Table 3 ‐ Group Size Ranges with Sporting Bullets in 700 SPS Tactical Pre‐Tuning Bullet
Powder
36gn Barnes V Grenade 36gn Barnes V Grenade 40gn Hornady V‐Max 40gn Hornady V‐Max 50gn Nosler Ball. Tip 55gn Nosler Ball. Tip
22.5‐24.5gn Viht N130 22.0‐24.0gn Allt. Re7 22.5‐24.5gn Viht N130 23.0‐25.0gn Allt. Re10x 24.5‐26.5gn H. Benchmark 23.0‐25.0gn H. Benchmark
propellants produced mixed results ranging from best groups with the no-lead Barnes 36gn ‘Varmint Grenade’ at 0.4 inches over Viht N130, to a full two inches for the 55gn Nosler Ballistic Tip over Hodgdon Benchmark. This sort of performance variation is by no means unusual in factory rifles, actions and barrels showing distinct preferences for some makes and models of bullets over others.
With the exception of the sister 50gn Nosler Ballistic Tip, also over Benchmark, that produced a small range of group sizes around three-quarters of an inch – more than adequate for most ‘foxers’ – all combinations proved finicky, much preferring one or two charge weights in 1.4-2gn overall ranges (see Table 3). Again, this is not at all unusual for many factory rifles and, if I seem to be labouring the point, it’s because I want to return to it next month when I look at what Valkyrie Rifles’ fettling achieved.
Valkyrie Due to other shooting and load development priorities, nothing more happened to, or with, the little Remington for some 15 months but discussions with Roger Francis of South Yorkshire Shooting Supplies and now independent gunsmith Dave Wylde on the same site who trades as Valkyrie Rifles got me thinking about a three-stage development programme for the SPS:
Stage 1 - a simple ‘tune-up’ by Dave
Stage 2 - restock with a Manners Tactical DBM from SYSS and also replace the Remington ‘fly’s eye’ bolt knob with a good sized tactical example
Stage 3 - have Dave fit a fast-twist match-quality barrel for a sensible 20-calibre wildcat to produce a versatile short to mid-range sporting and target rifle.
So what does a Valkyrie factory rifle ‘tune-up’ involve? Accuracy-wise, there are four elements:
38 Target Shooter
Group Range 0.4 – 1.1” 0.6 – 1.4” 0.5 – 1.1” 0.6 – 1.5” 0.65 – 0.8” 0.75 – 2.0”
5‐Group Av 0.75” 1.0”
0.89” 0.89” 0.75” 1.11”
1 - Re-face and re-crown the muzzle with a proper recessed target crown
2 - Lap the bolt lugs against the receiver locking surfaces to improve their fit and hopefully provide the same amount of contact area for each lug (many factory rifles see one lug with greater contact than the other)
3 - Adjust the trigger for a lighter pull and clean/ polish the bolt body interior and firing pin tip to ensure consistent primer strike.
On top of that, the receiver bolt raceways are lapped to give smoother, easier operation, the bolt timing and extractor mechanism checked/faults rectified; the ejector-pin polished to improve case ejection.
This work takes around two hours and costs £90. Hand the rifle over to Dave and he proceeds to strip it down – barrelled action removed from the stock; scope bases/rail and trigger-group removed from the receiver; barrel and recoil-lug removed from the receiver; receiver de-greased and cleaned ready for work to commence.
These tasks would take me all day but were accomplished in a few minutes, the sole hold-up being the Loctite I’ve used on the scope rail set- screws requiring a lot of effort to undo them - Dave assuring me this treatment is unnecessary. All the bits are carefully placed in a plastic box for later attention. I’ll go through the work step by step and report on the results next month.
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