'Blunderbuss' Blog

Metallic Silhouette Shooting, Reloading Bench, Ammunition, Firearms Maintenance & Marksmanship Techniques

Category Archives: The Book Shelf

Centre X My New .22lr Ammo

Centre X Out To Impress

Earlier this year I had my .22lr Anschütz 1710 batch tested for Lapua’s Centre X as an alternative to shooting with Eley Match & Tenex due to costs and availability.

Today was my first chance to shoot out to 100 yards from a bench rest and after a few sighter shots and adjustments to windage and elevation I began to drop in a few tidy cloverleaf 3 & 5 shot groups. Although not all groups were tight masterpieces, this is something I will mark down as my lack of experience in the discipline of rimfire benchrest skills. I know my little ‘Annie’ is much more accurate than I am.

Now that I have witnessed how the new Centre X performs on paper at 100 yards I will be excited to get back to knocking down a few Rams once our range is fully functional ‘but that may not be for a few months yet’.

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Permanent link to this post (161 words, 1 image, estimated 39 secs reading time)

Lapua .22lr Electronic Batch Testing

Lapua .22lr Electronic Batch Testing At Dungannon Rifle Club

On March 24th at Dungannon Rifle Club, I had my Anschutz 1710 tested by one of the ammunition testing staff from the German Lapua factory. Andre from Lapua had around 17 batches of Lapua Centre X available to see if he could pin point a specific batch that suited my barrel. With a 50 Metre protected tunnel in place, ‘constructed from timber and plastic sheeting’ the results of each shot would be as accurate as they could be with no interference from the wind. Firstly my rifle with stock attached was clamped into a heavy duty vice and the rifle details were entered into the Meyton Electronic GmbH software program that also measured the bullet groups as they were shot and tested. Each 10 shot group was recorded and with a visual diagram and accurate reading it was easy to distinguish which batch of ammunition gave the better group. With the synthetic stock attached and clamped it looked like results were somewhat inconclusive ‘although one batch did show signs of grouping well’ as the stock continued to vibrate in the vice. Due to the stock being synthetic it could not be clamped to its tightest tolerance or it would either crack or become squeezed too tight against the barrel and that would affect the free floating setup of the barrel and stock.

This is a preview of Lapua .22lr Electronic Batch Testing. Read the full post (422 words, 2 images, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

New Season, New Brass

New Season New Brass

With a new shooting season beginning I decided to spend a couple of hours during the weekend preparing some once fired brass for my 6.5×55.

The first step in my brass preparation was to anneal all the case necks. A demonstration on how this was done can be found here. Once annealed and dried off I Neck Sized and Deprimed the cases before dropping them into my case tumbler for a few hours to brighten them up. Three hours later and a few mugs of tea drunk my cases were clean and ready for their next step. The final six stages of case preparation involved cleaning the primer pocket, deburring the flash hole, squaring of the primer pocket, ensuring the case length was not exceeding the recommended published limit and finally chamfering and deburring the case mouth for bullet seating. I now have an additional 35 Lapua 6.5×55 ‘Once Fired Cases’ ready for reloading.

This is a preview of New Season, New Brass. Read the full post (204 words, 5 images, estimated 49 secs reading time)

16 Seconds To Anneal One Case

Time To Anneal

During the Christmas holidays I decided I would put my annealing workstation to good use and anneal the 60+ cases that I was gifted a few months back.  After the initial setup to ensure the case neck was alligned properly and a test case run through the flame, I got the annealing process underway.

It took approximately 16 seconds per case for the 6.5×55 to anneal before I dumped the case into a pan of cold water.  In 25 minutes I had completed the annealing process and now I had to find a method to dry the brass without applying any additional extreme heat to the case.

This is a preview of 16 Seconds To Anneal One Case. Read the full post (211 words, 1 image, estimated 51 secs reading time)

Dry Firing – Something We Should Do More Often

Dry Firing Is Just As Important As Live Firing For Improvement

Recently I was reading an online article in Rifle Shooter Magazine that “David Tubb a High Power Rifle Champion in the USA” had contributed towards, where he talks about Dry Firing and how important it is as part of any training or changes you make in your shooting. 

I know many of us do Dry Fire at home or at the range but I thought that I would post this article for the readership that may not be aware of the benefits of Dry Firing.

This is a preview of Dry Firing – Something We Should Do More Often. Read the full post (338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)