6 Dasher No-Barrel-Cleaning Test

[Carl Ross]

Any updates?

Coming soon, I’ve been otherwise focused but some matches are coming up so I’ll have more information in the next few weeks.

 

[grappling_hook]

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing this test.

When the accuracy eventually and inevitably degrades, it will be interesting to see how/if cleaning it at that point brings it back, or if it happens when the barrel was done for anyway due to round count.

 

[Carl Ross]

Took everything apart and reassembled. It seems the action screws were a bit loose despite using loktite initially, which I suspect lead to the vertical change in point of impact.

 

[Carl Ross]

Shot a match the day after the above shooting, I'm sitting at 914 rounds currently. Didn't get to bedding it, may happen yet. Loaded up 400 rounds of brass for the third firing, so I should be set with it for 2-3 months depending on the match schedule.

 

[WBT]

Thanks for keeping this updated. It's a really interesting collection of data.

 

[deer_hunter132]

i just got a dasher, put 70 thru it so far. it just shoots. cleaned it with thorro clean. its clean. i had a habit of shooting and not cleaning and after a long time of not shooting, i live in a humid environment, the barrel has blue corrosion in the barrel. i need to find a happy medium lol

 

[Shortschaf]

i just got a dasher, put 70 thru it so far. it just shoots. cleaned it with thorro clean. its clean. i had a habit of shooting and not cleaning and after a long time of not shooting, i live in a humid environment, the barrel has blue corrosion in the barrel. i need to find a happy medium lol

That blue stuff is just the copper deposits corroding.
I do not have any reason to believe it is damaging to accuracy or the steel barrel

 

[deer_hunter132]

That blue stuff is just the copper deposits corroding.
I do not have any reason to believe it is damaging to accuracy or the steel barrel

all i know is, there was etching left in the metal afterward.

 

[HighUintas]

all i know is, there was etching left in the metal afterward.

Was it on stainless or blued barrel it etched it?

 

[deer_hunter132]

Was it on stainless or blued barrel it etched it?

the worst one was blued; on the inside of the barrel. then i noticed the same coloration (again from copper) happening in a stainless barrel so i have been cleaning with oil at a min to keep reactions at bay. I figured the same was going to happen to the SS barrel.

 

[Carl Ross]

Finally bedded this rifle, and crossed over 1000 rounds. I switched lots of Berger 109's after 1000, as well as having brass onto its third loading. No significant change at short range, but I did tweak my 4dof solver for the different lot of bullets. It's actually shooting tighter than it had previously, I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of bedding was holding it back. It went from a slightly below average Dasher barrel to solidly good. I did only shoot 10 round groups due to time, ammo conservation, and having to shoot 3 of them as things were changing. It didn't make an impact on the next match, but I wasn't missing due to dispersion anyways so that isn't surprising. Pleasantly surprised so far...

I was having trouble with my Excel velocity graph, but it's dropping VERY slowly as you can see from the charts.

 

[Carl Ross]

I adjusted .1 up after (not down as I wrote on the target, geez). When a pretty confirm comes your way, take it.

 

[HighUintas]

Very cool. So the only change you've made after finding your load is switching a bullet lot and bedding your stock?

It looks like your SD and ES might be getting better over time.

 

[Tanner]

What are you doing most of your big game hunting with these days Carl? Still recall your 700 6.5x47 from years back as it was a rough inspiration for one of my most used hunting rigs.

 

[Carl Ross]

Very cool. So the only change you've made after finding your load is switching a bullet lot and bedding your stock?

It looks like your SD and ES might be getting better over time.

I picked my load before I started, the only thing that I had to tweak was I jammed the bullets for the first loading to control headspace. Otherwise, yes, what you said is correct. Everything has settled in very nicely.

 

[Carl Ross]

What are you doing most of your big game hunting with these days Carl? Still recall your 700 6.5x47 from years back as it was a rough inspiration for one of my most used hunting rigs.

I got the good out of that 6.5x47, it was a nice platform.

I’ve used a lot of 6’s recently, a Tikka 243 and 22BR were what I carried this year. Have a 22 Creed barrel on order.