out one bullet which got away from you. Yet the evidence speaks otherwise, that you and others shooting your bullets have had to live up to the bullet.
This is as it should be.
Carry on,
David Bradshaw

[Lee Martin]

David - you're correct. It wasn't a flier at all. The gun was doing exactly what it should've for that hold and condition. Well, at least it did 4 times on the sighter and 4 times on the records bulls. Again, I was holding about 1/4" off the edge of the 10-ring at 4:00. The mild right-to-left wind was pushing it about 1/2" - 3/4" into the 10-ring. On my 9 I suspect that push eased between the 6 flags I had set. Or perhaps from the bench to 200 yards there was a window of left-to-right. Narrow enough to not be seen on the vanes. The wind can swirl at Fairfax, meaning both directions. You see it even within 100 yards.

For all the preparation, skill, focus, patience, and other good qualities, a little luck doesn't hurt when timing the trigger.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[Lee Martin]

Match #97
Mid Carolina Gun Club – Orangeburg, SC
IBS Nationals - 100 & 200 Meters VFS
___________________________________________________

This year’s IBS 100/200 Nationals was a meter match, originally slated to be held in Ashe County, NC. It was moved to Orangeburg, SC due to Covid-19 restrictions. This was my 5th Nationals and I hoped to turn the corner on the event. I haven’t been pleased with how I’ve placed in the previous four.

The Nationals is widely attended and is unique for a few reasons. First, it’s the only way to gain Hall of Fame points; and those only come by winning yardages or the agg. Second, you rotate benches after every match, unlike other events where you rotate between yardages. You have to be quick at resetting your equipment. It also forces you to shoot over other people’s flags (you line up on your own once per yardage).

There were 43 guns on-hand. Predictably, the pandemic cut this year’s entry total roughly in half. We set flags Friday afternoon and began with 100 meters early Saturday morning. I shot well on the warm-up then immediately dug a hole. On the second bull of the first target, my shot went straight out the bottom of the 10 ring. Orangeburg can be a miserable place for wind. It’ll look mild only to send bullets way out. I may have missed a head wind or got caught on a change and didn’t see it. Had the Nationals curse bit me again? Maybe, but instead of getting down, I stayed focused. The range threw me for a loop, and it may do the same for others. I nailed 10’s and X’s the rest of the day as points dropped around me. When Saturday came to a close, I was in 22nd. Not great, but I still had a chance for a decent finish if I did well Sunday at 200.

My warm-up at 200 meters told me the gun wanted to shoot. I hit 3 X’s, two of which were wipe outs. X’s became much harder to find as the day progressed. I shot more sighters than usual, but didn’t overdo it like the VA State Championship. The conditions wouldn’t stay put long as the wind became switchy mid-morning. I wasn’t about to lose a shootable read to over-verify my hold with sighters. That decision paid off as I stayed clean at 200 and took 5th place. Overall, I finished 11th in the Grand Agg. There were only 4 competitors that didn’t drop any points on the weekend. I missed one, but I’ll take a 499 and 11th at the Nationals. It’s a step up from the prior four.

Highlight of the weekend – watching my friend Wayne France win the 100 meter, giving him another HOF point (he’s really close to getting in).

Lesson(s) learned – no matter how cliché it sounds, never give up. You can recover from a disastrous start.

Flag setting Friday afternoon









Seven of us rented a 15 person van for the trip down Interstate 95. I was skeptical, but all of the equipment fit:





We made good use of the hotel pool Saturday night





-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[bradshaw]

"I wasn’t about to lose a shootable read to over-verify my hold with sighters. That decision paid off as I stayed clean at 200....”

Lesson(s) learned – no matter how cliché it sounds, never give up.”
----Lee Martin

*****

There are many reasons this chronicle of building for and shooting benchrest is so important. To steer a bullet is serious business. Life is long enough to learn, too short to not live.
David Bradshaw

[gunzo]

And congrats Lee, you made a damn fine showing @ 200.

[Lee Martin]

Match #98
Black Creek Gun Club, Mechanicsville, VA
IBS 100 Yard VFS
_____________________________________________________

Black Creek dealt some hard, switching conditions for our September match. Wind speed probably never went above 10 or 12 mph, but it blew constantly and in many directions. The below scores prove my point. Black Creek usually has two or three 20+ X finishes.

Out of necessity, I shot a lot of sighters. Picture this – the first flag at 10 yards is hard right to left, the second flag at 35 yards is blowing straight out, the 60 yard flag is left to right with the tail flipping vertical, and the 80 yard vane is quartering in towards me. And 3 seconds later it's something equally scewed-up. We saw reads like that throughout the day. A few times, I just center held when the wind was bi-directional and waited for it to ease. Left-to-right can, but not always, cancel right-to-left. If the sighter shows center hold, move fast before you lose the condition. Depending on when you shoot, holding outside of the 10 ring was required. The problem is in switchy air, a change or let-up will put the POI right at the POA. And if you’re holding in the 9, you’re dropping a point. I was patient and kept most of my POA’s on the edge or inside the 10 ring. That worked and even netted me a decent X count.





My gun on the line:



Looking down into the range. Black Creek’s 100 yard spread sits on the bottom of a small hill behind a lot of old pine trees.



In between relays:



Setting targets:



-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[Rimfire69]

Outstanding performance Lee.

[bradshaw]

Sept 9, 2020 19:57:32 GMT -5 Lee Martin said:

Match #98
Black Creek Gun Club, Mechanicsville, VA
IBS 100 Yard VFS
_____________________________________________________

Black Creek dealt some hard, switching conditions for our September match. Wind speed probably never went above 10 or 12 mph, but it blew constantly and in many directions. The below scores prove my point. Black Creek usually has two or three 20+ X finishes.

Out of necessity, I shot a lot of sighters. Picture this – the first flag at 10 yards is hard right to left, the second flag at 35 yards is blowing straight out, the 60 yard flag is left to right with the tail flipping vertical, and the 80 yard vane is quartering in towards me. And 3 seconds later it's something equally scewed-up. We saw reads like that throughout the day. A few times, I just center held when the wind was bi-directional and waited for it to ease. Left-to-right can, but not always, cancel right-to-left. If the sighter shows center hold, move fast before you lose the condition. Depending on when you shoot, holding outside of the 10 ring was required. The problem is in switchy air, a change or let-up will put the POI right at the POA. And if you’re holding in the 9, you’re dropping a point. I was patient and kept most of my POA’s on the edge or inside the 10 ring. That worked and even netted me a decent X count.





-Lee

*****

Top athletes and marksman/markswomen experience performance levels when everything falls into place. A novice or outsider often calls this “luck.” The old cliche, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” carries the bearer just so far; in the big leagues, not very far at all. No one wants to be unlucky, but only the ignorant believe luck as a blueprint for success. There is another quality, which a serious competitor recognizes: sometimes you’re HOT. Strangely, the performer may not consciously know it at the time. Adversity strikes, yet performance falls into place. Don’t count on luck to reach this station, and don’t think it can be forced. To be HOT the competitor must be COOL. This is the unconscious part, the ORGANIC ARCHIVE of getting inside the shot over and over again. This is what I see here.

Reading Lee’s account tells me much more than luck is at work.
David Bradshaw

[Lee Martin]

Match #100
Cavalier Gun Club, Montpelier, VA
IBS 200 Yard VFS
_____________________________________________

I shot my first benchrest match in July 2016. Hard to believe I’ve entered 100 in less than 4 1/2 years. I was warned this sport can hook you. Boy were they right.

Match #99 was two weeks ago at Fairfax and the gun performed well in brutal wind. We faced 30 mph gusts and sustained 10 – 15 mph at 200 yards. After the third target, I was in the lead. My friend Chris muttered, “Just stay clean and the win is yours”. After he said that, I looked at the flags blowing all over the place and thought “easier said than done”. I ended up dropping two points on the next frame, missing the 10-ring by a hair each time. I took 6th place though and was happy with the gun’s consistency. On hard left-to-right wind, I held 10:00 to varying degrees and the bullets steered into the mothball. My misses weren’t POA directional miscues. I just didn’t hold far enough out. In other words, I could trust my equipment.

This past Sunday, the gun again showed a desire to shoot tight. On the warm-up, I stuck 3-shots into a 0.210” spread @ 200 yards. The rifle was ready. Was I?

Cavalier has had my number every time. The benches are wood topped with metal bases. And they’re not bolted to the pad. If you move, they move. It really teaches you table manners. The wind can be hard to read too. The 100 yard mark is 30 feet below the benches. The next 100 yards is on an incline. Air gets in there and moves the bullet much more than the flags suggest. The key is to shoot a lot of sighters. I did just that and scored a 250 on the agg. No dropped points with a respectable number of X’s. I finished 4th out of 14 and was only 1 X off the winner.

I’ve also learned a little more about my .30 Stingray. Before I began annealing my brass, I ran 0.002” neck tension. Basically a 0.327” bushing on a 0.329” loaded round. Annealing softens the brass to where there’s little to no spring back on sizing. Redding builds one-thou of spring back into their bushing designations. A 0.327” button really sizes 0.326” and when the neck pops out of the die, it springs about 0.001”. The first sizing post-annealing with my 0.327’ gives 0.326”. I’m probably splitting hairs here, but that extra thousandth worth of pull seems to shoot better at 200 & 300 yards. After the 2nd reloading, the spring back returns. The brass I shot Sunday had been reloaded 2 times, so I dropped to a 0.326” bushing. That, plus the extra grain of LT-30 has really improved my scores beyond 100 yards (up until December I was shooting the lower node with 33.0 grs. This year I switched to a slightly compressed 34.0 gr charge).

Side-note: I’ve tried annealing after every firing, but see no gain in doing so. I now anneal every 5 firings and it seems to be working.





-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[Lee Martin]

Measuring Headspace
__________________________________________

Re-barreling a benchrest rifle - aside from indexing the chamber lead dead nuts to the bore, I want identical headspace to the barrel I just pulled. Why? Well, I size my brass by only bumping the shoulder back 0.001”. Headspace variations would force me to readjust my die every time I swap barrels. Moreover, I run two .30 Stingrays and two 6mm PPCs. The last thing I want to do is separate brass by gun and reset dies for a given cartridge. So consistent headspacing matters.

A lot of gunsmiths use go-gauges and they work fine. My only complaint is they don’t grip the chamber sidewalls, allowing them to wiggle. It becomes tedious when pressing a depth micrometer against the base and dialing the rod to the tenon’s shoulder. For that reason, I prefer using sized cases to measure headspace:

1) Pull the old barrel
2) Size three cases and ensure all measure the same from the base to datum.
3) Using a plastic tipped hammer, I tap them into the chamber of the old barrel one at a time.
4) Each is measured with a depth mic from the tenon’s shoulder to the back edge of the case; which approximates the face of the bolt (minus the thou of bump). I always get the same measurement for all three pieces of brass
5) That measurement is what I’m trying to duplicate on the new barrel. Example – my Martin action is 1.072” from the barrel shoulder to the bolt face.

This process works like a charm. I’ve done five .30 Stingray barrels across two guns and have never moved my FL sizer (note – the headspace value of course differs between the two rifles). Similarly, I’ve chambered five 6mm PPC barrels and never adjusted that die. The headache surrounds the depth micrometer. Mine aren’t digital and can be tough to read. And even if digital, they require a lot of feel when checking depth. Case heads are small and the mic base can cock. And when you’re bent over a lathe, pinpointing when the rod touches the shoulder is a pain. Dial too far and the base is pushed off the go-gauge or brass. User error isn’t at play here. I’m really quite proficient with these things. My dad has been machining metal for over 50 years and shares the same complaint. That drove him to build a better mousetrap.

The better mousetrap has been around for years. Oddly, dad had never seen one and thought he came up with this on his own. It pained me to tell him he had not.

Below is a simple, homemade headspace checker. It consists of a sleeve that is counter-bored to fit over the threaded tenon, a standard 0.001” dial indicator, an enlarged measuring rod tip, and a set screw.





Precision ground, 0.800” spacer.



Here’s how it works:

1) First you decide on the dial range. Since I do a lot of Mauser 98’s, I went with a 0-1” dial. However, benchrest actions have longer tenons. They require 1 – 2” dials. I chose a 0-1” and use a precision ground 0.800” insert to get past 1” (more on that later)
2) The sleeve is counter-bored 0.010” over the tenon diameter. My BR tenons are 1.060”, so the sleeve has a 1.070” I.D.
3) Take the 0.800” base, fit the gauge over it, and zero the dial
4) Remember the 1.072” from my action’s headspace? That’s what I’m trying to duplicate on the next barrel
5) To check chamber depth in the lathe, tap the sized case in and slide the gauge over until its base meets the barrel shoulder. Read the dial. Whatever it shows, add 0.800” and that’s where I’m at on headspace. Subtracting 0.800” from 1.072” means my target reading is 0.272”.

Forgive the dirty threads. I mocked this up using an old take off barrel and didn’t clean out the anti-seize:





The advantage to using one of these is two-fold. First, they allow you to get consistent measurements. The gauge butts up against 360 degrees of the barrel shoulder. It meets flush and won’t rock. Two, it’s much quicker. My eyes aren’t getting any younger. They take to dials better than mic graduations.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"

[Rimfire69]

Awesome, always a pleasure to read your technical write-ups Lee.

[Lee Martin]

Match #101
Black Creek Gun Club, Mechanicsville, VA
IBS 100 Yard VFS
__________________________________________

Krieger #3 continues to impress. And the guy perched behind that barrel was patient enough to steer it to another win.





The conditions at Black Creek were pretty good. Winds never much topped 5 to 7 mph and laid down long enough to run a couple of bulls. By target #4, the mirage came in hard. At full boil, it moved the reticle almost a ring. There’s no sure fire way to shoot through mirage. Short of using it to assess wind direction and intensity, it isn’t your friend (besides, we use wind flags for that). I’m sure most of you have experienced mirage to some extent. With low power scopes, it’s often not perceptible. But with 40x and higher, it wreaks havoc with POA. At 100 yards, we’re trying to hit a 0.0625” dot. Get cross hairs bouncing a half-inch or more in a non-repeatable pattern, and you’re guessing where to hold. Or are you? Here’s how I manage through mirage;

1) Know the gun’s POI for a given condition or two when there’s no mirage. The waves come in as the day progresses and temperature rises. Establish your zero during warm-up and find POAs (holds) for 2 or 3 conditions that seem to repeat. When the mirage enters, you’ll need to trust that zero and those hold offs

2) Don’t guess POA as the reticle bounces. Wait for the wind to pick up. This will tamp down the mirage, possibly even eliminating it for a few seconds. Set your POA immediately. The mirage will reappear as the wind subsides, but you can trust that hold. No matter how much it begins to dance again, don’t adjust the rest.

3) Wait for one of those known conditions to return. Example – my gun was dead zeroed on the dot in little to no wind. I center held when the propellers were hardly spinning. In fact, the flags would lay down every 30 – 40 seconds and stay put for 3 or 4 seconds.

4) I took advantage of points #2 and #3. Let the wind pick up, fix a center hold on the dot as the mirage was cut, and wait. When the propellers slowed or went still, I touched the trigger.

5) What happens if the wind doesn’t die down? Or worse, it picks up? In that case, the wind is your friend. If it blows enough, it’ll cut the mirage allowing for precise POAs. Just get to the known holds you’ve confirmed throughout the day for those 2 or 3 conditions. Then wait for them to appear and fire. It isn’t a perfect practice, but it beats guessing.

6) If your conditions don't return, shoot a lot of sighters. Let the gun show you what it wants to do. That applies to all situations, not just mirage and flags not setting-up to your liking.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
"Chasing perfection five shots at a time"