summer of 22lr barrel testing

[stagpanther]

Not sure how this got started, but it looks like I'll be having at least a couple new CZ 457 barrels to try out over the summer. I also must admit I've been poking around L3i's website lately--looks miiiiighty interesting. They are coming out with their own 700 rem style 22lr action sometime this summer--I'll be watching that development closely.

This barrel arrived this afternoon and I put it on my #2 rig, it's a CZ OEM 24" threaded varmint barrel that I scored from eurooptic for just a bit under $300.00. Them CZ guys are getting pricey; seems like only a year ago or so you could score a two barrel set for the around the same price. Oh well. feels about twice as heavy as the OEM sporter barrel but I didn't weigh either of them.

[stagpanther]

Shot a few test groups out of the new varmint barrel today at 50 yards--the only reason I shot that close was because the fog was so thick even at that distance the target was pretty hard to resolve. 50 yards for me is sort of annoying for rifle target shooting; becomes an exercise in interpreting ragged holes. This 10 shot group turned in by lapua x-act is pretty decent.

[ligonierbill]

Nice. I'm more pedestrian with my best shooters a CZ 452 and a classic Savage 23A. They won't do justice to top-of-the-line ammo, but they sure like Eley Team.

[stagpanther]

I've learned a lot from shooting at longer distances with 22lr, harder for me to concentrate at close distance, really. For example, I've learned that there is a really big difference in elevation spreads between the various brands and makers of ammo which starts becoming very pronounced at about 200yards and more; even if the velocity difference isn't all that much between them. It's been so long since I've shot at 50 yards I reflexively adjusted for some elevation differences between the different ammo--but was rather surprised when it became apparent there was very little elevation difference between them all at 50 yards.

I love the videos this guy and his wife make in OZ (I might ask him if I can e-mail order a bride like that ); Mark and Sam I have tried over and over again to replicate his results with sub and super ammo and have never come close to proving super is better than sub at 300 yards, in fact the super is usually much worse than the sub stuff. But there is one aspect to his video which stands out to me, he mentions that he has a left cross wind component--and I would expect that any dispersion would be readily evident in horizontal drift in his groups (except in the one supersonic group). Instead the effect seems most evident in vertical dispersion of the group. I've seen the same thing in my subsonic groups at longer distances in crosswinds.

[tangolima]

I have noticed these 2 facts about the cheap hv ammo that I shoot.

1. Coefficient of variance (SD/mean) pretty high. 1.5% is considered not too bad.

2. MV is rather sensitive to temperature variations. 0.1%/F or more, which moves poi between high noon and twinight.

Unlike handloaded ammo, we don't get to tinker. Barrel tuner is about the only handle I can pull.

Premium ammo most certainly has tighter SD.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[stagpanther]

This rig has a timney straight 22lr trigger set at around 8 ounces pull weight. In comparison, my #1 CZ rig has a yo-Dave job which breaks at around 6 ounces. I find the timney has a hard wall to break when shooting; for some reason it feels a lot more than 8 ounces. Might be the ergonomics, don't know, but I'm thinking about replacing it with a jard.