Sunday Gunday: Katy’s 6mmBR for Varmint Silhouette Matches

While there are many very, very talented women shooters, it’s still a bit unusual to see many ladies on a long-range firing line. It’s even more unusual to find a women shooter who regularly beats all the “good ol’ boys”. This week we feature Katy from California, who has competed in Varmint Silhouette matches with a very stylish and accurate Stolle 6BR. Along with husband/spotter Don (who shoots a 6mm Dasher), she has been one of “Top Guns” at the popular Pala Shooting Range in North San Diego County. Here’s a view of the Pala facility, looking down-range at the rows of silhouette targets:

Pala — A Mecca for Southern California Shooters
Near the Indian Casino and Resort in Pala, California is one of the longest rifle ranges in the state. Pala hosts a wide variety of shooting matches — cowboy action, lever action silhouette, black powder silhouette, hi-power silhouette, tactical pistol and rifle matches, to name a few. The black powder buffalo and tactical rifle matches use the longest range with 900-meter targets. Katy and her husband Don have competed in Varmint Rifle Silhouette matches, which were held monthly in years past. Range Info: Range.palatribe.com.

Katy tell us: “These Varmint Silhouette matches are a lot of fun! It’s very satisfying to see the little critters fly off the rail. A good spotter will note how the target flies when hit–‘Did it turn right or left? Did it lift up or fall back?’ Steel targets reveal more about real world ballistics than just a hole in a piece of paper. And nothing beats reactive targets for fun shooting.”

For Katy and Don, shooting is a family affair: “I started shooting the varmint rifle silhouette at the encouragement of husband Don. He bought/built himself a 6mmBR to shoot the varmint rifle match and re-barreled an old Hart-sleeved Remington 700 to fast-twist .223 for me to use. I did pretty well for a beginner, winning a match after just a few months of competition. Winning with that .223 had competitors scratching their heads. Frankly, it was just a fortuitous combination of great spotter, steady hold, and a good rifle. That .223 was certainly a very accurate piece. I always expected the bullet would hit right where the rifle was aimed, if we called the wind right. But like all good things, with time the .223’s accuracy began to fade. As the barrel finally gave up the ghost, a replacement was ready–a bright red Panda bear chambered in 6mm BR.

Beating the Guys at their Own Game
With my old .223, I won five varmint matches between December 2000 and April 2002. I also won my class (Master) in June, 2001. However, with the 6BR Panda, I shoot higher scores and have now had four match wins between May, 2003 and August 2004. And I won my class twice in 2003. Over time, as our competitors’ skills and firearms have improved, the criteria for shooter classification has been upgraded. Originally, one could miss 10% of the animals and qualify as a “Master” shooter. A few years ago, the criteria was tightened to 5% misses to earn “Master” status. This 6mmBR has kept me up in Master class.

I’ve done well enough with my little Red Panda that folks have been asking me about my shooting technique. Both Don and I shoot free recoil. We keep everything off the rifle except the trigger finger and thumb. Keep your shoulder back from the butt, and make sure your cheek doesn’t contact the stock and that your shooting cap doesn’t hit the scope. Fine-tune your elevation by squeezing on the rear bag. I use a front rest forearm stop to keep the rifle in the same place on the front rest. After firing, pushing the rifle back against the front stop usually verifies rifle tracking and allows a quick check of how far off the sighter shot’s impact was from point of aim.”

Katy’s 6BR — Technical Primer by Hubby and “Loadmaster” Don

Way back in 1990 a Precision Shooting magazine “Trading Post” advertisement offered a low-mileage, Panda-actioned .262″ neck, 6mm BR rifle and all the reloading accouterments. This light-varmint class rifle was built in the mid-1980’s around an unusual round Panda action with straight-fluted bolt. As configured, the gun had performed very well indeed–shooting many groups in the zeros. The action is glued into a Lee Six thumbhole BR stock and uses externally accessible pins to hang the 3 oz. trigger. The scope is an older 36X Leupold BR model, held by Kelbly rings on a Davidson base. The original barrel was a 4-groove, 14-twist, apparently made by Pat McMillan. A hand-written information tag taped to the underside of the barrel was discovered upon its removal, and indicates the barrel was fitted by JACO, April 1986. Anyone know who that is?

The 14-twist barrel could not stabilize any bullets greater than about 80 grains. It would keep an 80-grain Starke inside 0.4″ at 200m with a velocity of 3120 fps using 31.8 grains of Varget. However, the 80-grain bullets were blown all over by the winds out to 500 meters.

Past success with Pac-Nor pre-fit barrels inspired me to order a 28″, 4-groove, 8.6″-twist barrel chambered with their .262” neck 6mm BR reamer. Pac-Nor crowned and chambered the barrel; and, in this case, threaded it to fit a Panda action. After we installed the barrel on the action, we found that the bolt nose touched the conical barrel breech face. 0.010” needed to be removed from the cone face so that the bolt closed with a perfect fit. Headspace is now just right at 1.167″.

Load Development
My experience with a couple of other fast-twist 6BRs, one also chambered with Pac-Nor’s .262″ reamer, suggested that the 95gr Berger VLDs would work well the estimated 0.060″ freebore in Katy’s rifle. The goal was to get 2800-2900 fps velocity with inherent accuracy no worse than half the smallest silhouette size. That meant we needed a load that delivered repeatable 0.4 MOA accuracy or better.

A new batch of Lapua 6mm Norma BR brass was neck-turned to 0.0083″ wall thickness to fit the chamber and fire-formed during barrel break-in, following Pac-Nor’s guidelines. We tried a bunch of different moly-coated bullets at 200 meters, most with moderate charges of H322. The results of the bullet-testing ranged from poor (over an inch) to astonishing (68-grain, flat-base Eubers over 29.7 grains of H322 went into about .25″ at 200 meters!) But these flat-based bullets lacked the high ballistic coefficient we wanted for the varmint silhouette match. So we tried the 95-grain VLD Bergers (0.5+ BC) and produced several good loads, all sparked by Federal 205m primers. The best load seemed to be 28.2 grains H322 at 2860 fps, followed by 30.4 grains N135 at 2920fps, and 31.0 grains of Varget at 2890 fps.

All loads shot better than 0.4 MOA, but the H322 seemed a little more accurate, and about twice as much H322 was on hand. So, after about 120 shots the barrel was conditioned, brass formed and a match load selected for the 95 VLD Bergers. Bullets are seated about 0.010″ into the rifling for a typical cartridge LOA of 2.325”, which puts the heel of the 95 VLD boat-tail just below the case neck-shoulder line. Cases are sized with a Wilson neck bushing die that works only the upper 2/3 of the case neck to support the bearing surface of the seated bullet.

Varmint Silhouette–Origins and Basics
Over a decade ago, a metallic silhouette match was devised for typical varmint rifles at the North County Shootist Association range near the hamlet of Pala, in north San Diego County, California. The course of fire used the conventional rifle silhouette range with banks of 10 special varmint targets sized 0.8 to 1.0 MOA (Minute of Angle) in width. At five different yardages, ten steel “critter” targets are set as follows: 200 Meters – Field Mice (“pikas”); 300 meters – Crows; 385 meters – Ground Squirrels; 500 meters – Jack Rabbits; 600 yards – Prairie Dogs. The folks at Pala run a tight ship, cycling multiple relays efficiently, so everybody gets to shoot 50 targets (10 each at five different yardages), and the show is usually completed by 1:00 pm. There’s a one-hour sight-in period starting at 8:00 am, and the match starts at 9:00 am sharp. Newcomers should definitely arrive no later than 7:45 am, because you may need that full sight-in period to acquire solid zeros at all five yardages.

Firearms are limited to field-portable, varmint-caliber rifles in either custom or factory class, and having a maximum 6.5mm bore, but bullets must weigh no more than 107 grains. You can shoot prone or from a bench using a front rest and bag rear. For more information, visit Range.palatribe.com.

Match Rules and Shooting Procedures
Matches are fired as a team — shooter and spotter. The course of fire typically consists of 10 steel, knock-down varmint animal targets at each of the five distances. After firing a sighter, targets are taken from left to right, one shot per target. Missed targets remain standing. Any target struck out of sequence is also a “miss”. The shooter’s objective is to sequentially knock-off (clean) all 10 targets. The spotter’s duties are to support the shooter in all aspects of shot preparation. First and foremost, the spotter tries to see each shot impact and call appropriate windage and elevation adjustments for the shooter. In shifty conditions, a good spotter is vital.

Let’s start at the beginning. Before the match there is usually an opportunity to fire a few fouling shots and check sight settings for load and distance. An initial read on conditions–mostly wind direction, strength and consistency–is also made. The spotter should checklist the shooter to make sure they are set up for the relay distance and have adjusted their sights to the correct elevation and windage.

It could be argued that for the shooter, the first shot at a given distance, the sighter shot, is the most important shot fired. Since the sighter targets are fixed (don’t fall over) and freshly painted, bullet impact is obvious to both shooter and spotter. If the bullet hits where expected–point of aim–the spotter then tracks and calls observed changes (mostly wind) relative to the shooter’s initial scope settings. If point of impact shifts on subsequent record targets or the shooter misses, appropriate sight adjustments are recommended to the shooter. Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult or impossible to see the point of impact on these small, reactive targets. However, an estimate of bullet strike can be made from target behavior such as rotation and/or impact trajectory.

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