The July 8th (Wednesday night) episode of Shooting USA features the 1874 Sharps rifle, a lever-action breech-loader favored by plains buffalo hunters. Christian Sharps patented his signature rifle design in 1848. The Sharps Model 1874 was an updated version, chambered for metallic cartridges. According to firearms historian/author Garry James, the Sharps rifle “came in all sorts of different calibers from .40 all the way up to .50, and jillions of different case lengths and styles and configurations”.
Sharps rifles have enjoyed a new-found notoriety, thanks to Hollywood. Tom Selleck starred as Matthew Quigley in the hit movie Quigley Down-Under. In a famous scene (watch below), Quigley used his 1874 Sharps to hit a wooden bucket at very long range*. In this movie clip, Selleck explains the 45-110 cartridge, the rifle’s double-set trigger, and the Vernier rear sight. (45-110 refers to .45 caliber and case capacity of 110 grains of black powder).
The Sharps rifles used in the movie were made by Shiloh Rifle company (Powder River Rifle Company). There were actually three (3) Sharps rifles made for the movie. One went to the NRA’s National Firearms Museum while another was raffled off to support NRA shooting programs. The headline photo shows the third rifle, Selleck’s favorite, which the actor retained for some years until deciding to sell it. This third rifle (with spare barrel and associated items) were sold at auction in 2008.
* Based on the way the movie is edited, we figure the bucket is placed at about 800 yards. A typical speed for a horse galloping is 35 mph, and the horse ran (with rider holding bucket) for 46.5 seconds (0.775 minutes). To calculate yardage, divide 35 by 60 to get miles per minute, times 0.775 for distance traveled over time. Then multiply by 1760, the number of yards in a mile. That gives us 795.66 yards.
In our Forum recently, there was a discussion about “improved” cartridges based on the .243 Winchester parent case. One popular such cartridge is the Super LR, a 30° long-necked wildcat. The 6mm Super LR was developed by Robert Whitley, who wanted something similar to the 6XC, but with “more boiler room” to push the 115-grain bullets comfortably at 2950-3050 fps.
To illustrate the Super LR for interested readers, we dug into our archives and found a report on a 6mm Super LR varmint rifle belonging to Barry O. (aka “TheBlueEyedBear”), a long-time AccurateShooter Forum member. A few years back, Barry put together an impressive 6mm Super LR long-range varminter on a BAT SV action. Barry actually sourced many of the components for this rifle through our AccurateShooter Forum Free Classifieds. CLICK HERE to read all about Barry’s Super LR BAT-Actioned varmint rifle, featured in our popular Gun of the Week Series.
CLICK Photo to Read Full Story
The Richard Franklin walnut LowRider stock (above) for Barry’s rifle came from fellow Forum member “Preacher”, who also did most of the metal work. The gun is chambered as a 6mm Super LR.
6mm Super LR Cartridge Design and Loading Advice by Robert Whitley, AR-X Enterprises
Conceptually, the 6mm Super LR is like a long-bodied 6XC (case body about .120″ longer). The Super LR has a long neck (.321″ vs. the .263″ long neck of the parent .243 Winchester case). The Super LR also has a 30° shoulder angle vs. the 20° shoulder angle of the .243 Winchester parent case. The Super LR has about 54 grains of H20 capacity, compared to 55 grains for the .243 Win and 49 grains H20 for the 6XC.
The Super LR has sufficient case capacity to shoot the 115gr 6mm bullets in the 2950 – 3000 fps range without being “on the edge” of maximum pressure. If you do not need to run sustained fire in long strings, you can “hot rod” things more. Testing has shown that the Super LR can run the 115s up around 3100 fps without issues. With the 105-108 grain 6mm bullets, the 6mm Super LR can push them up in the 3150-3200 fps range with the right powders. In addition, if you like to shoot the 105-108 grain bullets close to the lands, or engaging the lands, the Super LR cartridge case neck is long enough to give most of them a good bearing surface purchase, even if the chamber is throated for the 115gr bullets. That gives the 6mm Super LR cartridge great versatility.
The 30° shoulder angle of the 6mm Super LR is another good feature of the Super LR. Not only does it help to avoid the throat-torching effect that people associate with the .243 Winchester (because of the .243’s short neck and 20° shoulder angle), but the 30° shoulder angle has also been a hallmark of some very accurate cartridges such as the 6 PPC, 6mm BR, 6XC, and 6.5 x 47, to name a few.
The 6mm Super LR wildcat is easy to make. Robert Whitley figured out how to reform domestic .243 Win brass with one simple pass through a Redding 6mm Super LR full-length sizing die. Robert has commissioned these dies from Redding. Call Robert at (215) 348-8789 to order.Learn more about the 6mm Super LR on Whitley’s www.6mmAR.com website.
Benchrest shooter Ronnie Smith had the folks at S&S Precision craft a barrel block benchrest gun with a McMillan 50 LBR stock. While the metal work (and block installation) is impressive, the rig’s jaw-dropping feature is an amazing paint job applied by artist David Tidwell of Dallas Airbrush. Ronnie wanted a stock that didn’t look like anything else you’ve ever seen. Working from Ronnie’s concept of a junkyard-sourced rifle, Tidwell created a masterpiece of airbrushing. The finished stock looks like it was hammered from old beat-up metal, complete with dents, grind marks, hollows, Bondo, and wire-mesh patches. Watch the video below to see how this amazing paint job was applied, from start to finish. (Definitely worth watching!)
If you have a stock you’d like painted by David Tidwell, visit DallasAirbrush.com, call 214-529-4410 or email: david [at] dallasairbrush.com. Dallas Airbrush currently sprays out of Texas Body Works, 2415 Midway Rd Suite 111, Plano, TX 75025.
Shown above are bolts with TAC-6 Fluting and two-tone Vortex knobs. The fluting and knob installation are two different operations, priced separately.
Paul Fakenbridge of Pro Precision Rifles (PPR) is running a “Group Buy” promotion for AccurateShooter.com readers. For the next month, you can enjoy significant savings on a bolt-fluting job OR on the installation of a custom bolt knob. For Rem 700 bolts, the fluting is now $55 ($30 off), while a new custom PPR knob, installed, is $65 ($30 off). (NOTE: Knob installation does NOT include bolt fluting, and vice-versa.) Paul does excellent work, with a wide variety of fluting options. All fluting is done on a Haas TM1 with four-axis capability. Here is how the Group Buy, a limited-time offer, works:
For this Group Buy, PPR offers Bolt Fluting at $55.00 total (with $5.00/bolt going to AccurateShooter.com to help support the site.) The regular price for fluting Remington bolts was $85.00 so you save thirty bucks. You can choose from a variety of fluting styles for Remington bolts. While Group Buy terms apply to Rem bolts, ask about Savage and Tikka bolts — PPR has some options for them as well.
For this Group Buy, PPR offers a new bolt knob, installed, at $65.00 with $5.00 going to AccurateShooter.com. The $65.00 includeds the price of the new knob. The regular price was $95.00 including knob. Again, you save $30 with this Group Buy.
You never want your barrel to get too hot. Accuracy suffers when barrels over-heat, and excessive heat is not good for barrel life. So how do you monitor your barrel’s temperature? You can check if the barrel is “warm to the touch” — but that method is not particularly precise. There is a better way — using temperature-sensitive strips. McMaster.com (a large industrial supply house) offers stick-on temp strips with values from 86° F to 140° F. A pack of ten (10) of these strips (item 59535K13) costs $10.71. So figure it’ll cost you about a buck per barrel for strips. That’s cheap insurance for your precious barrels.
With barrels, one wonders “Can a little more length provide a meaningful velocity gain?” To answer that question, Rifleshooter.com performed an interesting test, cutting a .308 Win barrel from 28″ all the way down to 16.5″. The cuts were made in one-inch intervals with a rotary saw. At each cut length, velocity was measured with a Magnetospeed chronograph. To make the test even more interesting, four different types of .308 Win factory ammunition were chronographed at each barrel length.
Test Barrel Lost 22.7 FPS Per Inch (.308 Win Chambering)
How much velocity do you think was lost, on average, for each 1″ reduction in barrel length? The answer may surprise you. With a barrel reduction from 28″ to 16.5″, the average speed loss of the four types of .308 ammo was 261 fps total. That works out to an average loss of 22.7 fps per inch. This chart shows velocity changes for all four ammo varieties:
Summary of Findings: The average velocity loss per inch, for all four ammo types combined, was 22.7 FPS. By ammo type, the average loss per inch was: 24.6 (Win 147 FMJ), 22.8 (IMI 150 FMJ), 20.9 (Fed GMM 168gr), and 22.5 (Win 180PP).
Interestingly, these numbers jive pretty well with estimates found in reloading manuals. The testers observed: “The Berger Reloading manual says for the 308 Winchester, ‘muzzle velocity will increase (or decrease) by approximately 20 fps per inch from a standard 24″ barrel’.”
How the Test Was Done
The testers described their procedure as follows: “Ballistic data was gathered using a Magnetospeed barrel mounted ballistic chronograph. At each barrel length, the rifle was fired from a front rest with rear bags, with five rounds of each type of ammunition. Average velocity and standard deviation were logged for each round. Since we would be gathering data on 52 different barrel length and ammunition combinations and would not be crowning the barrel after each cut, we decided to eliminate gathering data on group sizes. Once data was gathered for each cartridge at a given barrel length, the rifle was cleared and the bolt was removed. The barrel was cut off using a cold saw. The test protocol was repeated for the next length. Temperature was 47° F.”
CLICK HERE to Read the Rifleshooter.com Test. This includes detailed charts with inch-by-inch velocity numbers, multiple line charts, and complete data sets for each type of ammo. Rifleshooter.com also offers ballistics graphs showing trajectories with different barrel lengths. All in all, this was a very thorough test by the folks at RifleShooter.com.
Much Different Results with 6mmBR and a Longer Barrel
The results from Rifleshooter.com’s .308 barrel cut-down test are quite different than the results we recorded some years ago with a barrel chambered for the 6mmBR cartridge. When we cut our 6mmBR barrel down from 33″ to 28″, we only lost about 8 FPS per inch. Obviously this is a different cartridge type, but also our 6mmBR barrel end length was 5″ longer than Rifleshooter.com’s .308 Win start length. Velocity loss can be more extreme with shorter barrel lengths (and bigger cartridges). Powder burn rates can also make a difference.
Our friend Darrell Buell has a new Beast — a monster 64-inch-long .375 CheyTac that weighs more than 70 pounds! Designed for ultra-long-range shooting (two miles and beyond), this beast represents the state-of-the-art in extreme long-range rifles.
Darrell reports: “This rifle is pretty much purpose-built to shoot 2+ miles extremely accurately. It is a .375 CheyTac (lengthened) built on a BAT 2.5″ action. The custom 35″, 1:10″-twist Brux barrel is a fat, 2″-diameter ‘straight taper’ with fluting. A custom 5″-long muzzle brake is fitted at the end. All barreled action work was done by R.W. Snyder Custom Rifles. The stock was created to fit the build by PDC Custom, and the massive muzzle brake as well.” The “bridge” at the end may look like a barrel block, but it’s not — the barrel completely free-floats. (The Picatinny rail on top of the bridge allows use of an overhanging bipod as an alternative to the JoyPod).
Darrell has lots of elevation on tap: “With 150 MOA in the Ivey rings, another 20 MOA in the scope rail, 55 MOA in the Nightforce Competition scope, and 10 MOA in the FCR-1 reticle, there’s an impressive +235 MOA available.”
Machinist/gunsmith Paul Fakenbridge (aka “Boltfluter” on our Shooters’ Forum) recently completed an interesting upgrade to his favorite 22BR varmint rig. This rifle, Paul’s “Rock Chuck Killing Machine”, was originally fitted with an HS Precision fiberglass stock. Now Paul’s 22 BR sports new hardware — a sleek new Eberlestock M2 Cobra Chassis in “Dry Earth” color. The $995.00 M2 Cobra is a one-piece metal stock system that mounts a Rem-700 type action in a V-block. The cheekpad height and LOP are adjustable via spacers. The M2 Cobra uses AICS-type mags and can fit Picatinny rails on the side.
In our Shooters’ Forum, one member recently asked: “What makes an AR accurate? What parts on an AR can really affect accuracy — such as free-floating handguards, barrels, bolts, bolt carriers?” He wanted an honest, well-informed answer, not just sales pitches. Robert Whitley posted a very comprehensive answer to this question, based on his experience building and testing dozens of AR-platform rifles. Robert runs AR-X Enterprises, which produces match-grade uppers for High Power competitors, tactical shooters, and varminters.
Building an Accurate AR — What is Most Important
by Robert Whitley
There are a lot of things that can be done to an AR to enhance consistent accuracy, and I use the words “consistent accuracy” because consistency is a part of it (i.e. plenty of guns will give a couple great 5-shot groups, but won’t do a very good 10- or 20-shot groups, and some guns will shoot great one day and not so good on others).
Here are 14 key things we think are important to accuracy.
1. Great Barrel: You’ll want a premium match-grade barrel, well-machined with a good crown and a match-type chambering, true to the bore and well cut. The extension threads must also be cut true to the bore, with everything true and in proper alignment.
2. Rigid Upper: A rigid, heavy-walled upper receiver aids accuracy. The typical AR upper receiver was made for a lightweight carry rifle and they stripped all the metal they could off it to make it light to carry (which is advantageous for the military). The net result are upper receivers that are so thin you can flex them with your bare hands. These flexible uppers are “strong enough” for general use, but they are not ideal for accuracy. Accuracy improves with a more rigid upper receiver.
Brownells’ Do-It-Yourself (DIY) video series provides logical, step-by-step installation help for triggers, stocks, and springs. Nine separate videos cover Brownells various DIY Kits. Not sure if you’re up to the project? Just watch each video to see what’s involved. The nine DIY kits are:
