A Field Evaluation: Northern Competition AR-10 Cheetah L.P. Brezny
Well-made long action AR/22-250 LR Remington.
N
orthern Competition of Bristol, Wisconsin, builds rifles for
competitive shooting directly along the lines of basic military requirements. Of late, this company has been taking a close look at moving into the varmint hunting area of fi rearms needs. That is to say, modifying an already task specifi c competitive target rifl e into a tack driving AR-10 varmint rig. An example of the Northern
Competition rifl e, henceforth referred to as the NC rifl e, was offered for evalu- ation by the company, and The Varmint Hunter Magazine® asked if I would be willing to undertake evaluation of the new rifl e. I received the rifl e in late Sep- tember 2011 and immediately installed on the gun a new Hawke Sports Optics Nite Eye Digital SR 6 scope. Using the Rock River quick detach rings and rail on the 1" tube 4-16x scope, the basic setup was fast and effective. If there was an area regarding
this review that got started on the wrong foot, it was my selection of am- munition. With my brain in automatic response on the subject of a 22-250, the cartridge the new rifl e was chambered
Page 118 Spring 2012
Detail of scope.
in, I never gave the barrel’s twist rate a thought. I simply grabbed several boxes of Black Hills 50-grain Ballistic Tip, a box of hunting grade Century Arms 55-grain soft nose, and a fi nal box of 60-grain Federal Sierra MatchKing ammunition. At the range everything tanked out quickly, in that all of the 50-grain bullets were shooting like a shotgun pattern. The 55-grain bullets showed some tendencies of grouping, but not really to my liking, and the 60-grain Sierras, while better, were not delivering MOA of accuracy on the 100-yard target. The rifl e simply was not shooting. Data sheets that came with the
rifl e were all centering on the 308 to 243 size cartridges and a 1:10" twist rate 26" barrel. This rifl e was different, however, and after a long talk with the manufacturer’s rep I learned that this rifl e has a 1:8" twist rate and requires some very heavy bullets. It seems that the folks at Northern Competition rifl es had stayed with the military concept of a heavy target bullet when making the change to a typical varmint cartridge to be used in this production heavyweight long-range AR-10 rifl e. All that had just
Left: Jerome Besler and his Rock River suppressed 308. Right: Wayne Bremmer and the new 22-250 LR. This is a good crossover system for the one-gun hunter.
gone right over my head, and in effect I had lost a couple of range days mess- ing with a very basic problem that was fi xable by making a simple change in bullets. It was time to head for the han- dloading bench and also make some e-mail contacts with friends who could get me to the correct ammo, as well as components, that would work well in this fast-twist-rate 22-250 barrel. In the general mainstream of am-
munition production for the 22-250, you’re not going to fi nd a whole lot on dealers’ shelves loaded with heavy, match grade bullets. It was my sug- gestion to the young company (made up mostly of retired or inactive combat Marines) that turning to a 1:12" twist rate barrel was going to be a require- ment for a rifl e that would be used by varmint hunters. The 22-250 Cheetah was a 12½ -pound monster with its 26" heavy Badger Products barrel, so some cutbacks in weight would not be the worst idea of the day. This rifl e had been sent to me to evaluate the qual- ity of the product and not so much its ability to go afi eld as a varmint rig. In fact, I had already relegated the rifl e to
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