Photo taken during
earlier 25 caliber development program .... Kelly at the trigger.
I got out to the range alittle before
noon today. It's been nasty cold here for weeks, but; this morning
the sun was shining just a bit. I'd gathered up my "stuff"
last evening and all was GO for the range.
I got there to find Tom Gaylord testing.
He was finishing up as I carried my gear to the benches.
I sold a 25 caliber Ranger from my
test program alittle while before my surgery. Shipment had to
wait for a few months because the last phase of testing involved
a new shrouded barrel design and it remained unblued. In addition,
a casting mold and sizing die set was required. All this had to
be manufactured and verified after I healed and got back to work.
I keep some shop molds but they often include prototype designs.
So, a proven bullet design had to be chosen and a fresh mold was
required. All now ready, I was off to the range.
It was about 30F degrees. Everything
(including the shooter) likes to get limbered up some. Still;
here was the first three shots of the day - cold gun - cold shooter
- and Tom was even watching.
This is an approx. 63 grain 25 caliber
Barnes Slug I call a "Daisycutter". The Barnes 25 Magnum
was shooting it for approx. 100+ fpe. Very quiet - very accurate.
Atop the Ranger is a Barnes 25 barrel of my own design. Manufactured
by hand, in my shop, with my own tooling.
A 2 by 8 spruce plank/block. I made
up a bunch of these for demonstration purpose for the first Standing
Stone. Then, I found my time was pretty well occupied at the festival
and I never used most of them. I still have a few for slug penetration
testing.
Just a note, once again:
group location is irrelevant when simply testing slugs for flight.
You can always dial the group into the kill zone. It's just alot
of fiddling with scope knobs and extra groups to do it. (The only
exception is a slug which won't fly in a straight line - but that
becomes readily obvious.) Also ... when testing for accuracy,
many shooters place groups to fall off the POA (point of aim)
some. If you shoot out your aim spot - you then have no aim spot!
Obviously, once you've chosen the slug for your rifle and proofed
it's accuracy potential, then you dial in the groups to fall on
the POA.
At 50 yards, these 25 caliber slugs
just sail on thru. Wood flies! This is the back of the plank.
When I make a bullet casting mold,
I usually cut "multiple cavity" molds for people. These
molds are far more time consuming to make, but they cast faster
with about the same effort. For my rental program, I often (bite
the bullet ;?) and make a multiple cavity mold (which remains
the property of the shop) so Tom Basile isn't down there casting
one bullet at a time.
I don't have a NASA type shop. (I know
that surprises many of you - ha ha). Actually, even NASA would
find that identical mold cavities, cut one right after the other,
with the same tooling on the same machine ... still vary the smallest
amount. A consistent bullet mold is critical to accuracy.
There are ways to keep track of the
individual mold cavities - even while casting. Much of the accuracy
equation is based upon the shooter's willingness to give attention
to detail. Sorting and grading the pellets will help.
Here is a group shot with 10 pellets
from the 4 near identical cavities on the mold. These were NOT
graded pellets. They were just cleaned and sized. I did go to
the effort to make certain that I had a mix of the four cavities
for this group cluster. The ten pellets were shot back to back.
The major group is right at 1"c/c @50 yards. The one high
shot probably had a small flaw (remember ... these were ungraded).
Even if we assume that I shoot perfectly ... ;?) ... there's still
not much variation here. This is good. An inch @ 50 yards isn't
bad and this was a ten shot cluster of slugs cast from four different
mold cavities. Keep this in mind as well ... 1" center
to center means that all the bullets hit within 1/2" of the
point of aim @ 50 yards.
Now ... with alittle attention to sorting
.... and alittle scope adjustment
Here's a three shot group with slugs
from #2 cavity alone...
Then I turned it down on medium power
right before leaving. Three slugs from #1 cavity. P-r-e-t-t-y
Good .... that's three @50 yards at the end of a very cold session.
I'd been out for about 3 hours by then. All three of those slugs hit within approx. 1/8"
of the point of aim at 50 yards. Look at a ruler and see what
that means in the real world.
Those were obviously three good slugs.
Clearly, there's more to it (like the rifle and the shooter),
but you don't get groups like this randomly. EVERYTHING is right
when this happens. And, with attention to detail, it will happen
often enough to surprise a seasoned shooter. New shooters "expect"
this every time. Seasoned shooters know you have to earn it and
appreciate it when it arrives.
These rifles will shoot if you pay
attention to detail. This is what all the late hours and extra
range days add up to. The final factor is a shooter who will spend
the range time to develop the skills the rifle's deserve. That's
why you hear me bellyache when I do all this prep work only to
hang one on the wall. I make certain that they are ALL shooters
before I ship anything.
I very occasionally hear a story of
someone who's bought a used Barnes and then claims it won't shoot.
Upon researching the story alittle, I find the shooter had the
wrong fill pressure ... wrong pellet ... wrong size for the pellet
... wrong technique ... shot too many shots for the rifle's balance
set-up, combinations of the above, even all of the above. "Barnes"
engraved on the receiver doesn't mean you don't have to do things
correctly. It means; if you do things correctly, the results will
often amaze you. These stories never shake me (rare as they are)
simply because I've spent the time and proven every rifle before
it was shipped. Rifles may occasionally need service ... but nobody
gets a lemon.
I'm most known for my Big Bore PCP
rifles. I hope this shows you that my 25's shoot as well. Now
... I don't bother to make my 25's so they'll shoot commercial
pellets. That may seem odd to some (or many) ... but I'm doing
something out of the ordinary here. Pushing the envelope. This
is a quiet, accurate 25 caliber shooting at 100 fpe. People can
buy all the 25 caliber commercial airguns they can haul. I won't
go to the extreme effort of making a custom rifle and then limit
it's performance to accommodate somebody's $5 tin of pellets.
No ... if I make something, it's special enough to be a complete
system. Nobody buys a custom rifle to save money on pellets. If
it's a Barnes, it's designed to break new ground.
