the case, I feel confi dent that a shooter could easily interchange the three car- tridges at will in this particular rifl e without experiencing any diffi culties, or a need to readjust the sights. To judge for yourself the overall accuracy of the Volquartsen 17 HMR, you may want to peruse the chart I have titled “17 HMR Volquartsen Custom - 5-Shot Groups at 50 Yards.” And, to provide some degree of assurance that all three brands of ammo essentially shot to the same point you might want to take a look at the photo showing a few of many targets I shot (page 18). That photo is inclusive of targets from all three brands of ammo. Another thing that surprised me
pertained to the muzzle velocities pro- duced by the Volquartsen. In most cases I have found that the factory purported muzzle velocities almost always are greater than most that shooters achieve in the field. This is largely because the measurements conducted by the factories are frequently the result of shooting in bolt-action test equipment that frequently possess longer barrels than sometimes used for fi eld use. So, when I set up my own chronograph and
checked the average of fi ve shots from each brand of ammo and found that in virtually every case the average veloci- ties were actually higher than those pub- lished by the factories, it came as a shock to me. Those results were particularly perplexing because semiautos tradition- ally produce lower overall velocities than do bolt-action fi rearms, and the short barrel of the Volquartsen should theoretically have further lessened the muzzle velocities. Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not complaining about that unexpected increase in velocity – I am quite pleased by that fact, but just a little puzzled as to why. Along with the accuracy results, those muzzle velocity fi gures also can be found in two right hand columns of that same chart. TESTING IN THE FIELD
In my opinion some testing and
evaluation projects are a bit limited in scope if they are restricted to only a matter of shooting off the bench. Some- times taking a fi rearm to the fi eld for expanded testing uncovers problems that may not show up under the sterile conditions found on the range. So, I decided to expose the Volquartsen to
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a little ground squirrel shooting excite- ment accompanied by my shooting buddy, John Englert, a devoted termina- tor of pests of all types. Unfortunately, over the past six or eight months west- ern Montana has been plagued by an unusual amount of precipitation and all that water had manifested itself into a monumental crop of grass and weeds. This made target acquisition a bit of a challenge, but nevertheless, there was no shortage of critters on which to judge the performance of the Volquartsen 17 HMR. It only meant that most of our shooting had to be accomplished either off-hand or standing using shooting sticks. Overall, the Volquartsen Custom rifl e functioned equally as well in the fi eld as it did off the bench. Unfortu-
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