MaY 2012 Issue - Target Shooter Magazine

FROM THE BENCH cont...Factory Sporter1st Rachel Sullivan 308 Tikka 13.52nd John Rhodes 338 DTA 14.283rd Alan Seagrave 6.5x55 Tikka 14.398Small group: Rachel Sullivan 5.75inchesAnother sub. 1.5 inch 1000 yard group!Last month, Ron Boyd shot a 1.462 inch five-shot Light Gungroup at 1000 yards in an IBS benchrest match at the MidWestBenchrest Club in Yukon, Missouri, USA. Ron shot a 6mmDasher with Bartlein barrel and PR&T stock.Ron’s 1.462 inch group is 0.065in. off the existing IBS 1000-yard Light Gun record. Ron’s group also happens to be 0.011in. smaller than the current NBRSA 1K Light Gun record, 1.473in. shot by Bill Schrader in 2002. (But this is not counted by theNBRSA since Ron shot in an IBS match.) Ron’s group was shotin the first relay of the day, in good conditions. The group hadthree (3) shots clustered in under one-third inch (0.03 MOA)!Jeanette Whitney watches the flags on her wayto the first 100 yard BR win of the seasonThis is truly a spectacular achievement and probably the smallest five-shot group ever shot at 1000 yards with a6mm cartridge. At 1000 yards, 1 MOA is 10.47 inches. This means that Ron’s group measured in at 0.1396 MOA!Ron Boyd’s 6mm Dasher LoadRon loaded a stout charge of Long Range Match surplus powderwith Spencer 103gr bullets seated about ten thou. OFF thelands. The bullets were “right out of the box”, NOT pointed.This powder has burn-rate characteristics very similar to AlliantReloader 15 and Ron used his regular RL15 charge, adjusted byhalf a grain or so. Ron was using no-neck-turn ‘brown-box’ Lapua6BR brass, formed into the 40° improved 6mm Dasher case.The un-turned, loaded case-necks measure about 0.2695in.,yielding .0015 in. total clearance in a 0.271 in. chamber. The brassused for the 1.462 inch group had seven previous firings. Ronanneals his brass after every firing using a Benchsource annealingmachine. Ron says “The Benchsource is the greatest annealingmachine there is, as far as I’m concerned.”17