First Impression: The CMP’s new Creedmoor Sports .30-06 Ammunition

The CMP Western Games held each October at Ben Avery Range in Phoenix, Arizona is one of the must go gatherings of the shooting family that is well worth making the time to attend.   World champions shoot side by side with first timers renewing old friendships and making new ones.  People fly in from other continents to enjoy some of the best as-issued rifle shooting to be had anywhere.

And so it was that Dennis DeMille shot the best score with an M1903A3 Springfield.  At the 2014 Western Games, this honor came with a prize.  One 50-round box of brand new .30-06 match ammunition donated by Creedmoor Sports.  Awkward hilarity ensued given the Mr. DeMille also happens to be the general manager of the donor.  But heckling among one’s friends is what shooting is all about and Dennis took the moment well.  What he did next is why this article is being written.  Dennis sat down looked around, saw me and handed me the box and said, “Shoot it and write about it”.

Creedmoor Sports general manager Dennis DeMille shoots the daily high score with an M1903A3 Springfield and receives a free box of new CMP .30-06 ammo donated by Creedmoor Sports from Gary Anderson.

Even before firing it, to say the ammunition is impressive is an understatement.  It is part of a contract given to Creedmoor Sports to manufacture 3 million rounds of ammunition to be sold by the U.S. Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP), the advertisements will begin appearing in the shooting magazines shortly.   The components are impressive.  It starts with brand new Lapua .30-06 brass tipped with 167 grain Lapua Scenars at 2,720 feet per seconds clearly optimized for the 200-yard CMP Games tournaments.   A discussion with Dennis DeMille revealed some of the attention to detail in assembly.  The industrial loader is run at half-speed to improve consistency.   Charges are thrown precisely I believe in two half charges.  You can see the impression ring of a competition seater die on the bullets so know the concentricity is good.  When you hold the ammunition up to the light they are perfect clones of each other; something that cannot be said for some other factory ammo even match ammo.  This is about a close as one is likely to get to a precision hand load.   Dennis says Creedmoor will also be producing similar ammunition in other chamberings.

The actual box of ammo Dennis DeMille handed to me in Phoenix.

The economics of the ammunition are equally intriguing.  CMP sold it for $1.15 per round at the Western Games and I’m told that it will sell for $1.30 per round.  Think about that one.  Consider that .30-06 Lapua brass sells for around $100.00 per hundred and a Lapua Scener bullet cost $0.38 to $0.40 per bullet.  You get to fire a precision match round and have once fired premier brass to carry on.  That says CMP isn’t about making money on this.  It’s about living up to their mission to promote rifle practice.

Onto performance.  When someone hands you a box of ammo with a challenge how can you not throw all your match plans out the door and play?  I was planning to fire the CMP GSM match with my M-1 Garand the next day using 150 gr. SMK handloads but I said, “What the heck.  Let’s go for it.”   You get five sighters in a GSM match which is plenty to zero anything and, after all, Western Games is like rendezvous.  It’s a come as you are muster and fight party.

My trusty 1950's Anniston Armory refurbished five digit receiver DCM M-1 Garand delivered to me by the mailman in the 1980's.  It took a lot more work to fill out your little NRA temporary score book to qualify for a rifle back then.

I shoot the M-1 Garand match with a rebuilt five digit receiver gun with a 1950’s barrel refurbished at Anniston Armory that I got from the DCM back in the day when the postman delivered them.  It shoots true and has garnered its share of Western Games trinkets over the years including a number of golds and one of those coveted M-1 EIC 4 points medals.  It’s a good platform for the test.  Sighters revealed the Creedmoor ammo shoots about two minutes higher impact versus my pet load.  The tale of the tape said 96-2X slow prone, 93-1X rapid prone and 81-1X offhand totaling 270-4X.  The DCM machine took home a bronze in 2014.

What was the most important thing I learned?   This Creedmoor ammo is indeed amazingly consistent.  The slow prone stage was a pure joy to shoot.  I promised DeMille that I would say what, if anything, I did not like about this ammo so here goes.  This ammunition is “brutally honest”.  It will reveal every little error you make be it de-focusing on your front sight drenching in sweat under the Phoenix sun, not being fast enough to reset your NPA mid-string in your rapid as the big gun moves you around or just being jittery on your feet during the back half of your offhand.  But here’s the thing, with this ammo I felt confident to trust that the error was mine after each shot.  There was no wondering if I should fire a second one to confirm my analysis.   I knew its feedback was accurate and that I should make the change my brain was telling me to right now before sending the next one.  That is a huge thing to be that confident in one’s gun and ammunition.  I never felt that confident with HXP or even some of my handloads. If anything, I now know that even my ammo for the M-1 and M1903A3 will benefit from the same careful case preparation and assembly as my tactical rifle or long range ammo.

The CMP went on to hand out many more boxes of this ammo to the high scorers and a “must be present to win” raffle during the Western Games so more people would do the same first impression test I did.  They are making a commitment to taking these games matches to ever higher levels and are investing in making it possible for non-reloading competitors to have the same quality of custom ammunition as their more demented knuckle dragging high-power competitor cousins.  It is a major improvement to where I think future cut scores for CMP Games achievement awards are headed shooting these vintage as-issued firearms.  A real equalizer if you think about it.  The CMP and Creedmoor Sports are to be commended for collaborating on this game changing move.

Update:  I got a note from Dennis - the other one - that Creedmoor has begun delivering precision loaded .308 Winchester ammunition using Lake-City cases and 168 gr. Sierra Match Kings to the CMP.  My guess is the brass came from Dick Whiting's reprocessing operation in West Virginia. DeMille also said delivery of precision .223 will begin in early 2015.

Guns in America: Why I Think it's Time for California to Stop Fighting Peruta vs. San Diego

Also published on the Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-santiago/guns-in-america-why-i-thi_b_5628403.html

On Thursday, July 24, 2014, Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr. issued a Summary Judgment Order affirming that the 2nd Amendment confers a right to "bear arms" outside the home.   The order was nothing short of devastating to the District of Columbia which has been resisting and delaying compliance with legal decisions on this issue for many years.   The order was plain.  The government and police of the District of Columbia were told to cease and desist from enforcing all laws regarding carrying weapons until such time that an acceptable and constitutionally compliant set of laws providing for the carrying of weapons outside the home for D.C. residents and non-residents are put into place.   That's a hammer blow in magnitude rarely seen and it's a wake-up call to other jurisdictions resisting similar decisions on other parts of the country.

There is little doubt that D.C. was hit particularly hard in this instance because they've been so hard headed.  What is interesting if one reads the decision is how much Judge Scullin references another case on the other side of the country as part of the legal argument underpinning the judgment.  This case is Peruta vs. San Diego where the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also handed down a decision saying that arbitrary government laws that deny citizens access to constitutional rights does not fly.  That decision also stands today but remains stayed because of legal maneuvering by the office of the Attorney General of California  - who was not a party to the original case - requesting a legal second opinion from the federal courts and advising all counties and cities not to comply with the 9th Circuit's legal order.  It's an ode to the desires of urban California gun control advocates crying for the power of local control to abrogate Constitutional rights.   That's a hope given this D.C. decision that grows ever dimmer by the moment.  American citizens have inalienable rights and the courts clearly are establishing a pattern of constraining "local" governments from trampling on them.

So here's the strategic dilemma I believe Kamala Harris faces this week.  Does the Attorney General wish to continue down the path of resisting what looks more and more inevitable?   Is it in the best interest of California to possibly be the source of a future "hammer blow" decision that will affect not just this state but all of the other states in the 9th District?  That probably won't fly too well with the other Governors or the citizens of those states.

I respectfully suggest that Attorney General Harris begin the process of counseling the "D.C. like" jurisdictions of California to start to adapt to the court order issued by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Peruta case.   Adaptations will need to be made.  Licensing systems need to be updated.   Training and skills requirements need to be standardized.  Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) for dealing with a more broadly armed populace need to be updated particularly in those "local" jurisdictions that are the most resistive.   Public awareness and nervousness about firearms need to be dealt with some sort of operationally constructive - as opposed to fearful - educational campaign.  And all of this needs to be done in a fashion much more organized than waking up on a Saturday morning to the news that you've just gotten a whammy of a court order to cease enforcing laws on your books until you get back in line.  Because, you know what, it just happened.

This isn't a bad thing.  I've written blog posts in the past pondering the puts and takes of "Stand Your Ground" and exploring alternative means of managing down gun violence based on improving the partnership environment between government and gun owners.  The bottom line is that there are many ways to managing crime, accidents and other aspect of this issue that do not revolve around blanket bans on firearms and the diminishment of firearms skills in the general population into historical footnotes.  It certainly never worked in the District of Columbia and it's been working even less well in places like Chicago; another place that is resisting a federal court order and likely working its way one of its own hammer blow moments.

So I've been pondering how to explain this in everyday language all weekend.  What's the message here?  What are these court decisions actually saying to America?  And I came up with this,

"Mom you can't nanny your children forever.  You can't demand that they stay babies.  Somewhere along the way it's time to let Americans grow up and deal with the risks of the real world with all of the tools they need and the demands to be responsible that go along with them.  Do not fret.  They will make you proud of them, these Americans, if you just let them."

This article was on Yahoo's main page link list later in the day on July 29, 014.
 

A rare appearance.

Zeroing the "Snake Gun"

Eliseo R1 single-shot rifle.  Rem 700 long action core.  Bartlein Palma contour barrel in .284 Winchester match.  Jewell trigger set to 1 pound.

After scrounging parts for a year, my Gary Eliseo Competition Shooting Stuff R1 .284 Winchester long range rifle finally came together. It picked up the nickname "The Snake Gun" because of the water transfer finish that was applied to the rifle to make it look a little different from all the other tube guns that show up on competitive firing lines. Apparently, the look was interesting enough that friend Paul McMenamin thought it worthy of mention in a Daily Bulletin in his highly acclaimed website accurateshooter.com.

Doing that German Salazar measuring thing.

So next comes the measuring to get the rifle set up to my body dimensions.  Luckily, I've been shooting another Eliseo chassis gun for sometime.  That one is an RTS repeater model in .308 set up for precision tactical rifle competition.  So set up was mostly replicating positioning for the various adjustment points of the stock.

Eliseo RTS in .308 Winchester set up as a tactical precision competition rifle.  This gun loves 175 gr. Sierra Match Kings loaded to replicate U.S. M118-LR.  The scope is a U.S. Optics 3-17X.

It's good when your match guns resemble each other.

The R1 sports a Sightron SIII 6-24X FFP with an MOA-2 reticle.

Next comes ammunition and once again it's measuring by inserting gauges to figure out chamber and throat depths.

An old Stoney Point gauge is used to measure distance to the lands.

Eventually after learning the ins and outs of using a mandrel die to expand case necks from 6.5mm to 7mm and using a sizer die bullet stem button to remove donut rings in case necks, one winds up with match chamber dimensioned .284 Winchester rounds ready for fire forming.

.284 Winchester that started out as 6.5-284 Lapua cases necked up to 7mm with a Sinclair mandrel die.  These bullets are Nosler 168 gr. Custom Competitions loaded on top of 53.5 gr. of IMR 4831 and seated to 15/1000th's jump.  

Live fire time has finally arrived!  So it's off to the range.

Barrel break in day at the range.  The ammo box says this photo is before round 1 was fired.

Barrel break in happens first.  Five shots meticulously cleaned between shots to remove any lingering machining residue from the barrel. Then a sight in string at the 200 yard bullseye using the Sightron SIII optic. Ok that's done.  Now to check the rifle's inherent accuracy with a fresh NRA SR center at 200 yards.

First group. The word "delighted" understates the elation of the moment.

These were literally the 11th to 20th rounds fired out of the gun's barrel. Wowza!  Zero out those turrets and have a look-see through a collimator to record settings.

I selected this scope over U.S. Optics. Nightforce and several others.  The turrets have a reputation for repeatability and the MOA-2 reticle is clutter free in the center where you need to be able to see and pick your hold off for the wind.

Next comes a period of examining and measuring spent cases to make sure the custom cut chamber is good to go.

This is what goes in the "Handy Dandy" notebook.

All is well.  Indeed, very well.  The main body of the case hardly changed dimensions during fire forming and the case neck expanded minimally. That is remarkably cool.

More ammo loaded and back to the range to send bullets over a chronograph.  The Nosler 168 CC's are coming out at 2,840 fps.  Plug the numbers into a ballistic calculator.  That's enough for these HPBT's to stay supersonic out to 1,500 yards.  Shoot and check come ups by dialing the scope turrets and firing at steel plates up to 1,000 meters away.. All is well. That took 20 shots. Twenty? Ok, I  indulged in some gratuitous plinking at the steel using hold overs by eye as part of it.  Just had to.  These are amazingly good numbers.

Now to the iron sights.  First place the rear one.

Phoenix Precision top-mount rear sight.  It's a work of art.

Then the front.  Both are Phoenix Precision units with Gehman irises. The rear also has an AOS MicroSight in it.

Phoenix Precision tall front sight.

This is where one is once again reminded one is shooting a match rifle and not a service rifle. The adjustments are intricate. Moving the sight forward so it doesn't hit your face or scratch your glasses for one thing.  It gets sorted out bit by bit.

Moved forward to keep the aperture from gouging my shooting glasses.

Amazingly even with all that movement the gun still mostly hovers in the 10 ring. 

Tinkering with iron sights searching for that elusive "match rifle" sweet spot.

But the mechanical zero is off. The rear sight aperture is not in the center of travel range at no wind zero.

The rifle is dialed into the center of the target but the sight assembly windage sits too far to the right.  Elevation is fine.

Next step is to use the use of a handy dandy Ray-Vin tool like the one in the photo.  It solves the front tower rotation problem nicely.

Ray-Vin sight adjustment gauge.  A work of art in itself.

One more dial in and group string ensues; this time with iron sights.

The "Snake Gun" in its natural habitat.  You can see the targets at 200 and 300 yards at the top of the photo.

And we walk back into the X ring once again.

Walking into the center.  Then, shoot for group.  Iron sights can perform!

And we're back to zero at zero mechanical.

Centered up and happy.

Last step, zero out the knobs.

Zeros at zero.  A beautiful sight to those of us that compete.

I like this gun.  It has potential.

This concludes the preliminaries.  Now we are ready to sling up and tackle a match.

Mechanical Center

Very few firearms are "mechanically centered" so they shoot to point of aim when the sights are in the center of their range of motion. It takes a bit of work to do it.  I set up two of my rifles on July 5, 2014 and this is the Ray-Vin gauge that makes it happen.

The genius behind this gizmo is Ray Brandes.  It is a Ray-Vin sight adjustment tool. It is used to precisely rotate the front sight tower of a rifle. For a standard AR-15 that's around 0.006" per MOA. This tool also works well for match rifles with barrel mounted sights particularly ones with tall front sights. There's another tool jig for the rear sights of an M-16A2 to check click repeatability. I have one of them too. I consider myself lucky to have gotten them from Ray-Vin when the company was in full swing.  These tools result in a rear sight shooting center at center. It's the bees knees. 

Most of the time centered rears on AR's are a service rifle thing. But it doesn't have to be. Above is a Barry Dueck RTS with its front sight mounted on a PRI rail gas block.  Mounting it this way allows for rotating the front sight alignment to get a perfect mechanical zero. This gun has a 20" 1-8 twist DPMS barrel making it quite the SDM rifle with 77/80 gr. ammo out to the practical limit of heavy bullet mouse ballistics, approximately 800 meters.  I wanted to get a the rear sight mechanically centered along with the front sight mounted on the barrel so this gun can shoot offhand with iron sights at NRA matches in the optical-class category.  An AR canted 45 degrees actually allows for a very small bore like standing position with the front arm in tight contact with the body. It's kind of neat.

Match rifles also have adjustable front sights and the principles of centering up are the same.

Rotating the front sight about the axis of the barrel works with match rifles too.   Here I've moved the front tower on a Eliseo R1 long range single-shot rifle in .284 Winchester over so I have a more centered mechanical zero for my iron sights.   This is important for long range matches where windy conditions can cause to to have to dial unseemly amounts of windage.

This particular rifle got nicknamed the "Snake Gun" because of the water transfer printing finish I had applied to it.   So here's the "snake" in its natural habitat,  This is a very nice view of the rifle on the firing line at the Burbank Rifle and Revolver Club's range in Castaic, California.  The 200 yard targets can be seen at the upper right of the photo and 300 yards to the left down range.  If you zoom in, my test target is the leftmost one at 200 yards. You can see the rifle with its iron sights mounted. Its scope - a Sightron 6-24X FFP with an MOA-2 reticle - is on the bench to its left and a box of ammo to the right. Here are the specs on the gun,

Rifle: Eliseo R1

Barrel: Bartlein

Sights: Phoenix Precision 

Ammo: .284 Winchester

Bullet: Nosler 168 CC

Powder: 53.5gr IMR 4831

Case: Lapua 6.5x284 necked up to 7mm

Seated to 15/1000th's jump.

Iron sight hijinks.  After moving the front sight tower of my rifle to the left so it would center my rear sight, I fired a test string of 10 shots.  Starting with the round on the right in the cardboard, I walked it into the X ring. When it got there I stopped and looked at the rear sight to confirm it was close enough to the middle of its movement range. It was. So I fired the rest of a 10 shot string to see how it grouped. The answer is quite nicely.

I have one more calibration session to do with this gun to get a final mechanical center once I switch from the fire forming loads I'm using now to the long range competition loads I will use.  These will be very high ballistic coefficient (b.c.) Bergers.   When that time comes, I'll use a caliber to measure how much the movement of the front sight tower needs to be.  I'll use the Ray-Vin tool to perform the rotation and then it'll be time to use a gaggle of bubble levels to make sure the crossbar in the front sight and the tower mounted bubble are true to the rifle.  There's a lot more to tinker with versus a Service Rifle.

Combat Grade Ballistic Reticles at Bargain Prices

Ever since I did my stint as weapons master for "Top Shot" people send me things to test out. Most of it I politely try and give back. But I love unknown distance rifle shooting and I confess products that make it easier impress me. The Pride-Fowler RR-Evolution 5.56/7.62 3-12X scope has.

If you've never shot an extended session with one of these types of calibrated ballistic ranging reticle scopes and realized after half an hour that you've been hitting everything and never took your eye out of the ocular, you need to find a friend that has one and try it. No milling. No range card. Ranging is done by using marks built into the reticle that are the width of a reference target such as a person's shoulders or head at a given distance.  Other combat grade day-optics that work this way are the ACOG/RCO's that also have ranging reference marks built into the reticle.  You don't actually try to determine the range with these scopes.  At full engagement speed it's about intuitively bracketing the target between markers and sending rounds downrange. Trust your zero, trust your dope.  These kinds of optics are the epitome of that concept within the well regulated confines of mil-spec approved lot numbered ammunition. This PFI scope is first focal plane so the reticle works at any magnification setting.  It's point, shoot and hit.  It's a smile maker.

The Evolution generation PFI reticle contains a number of enhancements including milling marks on the horizontal and upper vertical axis.  The ranging marks are calibrated for reading distance on the right with 20 inch barrels and have additional offset numbers on the left calibrated for 24 inch barrels. The typical muzzle velocity difference due to 4 inches of barrel length is around 80 to 100 feet per second which changes the drop at each distance more and more as the range extends.  That is a lot of math to figure out that's replaced by just looking through the scope.

You think that's impressive?  There's a PFI reticle designed for the FN-SCAR that has a bifurcated reticle with calibrations for the same bullet at two different density altitudes.  It's the only scope I've ever been able to interpolate hold over/under changes by eye for different heights above sea level.  That reticle sits inside the much more expensive U.S. Optics/PFI SR-8C.

This RR-Evolution is no slouch in the advanced mental gymnastics interpolation game either.  While calibrated for two different barrel lengths to make is as flexible as possible for the various tactical and varmint rifles it might be used with, you ballistics savvy types should have already started the gears in your noggins figuring out that with a 20" barrel rifle that left side is an interpolation tool for hot day shooting conditions.  There's 100 fps of temperature rise speed shift taken out of tables galore right there in front of your eyeball.  Entertain yourself twiddling with that ballistics calculator to convince yourself and then trust your dope.  Dude! No batteries.

Much Improved Quality of Construction

I'd previously tried the military grade Pride-Fowler RR scope and the lesser civilian model. I liked the original Japanese made RR 900-1.  It's made at the same factory that manufactures NightForce scopes. It's rugged, accurate, easy to use.  Soldiers love it.  It's the scope that caused me to perk up and pay attention to PFI.  The one I have refuses to come off the Mk14 EBR it is mounted on because it's about as perfect a long range designated marksman system as it gets.  But it's also expensive.  At the time PFI also offered a lower priced Chinese made "civilian hunter" model but I truthfully had little interest in it. It was one of those scopes you really needed to set up once and never touch the turrets again.  The concept was good but sadly the tube and glass quality was sub-par vs. the reticle's potential.  Unlike it's military grade cousin, it wasn't a keeper.

Then in early 2014 John Pride said a new civilian model had replaced it and asked if I'd have another gander at his "civilian" line.  This new RR-Evolution is a whole other animal. A new Chinese factory that's heard America's call for quality responded producing a tube at 1/3 the price point of comparable hardware.  That's a remarkable $350'ish price tag; a testament to improvements in Chinese OEM mass production.  It boggles the mind that you can buy three of these for the price of an ACOG.

It doesn't skimp on optics.  This scope's glass is clear and the colors true.  The turrets are repeatable albeit they are of the Chinese mushy rubber seal variety instead of the definite click metal contact type people like from Japanese factories. Movement is precise. You see a 1.5 moa change, dial it and it moves that distance on the target.

The rear end of the scope has Euro style adjustments to sharpen the reticle. Very user friendly.  The reticle illuminator - yes it has that too - glows in red, green and blue.

The adjustable objective parallax is effective and very clear. It's everything the last generation wasn't and badly needed.  You'll find other brand scopes from the same Chinese OEM factory in the same price range at the same quality. But you'll be buying PFI's for what the reticle does to aid your shooting.

Practical Impression

I put it on a particularly accurate Remington 788 in .308 Winchester and zeroed it a 200 yards then ran steel from 200 to 1,000 yards with ease using ammo built on 175 gr. Sierra Match Kings loaded to U.S. M118-LR specifications never touching the knobs. Then I tried it with 168 gr. Barnes TSX's for California lead-free hunting. It worked as it should with these loads as well out to about 400 yards, up to 600 under the right conditions.  Lead-free ammo has different ballistic coefficients and tends to fall out of the sky sooner than traditional ammo of the same weight.

Serious Use

I would not hesitate to put this scope on a police spotter rifle. Construction is sufficient for that application and the ease of use is a boon as most SWAT teams under train with their standby spotter guns. A hostage standoff is not the time for an officer to re-learn about mil-dots and clicks.  A qualified marksman/armorer can calibrate the gun twice a year and confirm it's on target with a collimator in between.  For military use, I'd stick with the higher grade RR line.

Picking Nits

There are a couple of nits. The supplied rings aren't worth using. Get a set of 30mm Leupold QRW's and mount it right. The turrets require the use of a teeny little allen key to re-zero. I'd have specified a more common wrench size because the geek side of me wants to see the dial at zero-zero once initial set up is done.

I did not magnum recoil test it. I leave that to others with stouter shoulders to explore.  Besides, the reticle ballistics are calibrated for service rifle ammunition.

Bottom line.  This one's a keeper and definitely on my short list to buy for another rifle that needs a field shooting friendly scope. The price is good when you consider USO has a similar PFI reticle in one of its much more expensive tubes and neither it or the ACOG have over 10X magnification and parrallax adjustments.

Want a Challenge? Try CMP's Four Gun Aggregate

Tricked out match guns are fun but, if you want to prove that you've got an eagle's eye and steady hands, the Formula One test is the Civilian Marksmanship Program's As-Issued Four Gun Aggregate.

4-gun is the combination of one's scores shooting a series of CMP John C. Garand 30-shot Course A's at 200-yards on NRA SR targets at one of the CMP Regional Games or the Nationals officiated by the CMP.  These are the only places you can earn the coveted neck ribbon CMP achievement medals.  

You will need four as-issued rifles.  The first is the M-1 Garand who's inventor the course of fire is named for.  This remarkable battle rifle will test your prowess at slow prone, rapid prone and offhand. The match winner will put almost all bullets into a saucer.

You do get to hear that classic ping when the en bloc clip ejects with this gun. :)  It's a good idea to write your firing point number on your hand for each match because you will move around over the course of the tournament. 

Next comes the hyper accurate 1903 Springfield. You can use either the WW I M1903 or the later WW II M1903A3 model with peep sights. A Springfield will typically shoot groups half the size of an M-1 with the same ammunition. Think potential in terms of tea cups instead of saucers.

The drawback with the Springfield is that the sight adjustments are cruder so you need to know how to favor that last bit of hold off in your sight picture to nail that pinwheel X.  It also introduces bolt manipulation skill and stripper clip reloading into the rapid fire stage.  Lastly, you are doing your trigger control through what is essentially a Mauser pattern military field trigger.

Next, up the degree of difficulty by removing the ability to adjust windage.  This gets you to Vintage Military Rifle with WW II and earlier machines designed to bombard enemy formations and trenches en masse; a form of warfare that predates the age of gunpowder. You'll see all manner of rifles from all over the world here. The big favorites are Sgt. York's M1917 Enfield and the Swedish 6.5x55 Mauser. The British SMLE and greater Mauser families are also present as are the very accurate Russian Mosin-Nagants and Swiss K-31's. One will even see the occasional Krag come to the line.  They are all as-issued and ready to race the Grand Prix once more.

The yellow tape means the gun tested and passed minimum trigger pull weight.  Triggers are always weighed.  The match winner's gun in inspected one more time.  Honor is paramount.

Last of the four is the newcomer.  This used to be a 3-gun aggregate. CMP added the As-Issued Modern Military Rifle to the series.  The rule book provides for many models but the gun of guns for this phase is the 1960's Vietnam era pencil barrel, triangle hand guard, 1-12 twist, A1 carry handle sights Eugene Stoner AR-15 pattern rifle.  Slick side even better.  Feed it 52 gr. BTHP's and try your best to shoot cleans.  Do not crank on the sling like a modern free floated lead weight laden Service Rifle.  It won't work.  You have to be even more careful with most other foreign military rifle models.

Can it shoot?  You betcha!  97-3x rapid taken through a spotting scope.  Note the happy face from the guys in the pits.  My slow prone stage was a 99-4X.  Those Mattel specials can hammer. 

These regional CMP Games matches are a gathering of the shooting family from far and wide. It's a level playing field for all using essentially the same stock guns, ergo like Formula One racing.  The winner truly is the marksman who makes the fewest mistakes over the next 72 hours.

But far more important, it's a learning experience and a connection to the true meaning of expected skills the predicate clause "well regulated" really stands for.  As in skating, before one competes in freestyle, one must qualify in the compulsories. This is it.

The 2013 haul,

M-1 Garand - Silver Achievement

Springfield - Bronze Achievement

Vintage - none

Modern - Silver Achievement

Note: I didn't get my fourth trinket in four gun in 2013.  My SMLE - well its ammo maker (me) - made a mistake, the subject of another blog entry of its own.  The fourth medal in the above photo is from a separate CMP M-1 Carbine match.

.303 Learning Curve

Updated:  1/4/2014

Case separations.  Thin Winchester brass and full sizing are not the best idea for wartime .303 British chambers.

I learned about the perils of full sizing twice fired .303 brass the hard way at the 2013 CMP Western Games.  Had five case separations and a number of other incipient cases during the Vintage Military Rifle match. The gun was a Savage No.4 Mk1*, one of the British Lee-Enfield family of rifles popularly known as SMLE's.

When a rimmed cartridge like the .303 British fires, the main body of the case expands and locks to the chamber.  The tail of the case is what expands and thrusts on the bolt stretching it.  If you full size them, they separate.  If the headspace is on the long side, maybe even on first firing.

The condition is not inherently dangerous.  With a known safe powder charge what actually happens is the round comes out slower, barrel time is increased and with it recoil motion rotation. The round will impact high on the target.  At 200 yards, around the top of the target frame above the scoring rings. This yields zero points for that record round.  Do it five times and your score plummets.

Triage

I did finish the match digging out each separated case and carrying on. Never DNF if you can. The best learning often comes from debacles. True to form from the shooting community, info and advice appeared almost from the moment I stepped off the line.

I was offered insights by other competitors about the idiosyncrasies of managing .303 brass and how that differs from setting up other match ammunition. By nightfall that network of shooters had expanded globally over the internet with links galore.  There is nothing as cool as being part of the high power community.

Old military chambers and bolt head spaces leave much to be desired. The voodoo magic trick with the .303 British is to use 7/16" o-rings serve to pre-thrust the bolt backwards on first firing so the case fire forms to the chamber enabling gun specific base to shoulder head spacing in future firings. In other words, it is wildcatting.  Once fire formed, collet dies and the occasional body die to ease feeding take over from there. The literature says 10 or more firings.  The cases are obviously married to that particular rifle for the duration.

I found the o-rings at the faucet replacement parts shelf at the hardware store.  The reason to o-ring the first firing is so that when the case blows out to fill the chamber it does so flowing forward at the neck. If you don't do it this way, the case will still fire form but the normal way a .303 British round works with the main body expanding in the chamber pinning it to the case wall with the bottom of case taking all the movement as the bolt is thrust back on firing.  The o-ring changes the dynamics of the fire forming process positively. Whoever originally figured this out was quite clever.

Fixings.  A Redding body die for bumping the shoulders from time to time.  A Lee Collet die for  neck sizing most of time.  O-rings for centering cases for fire forming.  European brass with thicker case webs.

The literature says to make things a little easier on the brass by tightening the head space of the UK military "work in any dirt" to something closer to SAAMI spec.  I tested a couple of my rifles.  Both close on a SAAMI NO GO gauge which is expected with a military gun. One I tested did not close on a FIELD gauge.  The other - the one I use for CMP Vintage Military Rifle matches - did close on the FIELD gauge.   Later model No.4's adjust head space easily by changing bolt heads; a remarkable innovation really.  Mine both have #0 heads.  I ordered some #1's from SARCO. They once came in #2 and #3 sizes as well but those are long gone.  If I can get my guns to close on GO and not on NO GO cool.  But I'm fine with just not closing on FIELD and using the o-ring fire forming method to marry the brass to the gun.

Improving the Head Space

Head space gauges and bolt heads.  There used to be 0's, 1's, 2's and 3's.  Today you're more likely to catch a unicorn under a rainbow than find a 2 or 3 bolt head.

By installing a #1 bolt head into the bolt body, I was able to get the rifle to barely touch a SAAMI FIELD gauge.  The improvement just by doing this was dramatic.  The photo below shows where the bolt stops when closing onto one of the cases I fired in Phoenix out of the same gun.  Definitely an improvement in the head space.

Quite a difference changing the bolt head makes.

I also compared bolt bodies with some other No.4's and found that the lug dimensions on some are longer than others; probably manufacturing differences.   These old Enfield rifles - like many surplus guns - are very often mismatched parts guns as the years go by and the idea struck me that perhaps replacing the bolt body in this particular rifle might be a way to improve head space even more without having to stalk the online auctions for the elusive #2 and #3 bolt heads.

Gracious Elves

So I put in an online order to U.S. parts supplier SARCO for a bolt body with a note in the comments section requesting one on the longish side if possible.   To my surprise and delight, I got an email back from them asking for clarification of what I was looking for.  I wrote back explaining my plight about only being able to get to barely closing on a FIELD gauge with a #1 bolt head and my hope that a longer bolt body might improve the head space further.   The next email I got from them said they had rummaged their entire parts bin of No.4 bolt bodies and were sending me the longest lugged one they could find.  I cannot tell you how grateful I am that a mail order company would go to this trouble for a customer.  The people at SARCO are awesome.

Bolt bodies differ in length.  This offers another path to solving head space issues.

The replacement bolt body was indeed longer lugged; visibly so even when holding the two side by side.  So much so that I had to go back to the #0 bolt head.   The rifle now closes on a GO gauge and as the photo below shows, barely touches but does not quite close on a NO GO gauge.  That friends, is what one calls good as new!

Mix and match.  A longer bolt body an a 0 bolt head got this rifle back into the sweet spot.

Proving the Pudding

This is a standard NRA SR target at 200 yards shot using 174 gr. Sierra Match King ammunition with a conservative charge of Hodgdon H4895 powder.  Ignore the shots in the shoot and see sticker.  Those are just me touching up the zero on another scoped rifle for an upcoming match mid-range match. The real gem in this photo is that group in the white area.  It was shot using this Enfield with the fixed up head space. Iron sights in fading afternoon light. A blind run string just to see if it groups. And how!  I'll tinker with front sight blades and micrometer settings to center up the group later. For now seeing that it will print 10/X ring is good news.

1 1/2 MOA is not bad for military surplus machine bought out of a forgotten rifles bin in the 1970's

My main reason for test firing the gun was to collect an updated set of brass casings to measure to begin to load better ammunition.  Below is the product so far.  The case on the right is the unfired  .303 British reference.   The one on the left is the one mated to this specific rifle.   Notice that the body and shoulder have fire formed to fill in more of the chamber.   The case has been processed using a Redding body die to bump the shoulder just enough to make feeding smooth.  A neck size die takes care of the rest.

Fire formed case on the left.  That shoulder filled in quite a bit.

That's where we are at for now.   Waiting for a taller sight blade.  Then I'll re-zero the rifle and run test sets of both neck sized and first firing ammunition through it to check both accuracy and feeding.  Will update the article again after that.

Update:

The rifle has since gone to the range to be fitted with a properly centered and height selected front sight blade for the ammunition I'll be using in competition.

Setting up a better mechanical zero for CMP competition on 200 yard targets.

Armorer time again.  The front sight blades came from the U.K.  The front sight/firing pin tool came from Numrich.  Makes it easier when tools and parts come together.

Front sight tool and a selection of blades.

Next comes making neck sized ammunition and checking to see how the cases fare fired from the rifle much closer to the shape of the chamber.

Quite the change from the first photo.  Left to right, a full sized loaded round,
a neck sized loaded round, and four test fired empty cases.

So far, so good.  Sample cases made from firing rounds made from both Winchester and PMP cases look promising.  The cases do not appear to grow, bulge or show signs of incipient separation.  Shots remain in the 10 ring so the rifle is still shooting acceptably for competition use.  Hodgdon H4985 looks to be a very good powder for .303 ammo.  Time to load up enough to shoot two or three practice matches and give it a go.

I will yet get my coveted CMP achievement pins and medals with my Made in the USA Savage No.4 Mk1* to go with the other kinds I've already collected.