I will preface this by saying I RARELY make New Years Resolutions.
This year was different.

I want to hit 1000 yard shot as my end goal, but this year, by the end of 2016 I want to consistently hit a 600 yard target.

Background:
4yrs USAF
7yrs Army Contract

I'm an AR guy... and all the ranges near me go out to only 100 yards.  The longest shot I've taken was only 300 yards (Including time in the service).

So, to begin my long range resolution I purchased a Ruger Precision in .308 with an Atlas BT46 bi-pod (I debated 6.5 but figured the .308 would be a better all around round).
I'm still waiting on the glass but I budgeted for about 1k and I'd really like to get into a Night Force SHV 5-20x, unless a better option comes up.

The big question though comes down to barrel break in.

I've been told to shoot a round, clean it, shoot a round clean it, etc. for 10 shots, then 5 rounds clean it, rinse and repeat.
The whole process could take up to about 3 hours.

Is this necessary?  Is this overkill and being way to cautious?
I will be filling out a sniper log data book to keep track of my progress.

Any other recommendations?

necessary? absolutely not

but neither is it 'voodoo' or 'bs' or gale's conspiracy theory

a few days ago, i posted  a picture log on another forum that shows what happens, which you may find interesting.

Great link, thank you for sharing.
This method will save me a ton of money in ammo.  

I purchased 40 rounds of decent grade range ammo just for the break in, this will easily cut my round count way down saving me roughly $50.00

For your help I'll email you some of my savings in an IOU form =)

Thanks again.

yw and good luck with your resolution!

feel free to take some pics and post them in that thread.  would be very interesting to see how the ruger does

Nice write up Taliv.

Nice right up and thanks for sharing!  That is very very similar to what I do although I did it based upon suspicion without any real thought behind it.

thanks for journaling that process.  

How do you like the 260AI?  I love .260, have a buddy who recently started running the .260AI.  I believe I know most (maybe all?) of the benefits of going AI, but needing to fireform brass seems like it would be a PITA.  I think eating away at my barrel life just to get brass in shape would suck.  My buddy said that he is still able to get great accuracy out of his rifle when he is fireforming (still shooting sub MOA), but it would still nag me.  

I also know Terry Cross used to win many PR comps running a 260AI, that says a lot if that's what he chose to shoot (that was several years ago, when .243 was the 6mm of choice), don't know if that is still accurate.  Regardless, I always thought that there's got to be something to it if Terry saw fit to run it.

What's your thoughts on running the AI?  Do you believe the performance outweighs the barrel life? Not being facetious, truly interested in your opinion.  

(Maybe we should start an AI post...kind of a Q&A, not to derail this post, sorry about that)

Thanks again.

I'm looking forward to shooting LRSE in march partly because Terry and I are rooming together, so should be fun.  I run his sentinel stocks on all my rifles too, and initially chose the 260AI because of his success with it.  We talk about that occasionally, but he moved away from the cartridge years ago.
barrel life is about like 243, which sucks.  fireforming is not a big deal.  i have won a couple f-class matches while fire forming, so yeah, it's plenty accurate.  past 5 years i just practice shooting positional when fire forming.   One advantage of the AI is not having to trim necks.  over the life of the brass, not trimming necks is a lot less work than fire forming.  so net, brass prep is less PITA than something with a 20 or 30* shoulder imho.

in the end, the real trade off is shooting a 140g hybrid at 3000 fps with R17 is a little better in the wind and makes impacts real easy to see, but is a little harder to catch trace, but most people went to it because of brass availability. (necking up lapua 243win brass before fireforming).   my gunsmith insists if i ran the 260AI in a long action, i'd be able to seat the bullet at proper depth and get much better performance.  he's usually right, but i just don't like long mags.

now that GAP has 6.5 SAUM headstamped brass, I'd take a look at that too.  more range, more barrel life, but uses more powder
some friends are also using what used to be cheap 6.5 swede brass and improving it.  they called it the 6.5 swedemoor.  

taliv:










 

no, I'm east of Nashville.  The PMG, PTS, and now Crucible matches are held a few miles from my house.  We shoot out to 1100.   I haven't seen shannon's range yet, but I used to go down to CORE when it was K&M in florida a lot.  I'll be down there for the AI and MPA PRS matches this year.

just another anecdote on the low SDs I mentioned in the thread above, suggesting they come partially from not having copper in the bore...    this is pretty much why i spend the time to clean after the first couple of rounds:

here's 3 groups, 3 different powder charges, while working up a load in the snow early this morning with this new rifle (not the same one in that thread, but a new 6.5x47L i just got and did same break in to, with just 2 rounds, 8 patches)  

There are 149 total rounds on the barrel, and it's been 147 since the last time I cleaned it.   These are all the shots fired today (no warm up or anything).  All 3 groups are single digit extreme spreads



(i'm just checking for pressure to see how much velocity I can get, so not loading a lot of rounds per group)

first group, 36.11g varget, 4 rounds
2686
2679
2678
2680
ES 8

second group, 37.00g varget, 3 rounds
2729
2736
2732
ES 7

third group, 37.36g varget, 3 rounds
2760
2760
2756
ES 4
(note in the pic i forgot to start a new group, so it still has 3 rounds from the second group in the average and SD)

Wow, those are some low spreads. The chrono probably isn't even accurate enough to measure that small of deviation! You might be shooting near 0 ES. That's not just a clean barrel, but good loading, chamber, throat, everything.





What kind of best group precision did you get shooting those groups?
Also to the OP, add a magnetospeed chrono to the list of stuff you need. At only $179, its almost a must have.

 

I talked to magnetospeed at length a couple years ago about this. It will resolve to well under 1 fps. I think litz also did some testing on this.

First and last group were quite small. For some reason rifle really doesn't like anything in the 36.5-37.0g range and groups open up to about 7/8" or so

Are you talking about the "sporter" version for that price?  I've been considering picking one of them up because I don't want to spend $300 on a chrono, but at the same time my cheap chrono only works in the right light conditions so it's really pissing me off.  Am I correct that the "sporter" version operates just the same and as good it just has a cheaper display unit that may be a little more of a pain to navigate the menu?  I really only use it to check velocity as I'm also checking where I find pressure to see if my velocity is in a range typical of the combination I'm using so I know if anything weird is going on.  Then use it again after I develop a load to get a baseline and make sure my ES is good.

Yes, very good information.  The links provided came in very handy.

Yes, I meant a data book, I don't have the problem putting in the time to do the break in, I just wanted to confirm the necessity due to high ammo count and costs involved in some recommended methods.
The mention of my Army contract work or time with the USAF was just to offer validity to any questions about my experience.

It wasn't at any point a measure of my abilities, just that it wasn't my first time behind a trigger albeit very limited behind any precision rifle.
Your credentials far surpass my abilities.

I guess I can follow up on this while I'm scrubbing my subscription threads.
I did hit 600 yards as a goal.. in fact I went out to 700 yards.  The location was great, weather was a bit warm but not much for wind.
I'll possibly go back there at the end of summer or maybe next year and do 1k just to say I've done it.

Here is a pic of the range... Just a controlled burn area in Michigan but absolutely perfect for what we needed.  We took a bunch of unsafe fire roads in my buddy's minivan to get there, honestly I'm surprised we made it in and back out without having to dig.

Hopefully the pic works from facebook.

Adventures in the mini van sounds like a riot. Well now for the $24.00 question are you hooked on extending your ranges?

Looks like a great range! After 700 1,000 will be relatively easy. I went from 600 - 1,000 and was surprised how easy it was. (Unless the wind was blowing)

I am ... because 700 pretty very smoothly, borderline easy (granted under perfect conditions) my next goal is 1000 yards.
I really don't expect my next trip at that range to go as well but if I can squeeze it in before the end of the year; all the better.

Just need to load up some more rounds and re-zero my rifle after making a change to my scope mount.