Russian Primers Perform for Preacher
Forum member “Preacher” reports amazing consistency from his 6BR load of Alliant Reloader 15 with “White Box” Russian Primers. (These small rifle magnum primers are currently sold under the Wolf label, and can be purchased from Grafs.com.) He tells us: “I finally broke down and checked out the 6BR, shooting 105 Berger VLDs over the chronograph yesterday. I have never seen numbers crunch [this well] in more years than I’ll admit.”
Preacher added: “My green rifle (photo below) shoots those bullets like little lasers at 350 yards. Not bad for a old groundhog shooter that only in the past few years got into this extreme accuracy stuff with a BAT SV action and an 8-twist, 28″ Pac-Nor that shoots into way less than a inch at 350 yards most any time. I have a .110″ freebore on the green rifle and the bullets are jammed .020″+ into the rifling.”
Preacher cautions: “My load of RL-15 is real close to the edge with the 105 Berger VLD but the primer pockets are still tight after 15 firings. I do anneal them with a BC1000 every fourth time out and then clean them in my ultra-sonic. The Russian Small Rifle Mag primers in the White box have done very well in both my 6BRs with Pac-Nors.”
EDITOR’s NOTE: Preacher’s results are amazing to say the least. It would be wrong, however, to expect that changing to Russian primers will guarantee you single-digit ES and SD. You might find your velocity spreads don’t change significantly, or they might even get worse. Still, Preacher’s findings suggest that it is worth trying the Russian primers if you haven’t done so yet.
With $25,000 of awards up for grabs, thanks to Springfield Armory, the match drew large numbers of competitors and rekindled interest in the M14-style .308 rifles for match competition. (AR15-style “Black Rifles” currently dominate regular NRA Service Rifle matches.) The course of fire was five sighter shots and 50 shots for record at 300 yards using the new MR-65F target. Shots for record consisted of: 20 shots slow fire in the prone position; 10 shots rapid fire in the prone position; 10 shots rapid fire in the kneeling or sitting position; and 10 shots show fire in the standing position.
