This Smallbore Business
By Don Brook
On the subject of ammunition selection for smallbore.
This is one intriguing subject, let me tell you. Before we start, let me tell you there is not one champion smallbore shooter who has not been down this street…. Any shooter who is any shooter in smallbore, at top level, has spent hours testing the 22 ammunition they will use in the rifle.
My own experience, testing my ammo at both Eley in the UK and the RWS factory in Germany, as well as hours behind my 20x telescopic sight on my home range in the quarry at Newcastle has paid dividends, BIG TIME.
I will put it this way, if you have aspirations to excel in smallbore, this will probably be one of the most important of my efforts in the magazine. Quite simply, you need to do this…….
Before I start however, also let me tell you there is an enormous difference in the selection of 22 ammunition and the ammunition we actually build for both long range and 300m shooting.
I will put it this way to simplify things. When we build the ammunition for centre fire, we actually have full control over the components and it is pretty simple to test the results of our efforts over the local benchrest range, with top quality equipment such as stands and optics. I am also fortunate to have access to some of the best gunsmith’s in the world, both in my home town and the USA. The gunsmith who put my smallbore rifle together, a man by the name of Fred Lawler (RTM) did an incredible job and, once I found
the ammunition that sang through the Hart barrel he fitted to an Anschutz action, there was very little that stopped me.
With centrefire, the amount of component parts out there is prodigious and it just is a matter of time before you put something together that shoots like stink through your rifle. I had a fullbore rifle that shot calibre holes at 100 yards over the bench on Cessnock rifle range and a couple of times I shot a two-inch group at 600m for a 50.10 off the elbows and sling. I have also seen a sub one-inch group at 500 yards, (also for a 50.10) fired by Colin Garven in the process of a National Queens Prize win.
Groups like these are also common place among the world 300m shooters I have seen and once saw a 100.10 fired by Lanny Bassham with a 7mm Remmington Magnum during training, in the wind, over the Munich range in Germany. This meant that Lanny fired 10 shots, off the elbows, that went under a 50 cent piece at 300m! Do you reckon he had that load sorted out? The rifle was actually his wind rifle, to be used as a back-up gun in case the weather really became bitchy. That load obviously shot like stink!
The fullbore long-range Bisley style shooters in Australia have their pet loads for the rifles they use and many of them have pet loads specifically for 900 and 1000 yards as well. Many of them feel that the long-range stuff obviously needs to be still stable over these distances and have the load ‘bumped up’ in terms of velocity. They still however need to make sure the load groups tightly enough to succeed and obviously the smaller the better.
Target Shooter 71
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