Larry Racine is a respected gunsmith based in New Hampshire. He is also a two-time member of the U.S. Palma Team, and a five-time New Hampshire State Highpower rifle champion. Larry, who runs LPR Gunsmithing, has developed a brilliantly simple means of switching rifle barrels with an ordinary spanner or open-end wrench. With this set-up you can switch barrels in the field in seconds without the need for a barrel vice.
For most barrels, Larry mills a hex with six flats on the end of the barrel. This allows a shooter to change barrels quickly at home or on the line with a simple box-head wrench or a socket wrench. Larry says: “You don’t even have to take the barreled action out of the gun. Just set the buttstock on the ground, between your feet, put a wrench on it, hit it with the palm of your hand — and off comes the barrel.” For barrels fitted with a muzzle brake, Larry has a slightly different system. He mills two flats behind the brake so you can use an open-end wrench to do the job.
With either a hex on the end, or two flats for a brake-equipped rifle, the system works with any medium- to heavy-contour barrel with a muzzle-diameter of at least 0.700″. This will even work for high-power rigs using clamp-on sights or bloop tubes. Larry explains: “A lot of us here in New England use clamp-on front sights. The barrel will be turned to 0.750 for the sight, with the hex on the end. A bloop tube can go right over the end, no problem.”
Larry has used this system over the past few years to win a number of matches. In one 600-yard 3 by 20 prone match, Larry used three different barrels, with three different chamberings, on the same Savage rifle. Larry changed the barrels on the line.
Larry was able to do this because the system has little to no loss of zero from one installation of a given barrel to the next installation of that barrel. This lets the shooter start the match with confidence that the first sighter will be on paper. Larry reports that the simple system works great: “To date we have used this system on Savage, Remington, Winchester, RPA, and Nesika actions.”
Racine’s system is very affordable. If Larry does the chamber work on your barrel he charges $45.00 extra to mill a hex or two flats on your barrel. If you only want the hex or flats done, Larry charges $55.00. For more info, visit LPRGunsmith.com or call Larry at (603) 357-0055.
Forum member Danny Reever and this Editor recently discussed how novice reloaders can struggle with the fine points of reloading, making errors in seating depth, bushing choice, or sizing their cases. We agreed that a good resource covering more than “Reloading Basics” is sorely needed. Danny reminded me that Glen Zediker’s excellent Handloading for Competition book has been available since 2002. Danny says this may still be the best guide in print for those getting started in precision reloading, though the book is not without flaws.
Danny observed: “I consider this still the best book out there on the subject. I’ve bought a lot of other books only to be sorely disappointed after spending $30-$40 of my hard-earned cash. This book is not one of those! I’ve read and re-read Zediker’s treatise at least four times and refer to it often for advice while reloading. My number one suggestion for those who buy the book is to sit down with a highlighter and read it cover to cover. It’s well-written with a bit of humor and it is not boring.”
Extremely comprehensive, Zediker’s book covers nearly all of the key factors involved in accurate reloading: case sorting, brass prep, load development, neck-sizing, full-length sizing, bushing selection/use, tool selection, priming, powder measurement, and bullet seating. The book also explains how to test and evaluate your ammo, and how to monitor and interpret pressure signs.
There are many “must-read” sections in Zediker’s book, according to Danny: “The section beginning on page 161 dealing with concentricity (and how to achieve it) is excellent. Likewise the Load Limits section discussing pressures offers very valuable advice and info. You should also read Zediker’s commentaries about load testing, powders (burn characterics etc.), and the effects of temperature.”
Zediker has conveniently provided a detailed summary of his book on the web, complete with table of contents, sample pages (PDF format), and dozens of illustrations. Shown above is just one small section that covers ejectors.
Overall, we recommend Glen Zediker’s Handloading for Competition, though the book definitely could use some updating. Danny says: “Plunk down the $34.95 and buy this book, you won’t be sorry.” Zediker’s book is available from Amazon.com, Sinclair Int’l, and Zediker Publishing.
Hornady Manufacturing has recalled seven lots of 500 S&W 300 grain FTX® Custom™ pistol ammunition. Hornady ballisticians have determined that some cartridges from Lot numbers 3101327, 3110256, 3110683, 3110695, 3110945, 3111388, 3111885, may exhibit excessive chamber pressures. These lots were shipped between September 9, 2010, and October 17, 2011. Use of this product may result in firearm damage and/or personal injury.
Recalled Lot Numbers: 3101327, 3110256, 3110683, 3110695, 3110945, 3111388, 3111885. The Lot number can be found printed on the lower portion of the box label.
If you own any of these Lot numbers or have any questions regarding this recall, Call Hornady at 800-338-1242 right away. Hornady Manufacturing Company will make all arrangements associated with the return and replacement of this product.
Last week in Ottawa, Canada’s House of Commons voted to nullify a long-gun registry law that had been in place since 1995. The bill still needs to be ratified by the Canadian Senate. However, because Conservatives hold a majority in the Senate, most experts believe the repeal of the Registry is a “done deal” as soon as the repeal legislation goes up for final vote in the Canadian Senate.
The Chronicle Herald reports: “The vote effectively puts the registry on life support; all that remains is for the Senate to pull the plug. Since the Conservatives enjoy a commanding majority in the upper chamber as well, the Registry’s fate is sealed.” Liberal Senate leader James Cowan conceded: “They’ve got the majority and unless something extraordinary happens, it will pass.” Unfortunately, the Calgary Herald also predicted that Liberals might try to delay the Senate vote for weeks or even months.
If the Conservatives succeed in dismantling the Registry, tens of thousands of Registry records would be deep-sixed. That idea is popular with critics of the Registry: “the Harper government’s further directive to destroy all the data is a mammoth victory of the people over Big Brother” (Calgary Sun). Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said of the registry, “It does nothing to help put an end to gun crimes, nor has it saved one Canadian life. It criminalizes hard-working and law-abiding citizens such as farmers and sport shooters, and it has been a billion-dollar boondoggle left to us by the previous Liberal government.”
Thousands of shooting enthusiasts visit our Shooters’ Forum every day. The Forum now boasts over 16,600 members. One of the “main attractions” in our Forum are the Free Classified Ads. There you’ll find a huge selection of “previously owned” merchandise — everything from complete, top-flight match rifles to reloading components. There are great bargains on used hand-loading equipment — presses, dies, case prep tools, and miscellaneous hardware. You’ll also find scopes, rings, rangefinders and spotting scopes. This is one of the richest repositories of pre-owned precision shooting equipment you’ll find anywhere on the internet. Here are some of the gun offerings in the Forum Classifieds right now:
Message for Classified Sellers — How to Remove a Product Listing
For those of you who already sell items in our Classifieds, we have one request: delete your ad when the item sells. After guys sell their goods successfully, some of them neglect to delist their products and remove their ad. We suspect some newcomers to the site haven’t bothered to read the instructions. But it’s very, very easy to remove your advert once you’ve sold your stuff. In fact, you can delete your ad in a matter of seconds, with just two clicks of your mouse!
First, find the ad you placed in our FORUM MARKETPLACE. Then simply scroll down to the end of the thread (below all the replies) and look for the gray “Remove Topic” button. Click that and you’re done. Now wasn’t that easy?
The complete, final results of the Berger SW Long Range Nationals (at the Ben Avery Range in Arizona) have been posted. You can download all the results from the links at the bottom of this story. In case you missed our previous match report, Trudie Fay was the overall winner in the sling category, Jim Murphy took F-Open Class, and James Croft won F-TR. In team competition, The sling winners were the US National Team composed of Trudie Fay, Bryan Litz, Justin Skaret and Peter Church. In F-Open, the winning team was Team Norma/Berger composed of Larry Bartholome, John Brewer, Danny Biggs, and Jim Murphy. The winning F-TR team was the Arizona State Rifle & Pistol Assn. squad, with Warren Dean, John Chilton, Steve Lockwood and German Salazar. Complete Results are linked below.
This Video by Jim Everson, was shot from the pits at the 2012 Berger SW Nationals:
Michelle Gallagher of Berger Bullets provided this post-match message:
I hope you all enjoyed yourselves at the match and got back home safely. We were so excited that you could all make it, and I’m glad the weather even cooperated!
Thank you to everyone that helped out during the week. There are just too many to list everyone, but the match would not have run as smoothly without you, and we deeply appreciate everything you did. We want to give a special thank-you to Kathy Buell, Jennifer Litz, and Melesia Cisneros for their help. They had no idea what they were getting into when they volunteered to help, but they were invaluable. Also, Matt Schwartzkopf with AZ Game & Fish put in countless hours getting the range ready. He did an amazing job, the range looked beautiful, and we were excited to have him shooting with us! We also want to send a big thank-you to all the companies who donated to the match. We are so thankful for your participation, and I know the shooters were as well.
We’ll be sending out the results CDs as soon as possible, but here are some results for now. I also have them up on the Berger website. We’ll also be posting some photos of the match soon.
Shooting is hugely popular in Norway. Each summer, the Norwegian National Rifle Championship draws 4,000-6,000 participants — an amazing number considering the population of Norway totals just 4.9 million. In Norway, as in Finland (home of Lapua), kids often get started in competitive shooting as early as age 6. In this video, you’ll see four Norwegian kids, Torje (age 8), Anders (age 7), Tonje (age 9), and Mari (age 15) trying out an Izhmash Biathlon rifle.
You’ll be impressed by the steady shooting skills of the youngsters, particularly 8-year-old Torje. He’s a future champion in the making we think.
Here’s another video with 15-year-old Mari, showing her rock-solid form with an Olympic-grade Izmash, using a quick-release arm sling. Note how steady she holds the rifle. This girl can shoot!
The rifles in the videos are both toggle-bolt Izhmash Biathlon guns, made in Russia. Like the German Fortner straight-pull action (used by Anschütz), the Izhmash toggle bolt action allows extremely rapid bolt-cycling. Shooters can quickly eject and reload without disturbing their shooting position or sight picture. The rifle in the first video sold in the USA last year for about $1560.00. That sounds expensive, but it is half the price of an Anschütz Fortner biathlon rifle. Check with AltiusGuns.com for current pricing and availability. The Izhmash Biathlon is offered in two models, the Biathlon 7-4 for adult men and the more compact Biathlon 7-3 for women and juniors. FYI, while the Izhmash 7-3 and 7-4 have not been imported in recent months, MT Guns still has a few LEFT-HAND model 7-4 Biathlon rifles in inventory. Southpaws, if you want one, call MT Guns at (805) 680-0201 before they’re all gone.
Tim Claunch (aka tclaunch) recently put on an amazing display of precision shooting. At an MSSA 600-yard Benchrest Score match in Memphis, TN, Forum member Tim shot six targets in a row, with an average 5-shot group size of 1.677″. Tim’s stellar performance began with a two-target shoot-off for club Shooter of the Year honors (he won). Then Tim shot four more targets as part of the club’s regular 4-target score match. NOTE: this is NOT an official six-target match result. The actual match that day was four (4) targets only, and Tim’s Agg for those four was about 1.8″, still darn impressive. No one is claiming any records here. Still give credit where credit is due — Tim put together six targets in a row, in competition, averaging 0.267 MOA for all six. Tim’s small group (of the six) was 1.351″ and his large group was 2.088″. That shows amazing consistency. This is spectacular shooting by any measure*.
Tim tells us: “I can check off one of the items on my ‘bucket list’ now — shooting a sub-two-inch Agg. We shot our monthly match here in Memphis at our awesome MSSA range. Though this was a score match, and the first two targets were part of a club shoot-off, I wondered about the average group size of all six. We measured all six targets I shot in sequence on Sunday. I was some kind of happy when I saw it was a 1.677″ 6-target average. That Bartlein and the .140″ FB BRX reamer are a good match. I used Varget with Berger 105gr VLDs and CCI 450 primers. I had never Agged under two inches before in my life (the 4-target Agg was 1.8″). Sure was nice to do it at home the first time.”
Tim shoots a 6mm BRX Light Gun with Shehane ST1000 Tracker stock, Borden Rimrock BR action, and Bartlein 6mm cut-rifled barrel. He uses a Leupold 45X scope in Burris Signature Zee rings sitting on a +20 MOA rail. Tim jokes: “People might laugh at my cheapo Burris rings. Well I guess those Signatures hold zero just fine.” Tim tried a power-booster lens on his Leupold for a while, but this altered eye relief, producing the occasional smack in the forehead. Not surprisingly, Tim removed the booster.
Borden Action with Dwight Scott Bolt and Firing Pin Upgrade
The action is a Borden Rimrock BR dual-port. “This action is smooth, and it allows me to rip ‘em when the conditions are good. For these six targets I shot fast.” The Borden action has some interesting mods: “The firing pin and bolt body were re-worked by Dwight Scott. He has a weight of pin to power of spring he worked out with Tony Boyer. I could tell a significant difference in performance.”
For better target resolution, click the gear-shaped icon and select 480p playback.
The stock is a Shehane fiberglass ST1000 Tracker bedded by TM Stockworks (Tom Meredith). The metalwork was done by Stephen Hall of Dyersburg, Tennessee. Tim reports: “I can’t say enough about this highly-talented guy. He’s a great smith and a great point-blank benchrest shooter himself. I’ve had four chambers cut by him and couldn’t be happier”. The barrel is a 1.250″ straight contour, finished at 26″. That’s a bit shorter than you’ll find on most 600-yard rigs these days, but Tim wanted some weight off the nose so he could add weight to the butt to balance the gun better (and still make weight). Tim raves about this Bartlein barrel: “Readers should not give up on maybe that next barrel being the one barrel a guy gets in a lifetime. I have tried all the cut-rifling barrel-makers, but I’ve recently gone to Bartlein. Based on my ratio of great-shooting barrels to average barrels I am there to stay.”
Tim’s Accurate Reloading Methods Tim’s reloading procedures could rightly be described as the “relentless pursuit of perfection”. After two firings, once “the brass has settled down and conformed to the chamber”, Tim anneals his cases. He then re-anneals after EVERY subsequent firing. The brass he shot at the MSSA match had eight firings, so it had been annealed many times. Tim uses current-generation (blue box) Lapua 6mmBR brass, and he lightly turns his necks for an 0.269″-necked chamber. Tim points his bullets, but does not trim them: “These were pointed, no trimming, just point and shoot. I have shot a few of the new Berger hybrids, but I keep going back to the Berger VLDs.”
Superior accuracy, Tim believes, requires ultra-consistent neck tension. Tim uses a K&M arbor press with a force gauge. If the needle shows any notable variance in seating force, Tim will pull the round apart, run a mandrel in the neck, resize the neck, and re-seat the bullet. If the bullet still doesn’t seat smoothly, he won’t shoot the round for record. Tim is also particular about seating depth: “I measure every loaded round base to ogive using a comparator. All my match ammo is held to plus/minus .0005″ (i.e. one thousandth total spread) in base to ogive length. Yes, this is possible if you anneal regularly and monitor bullet-seating force carefully. If you can’t hold .001″ [base-to-ogive] tolerances with good bullets, that’s probably because of inconsistent neck tension.”
Secret of Success — Improved ‘Bench Manners’ and Gun Handling
Tim had a personal break-through not so long ago that improved his accuracy dramatically. Previously he got down on the gun, and would use some cheek pressure. But he noticed some erratic horizontal in his groups. Tim changed his shooting position, getting his head completely off the stock. The change worked: “After cleaning up my ‘bench manners’ and getting my head off the gun, my groups started shrinking. It was a real eye-opener.” Tim shoots with minimal hand contact (“just touching”) on the stock, and he doesn’t pin the gun to the stop. Tim explained: “I run the gun up to touch the stop before each shot, but I don’t use any shoulder pressure. I don’t push on the gun at all.”
You can learn more about Tim’s amazing six-target display of accuracy in this Forum thread. Registered Forum members can post questions about Tim’s rifle and the shooting conditions, and Tim will answer them when he has the opportunity.
* Just for comparison sake, the NBRSA official Light Gun 600-yard, 6-Target (30-shot) Agg record is 2.092″ (Robert Hoppe, 2006). The IBS official Light Gun 600-yard, 4-Target (20-shot) record is 1.6068″ (Sam Hall, 2011). The IBS does not list a LG 6-target Agg record for 600 yards.
A while back, Werner Mehl of Kurzzeit.com produced a 10-minute video for the 2010 SHOT Show. When syndicated via YouTube, this amazing video became an internet phenomenon. It has been watched over six million times! Employing cameras recording at up to 1,000,000 (one million) frames per second, Mehl’s bullet flight video has been called “astounding”, “mesmerizing”, and a “work of art.” If you haven’t seen it yet, sit back and enjoy!
LINK: Kurzzeit.com Video System and PVM-21 Chronograph
Click the link above to learn more about Werner Mehl and his super-sophisticated camera systems that can record at 1,000,000 frames per second. On the same linked page you can learn about the advanced PVM-21 chronograph designed by Werner. Operating “all-infrared, all the time”, the PVM-21 is the best chronograph we have tested for very low light conditions, or very tricky light conditions.
If you missed the first episode of Top Shot Season 4, you can still watch the full show on the History Channel’s website, History.com. This season, Top Shot ramps up the action, with more demanding challenges, and a larger arsenal of military-style rifles, including machine guns. And the eliminations are more ruthless than ever. Two contestants, both pistol champions, are sent packing in the first 15 minutes, after they fail to deliver the goods with an M1A (semi-auto version of M14 battle rifle). (This is not the first time handgun guys failed because they lacked solid rifle skills.) Over 2.2 million viewers watched the Season 4 premiere of Top Shot. Click link below to view this episode on the History Channel’s playback page. (Advert may load first — be patient.)
Larry Racine is a respected gunsmith based in New Hampshire. He is also a two-time member of the U.S. Palma Team, and a five-time New Hampshire State Highpower rifle champion. Larry, who runs LPR Gunsmithing, has developed a brilliantly simple means of switching rifle barrels with an ordinary spanner or open-end wrench. With this set-up you can switch barrels in the field in seconds without the need for a barrel vice.
Forum member Danny Reever and this Editor recently discussed how novice reloaders can struggle with the fine points of reloading, making errors in seating depth, bushing choice, or sizing their cases. We agreed that a good resource covering more than “Reloading Basics” is sorely needed. Danny reminded me that Glen Zediker’s excellent 
Last week in Ottawa, Canada’s House of Commons voted to nullify a long-gun registry law that had been in place since 1995. The bill still needs to be ratified by the Canadian Senate. However, because Conservatives hold a majority in the Senate, most experts believe the repeal of the Registry is a “done deal” as soon as the repeal legislation goes up for final vote in the Canadian Senate.
Sling Grand Agg.pdf
The rifles in the videos are both toggle-bolt 
Tim’s reloading procedures could rightly be described as the “relentless pursuit of perfection”. After two firings, once “the brass has settled down and conformed to the chamber”, Tim anneals his cases. He then re-anneals after EVERY subsequent firing. The brass he shot at the MSSA match had eight firings, so it had been annealed many times. Tim uses current-generation (blue box) Lapua 6mmBR brass, and he lightly turns his necks for an 0.269″-necked chamber. Tim points his bullets, but does not trim them: “These were pointed, no trimming, just point and shoot. I have shot a few of the new Berger hybrids, but I keep going back to the Berger VLDs.” 
