As seen at
Brownells.com BeyerBarrels.com
Ultra light weight rimfi re barrels for 1022, 7722 and AR15 dedicated uppers. Match chambers 7075 Aluminum
Bull barrels, mid weight barrels, factory taper barrels. Now with opti onal Fluti ng.
To buy direct: Clint Beyer 360-640-1497 189179 Hwy 101 Forks WA 98331
Available at Brownells or other various dealers.
green. The color becomes lighter each time until eventually a wet patch comes out the same color as it went in. I have learned the length of time it takes for a patch to come out clean is a good indi- cation of how smooth the barrel is and, normally, the more accurate the rifl e. There are exceptions to this; my Shilen barreled 7 STW doesn’t clean quickly, and it is plenty accurate. My other two Shilen barrels clean up quite fast, I might add. The Browning X-Bolt cleaned up very fast, especially for a factory barrel. Some readers might be concerned
about recoil. I thought this rifl e was ex- tremely comfortable to shoot. The Infl ex Technology recoil pad clearly helped, but the heavy barrel had to help as well. But remember, this isn’t a prairie dog rifl e; a good day shooting ‘chucks might consist of 20 shots. I have this rifl e on loan for another
six months and will continue to shoot it and perhaps provide an update in the future. Readers might be disappointed that I didn’t shoot a larger variety of handloads, but I didn’t see the point in doing so. The rifl e shot factory Hor-
nady ammo extremely well, as well as 165-grain and 180-grain bullets. I didn’t try shooting match bullets; they might have been more impressive, but when a rifl e shoots three-shot groups less than 0.65 inch, what is the point? The dog- gone rifl e is accurate! I received this rifl e on loan from
Browning. The retail price for the rifl e is $1,070; I have the opportunity to buy it at a discount (remember, at this point it is used) for $719. I am going to shoot it some more, but at this point I am in- clined to buy it. But I do wish Browning would consider chambering this rifl e in .243 with a fast twist barrel. A .243 Win. shooting light bullets leaves a standard .22 centerfi re in the dust, but it really shines with heavy bullets. The .243 Winchester can fi re bul-
lets from 55 grains all the way up to 115 grains. The 55-grain bullet might be waived off by those concerned about wind, but bullets of that weight in this caliber have BCs about .276. In .224 you have to shoot bullets heavier than 60 grains to exceed a BC of .276. Of course, you aren’t going to launch those 60-grain .224 bullets anywhere close to the velocity of a .243 Win. – it can fl ing a 55-grain bullet as fast as 4,050 fps. That bullet drifts only 2.32 inches per one mile of wind speed at 500 yards. At 600 yards wind defl ection is a challeng- ing 3.55 inches per one mile an hour of wind, but at 700 yards it is a whopping 5.15 inches. We can improve that if we move up to the heaviest bullet in .243, a 115 Berger VLD, which can get about 2,650 fps (although I have seen claims of well over 3,000 fps, presumably with
very long barrels). Here are the wind drift figures for each mph of wind: 1.64 inches at 500 yards, 2.43 inches at 600 yards, and 3.4 inches at 700 yards. Those numbers beat anything the .308 Win. can do shooting 180-grain bullets. But alas, to shoot bullets this heavy in a .243 Win. we need a 1:8" twist barrel and all manufacturers except Savage seem reluctant to produce them, in .243 or any other caliber. An option I would have preferred
to the .308 Winchester is the .260 Rem- ington. With standard barrel twists this Jim Carmichel-inspired creation can launch a 142-grain Sierra HPBT at 2,750 fps. This results in wind drifts of 1.61 inches at 500 yards, 2.4 inches at 600 yards, and 3.38 inches at 700 yards, besting the .308 Winchester by a consid- erable margin. When I fi rst started shooting many
years ago, I thought of the .308 Win. as not much more than a woods deer rifl e, best used with a short barrel. I bought a .308 Win. Remington Model Seven for just that use. But as time goes by, I have learned the most important thing to have on your shooting resume is time spent shooting in the wind. To become competent, you must practice. Sure, the .338 Edge shooting 300-gr. SMK bullets is an exceptional long-range gun, but you can do the same thing with a .308 Win. at 620 yards as the Edge will do at 800 yards, at least in terms of wind drift. In other words, if you have a .338 Edge, you can get an X-Bolt and shoot it at 620 yards and “practice” as if you were shooting an Edge at 800 yards, but for a lot less cost. If that sounds interesting, I can personally recommend the Brown- ing X-Bolt Varmint Stalker.
Forty-fi ve grains of Hodgdon VARGET topped off by a 180-gr. Hornady SST produced this three-shot group measuring 0.244 inch (center to center).
Page 78 October — December 2011
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