After almost 2 months of gathering reloading equipment, supplies, & scope/accessories, I finally got some range time.
It was great to finally put some rounds through it.

After adjusting/raising the butt plate at home, I realized at the range, I now cannot bore sight it because it's in front of the bore & my short allen wrench was at home.
I proceeded to wing it & fire 1 shot at 25yds.  Ended up 1" left & just the slightest bit low.

Gave it 4 minutes right & tried at 50yds.  Took another shot & it was 2" high as suspected from my trajectory table.
Was just a hair right also.

Gave it 5 minutes down & 1 click left & I was ready for 100yds.
Fired 2 shots at 100yds & they were about 3/16" apart center to center right at the crosshairs.

Now I'm thrilled.... my hand loads are working well, but slow, chronographing at only 2500fps.
Weighted out my ball surplus ammo & used all the 653gr ones for this batch.
Didn't weigh the cases but used all LC09.  Used 215gr of 870 surplus powder as my starting load.

Now the bad....
The stock trigger sucks.  It feels similar to the striker for my oxy/acetylene torch.
I was having a hell of a time not moving the gun while trying to muscle the approx. 9# trigger.
All my AR15's I built are in the 2.75-3lb. range & my target one at 1.75lb., so this one is way higher than I'm used to.
Pulled the gun apart today & proceeded to adjust the trigger to a more reasonable setting.

Took out a bunch of sear engagement out so it is now crisp & you no longer feel any drag.
Slammed the bolt & dropped the safety a bunch of times just to make sure I could not get any accidental fires.
I could take some more out of it, but wanted to be safe... I can fine tune more later if necessary.

Took some trigger tension out as well.  This spring is much stiffer than the typical Rem700's that I have messed with.
The allen head was ready to fall out & the trigger was still very stiff.  I carefully ground the allen head screw flat where it touches the spring to allow more thread engagement at a lower tension setting.
Put it back together & it is now reasonable.  I don't have a gage, but it is probably now in the 4# range.  Will borrow my friends gage tomorrow & see where it ended up.

Waiting for the weather to calm down so I can go back out.  Got some more loads ready with 220gr powder to see how that goes.
Ready to try a few at 200yds & keep working my way up.

Good Job, Lonnie !!!

Work it up slowly, learning as you go, doing it safely also.

Thanks guys,
I'm learning & taking things slowly.

Went up to 220 grains powder & picked up approx. 100fps to 2600.

Tried some shots at 200yds today.
Had some decent wind gusts today so my groups were nothing to brag about, but at least I got more practice & some chrono time.

Loaded some more tonight at 225gr powder & will try again tomorrow.
Hoping for approx 2700fps & decent groups.

I really want to get the barrel broke in... cleaning it after every shot takes some time.

I'll try to get a nice picture posted later.  Never thought to take one at the range.

Question on reuse of the brass....
What is a reasonable number of reloads to expect... or how do I know when to pitch them?
If there are no cracks or stretch marks, can I keep reusing them?

After shooting, they barely grow in length, maybe .002"
After I size them they grow approx. .010"

Don't expect more than the mid 2,700's before seeing signs of over pressure.  My AR-50 settled on 212 grains of WC867 behind M-33's cooking along at 2,700.

My WC870 must be a lot slower as it is was barely 2500fps with 215gr, 2600fps with 220gr

Primers still had a round edge at 215, a more little square at 220, but its not going into the chamfer of the brass at all.

Actually, I think it's my batch of 867 that is faster.  This is the virgin stuff that Wideners was selling last year for a song.  It was rejected by the military for a reason...maybe because it's too fast.  I believe others here believe it's faster than it should be as well.  How else would you explain 2,700's with charge of only 212?

I did some more testing today with 225gr.
Weather was 3deg warmer than yesterday & my first 2 shots were actually slower.
Overall on average, I picked up 50fps.  I started to doubt my chronograph as my POI was higher than yesterday.

Something does not jive.
Time to get another chronograph for comparison.

http://mylabradar.com/
$559.99 next month

Nice... something else to spend $600 on.
Looks like an awesome device though.

I think I'll set mine up in parallel with my friends first to see the variation.

Not sure if the following statement is totally true, but I was told that when Lee R. shot his 1.955" 5-shot group at 1000 yards, that it was on the 47th firing on his batch of casings which he anneals after every firing.

I have 14 firings on my IK-98 match brass.
7 firings on my IK-07 match brass.
3 firings on my French brass.
0 firings on a new batch of LC-13 and TZZ-95 brass.