I Drank The Form Kool-Aid.

[Kimber7man]

ebay.com/itm/Sportsmatch-TO84-30mm-suits-TIKKA-15mm-dovetails-early-Brno-15mm-eg-Model-2-/302359501564

thx

 

[ljalberta]

I'm about to sample the kool-aid myself with this exact setup. Similar reasoning to yourself. Looking to extend my range, consistency, and shooting abilities. Looking to do so on a reasonable budget. And I'm based a little north of you in Alberta.

Any update on the setup, progress, or anything you'd setup differently if you had the opportunity to start back at square one?

 

[Ndbowhunter]

If i did it again i’d Order a 21” 7 twist 223ai barrel immediately after takin possession of rifle. Get wrench flats too.

 

[yycyak]

No updates yet - I've been spending most of my limited free time actually hunting and haven't had time to do a dedicated range session/proper update. Still hoping to fill my cow elk tag before Dec 20th hits.

Based on everything done previously, I wouldn't really change anything. The rig shoots better than I can, and the scope dials consistently. I've had other shooters use the rig, and they too can produce tiny groups. It's great for my confidence knowing that the rifle is consistent, and it's my shooting that is the problem.

One thing that I would say is to "Hold Fast" on the concept. Focus on the fact that this rifle is built for field shooting. I was out with a couple of guys rocking 6x24 powers, who were shit-talking my 10x. "It's too hard to see the paper target bull at 600m with a 10x."

Yes, this is true.

But, this is a field rifle. You aren't bench-shooting with it. You built this rifle to shoot it off a pack/off-hand/off sticks/in the snow after having climbed a ridgeline. The field of view at 24x at a 263m distance is supremely small - good luck finding the target quickly. At 10x, you can at least find it, and get off a shot. (I specifically picked 263m, because I did a place-paper-plates-at-random-ranges exercise, and it kicked everyone's butt. Field of view when engaging multiple targets at random distances matters. A lot.)

After taking a few shots with their 6x24's off the bench, yeah, I was a bit bummed when going back to the 10x. But, once we switched to doing real field shooting that wasn't from a bench, it was no contest.

Hold fast and don't be dissuaded by bench-testing nonsense.

I'm about to sample the kool-aid myself with this exact setup. Similar reasoning to yourself. Looking to extend my range, consistency, and shooting abilities. Looking to do so on a reasonable budget. And I'm based a little north of you in Alberta.

Any update on the setup, progress, or anything you'd setup differently if you had the opportunity to start back at square one?

 

[yycyak]

Actually, one more thing I will add about shooting under field conditions:

I blew a shot earlier this season. Found a buck, stalked up closer, belly crawled closer. Ranged it. Okay beauty, go-time. Pulled the rifle to my shoulder.

I still had my neoprene scope cover over the SWFA....

Buck saw me moving around trying to pull the cover off, and off he went.

I prior to this year, I had never really practiced with a rifle that started with the cover on. It was always "get to range, remove cover, go shoot for the rest of the day." And this was stupid, because when I'm in the field, I always keep the cover on until I'm ready to shoot.

Now, when I practice, I've made a point to keep a neoprene cover on my rig, because of snow/weather. I haven't had a chance to do much intentional practice, other than dryfire/sequence practice in my basement, but it is what it is.

Muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

 

[307]

If i did it again i’d Order a 21” 7 twist 223ai barrel immediately after takin possession of rifle. Get wrench flats too.

Rifle idiot here, why would you replace a brand new barrel? Is the 7" twist going to make a significant difference compared to the 8" twist?

 

[Ndbowhunter]

Somewhat. While the 75gr eld-m is pretty awesome.. it gets pretty splashy up close. Not a huge issue really, but I have a feeling it’ll bite ya when a hard quartering to shot needs to happen and ya catch shoulder and only punch one lung. If that propert line is close you’ll be hoping the rancher is a nice guy.

get a longer, heavier bullet and you’ll drop initial launch velocity, but with higher BC’s you’ll stay in the sweet spot just as long and only suffer at the farthest margins (assuming eld’s require 1800fps to open up)

tikka barrels tend to be slow, but accurate. In my gun, tmk’s for instance are leaving the barrel at 2800 with hand loads, just a tick less with black hills.. that’s hardly 450 yard bullets during November rut hunts.

But if we can push an 88gr eld-m with an ackley chamber on a good custom barrel to 2750fps, comfortably take 600 yard shots. And have 40% less wind drift even at the 400 yard line.

still shoot factory ammo on prairie dog town, and never have to trim brass. Win win.


a bit of pole vaulting mouse turds endeavour, but in saying that the two halfway decent animals Taken this fall both required 500 yard shots. the tmk did fine on a hot Wyoming day, but wouldn’t have passed muster later. Nice to have one set of dope to remember.

 

[Ndbowhunter]

Actually, one more thing I will add about shooting under field conditions:

I blew a shot earlier this season. Found a buck, stalked up closer, belly crawled closer. Ranged it. Okay beauty, go-time. Pulled the rifle to my shoulder.

I still had my neoprene scope cover over the SWFA....

Buck saw me moving around trying to pull the cover off, and off he went.

I prior to this year, I had never really practiced with a rifle that started with the cover on. It was always "get to range, remove cover, go shoot for the rest of the day." And this was stupid, because when I'm in the field, I always keep the cover on until I'm ready to shoot.

Now, when I practice, I've made a point to keep a neoprene cover on my rig, because of snow/weather. I haven't had a chance to do much intentional practice, other than dryfire/sequence practice in my basement, but it is what it is.

Muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

Butler creeks man.

Left hand hits the front cap tab. shooting thumb the red lever.

 

[HighUintas]

Y

Butler creeks man.

Left hand hits the front cap tab. shooting thumb the red lever.

Yea I got some for my kids gun... They rock.

 

[Marbles]

Butler creeks man.

Left hand hits the front cap tab. shooting thumb the red lever.

I just replaced my tenebraex covers with a neoprene cover. I found that once I started busting through SE AK brush the flip ups would get snagged and come open, leaving me with water on my lenses. I liked them for several years though.

 

[Ndbowhunter]

Hardly one size fits all in life.

But for most equations Butler creeks are pretty good value. If you have a problem with them coming open, trim the tabs down a bit and put a bit of gasket sealant to snug up fit if need be.

 

[yycyak]

Well my busy season at work finally slowed down. And after having some bad juju follow my Zastava Mauser around, my wife yelled at me to stop screwing around with nonsense, and then this happened...

I need to sight the new 30-06 in still, and will post how that goes. Haven't figured out if I should go 180gr vs my usual 165gr that I ran on the Zastava. Maybe just shoot both and see what groups the best?

(Scope just on for show. Needs to be mounted with proper rings still.)

 

[yycyak]

Update - 11 May 2021

Nothing too exciting here. The day got away from me a bit, so I worked late in the shop getting this done.

Same as before:

- free float barrel
- tighten action screws to 60in/lbs
- degrease rings
- get ring spacing/scope position set
- loctite on everything
- tighten base screws to 30in/lbs
- tighten ring screws to 18in/lbs
- add nail polish (this time sparkly gold)

Also, I added a Limbsaver air-something recoil pad, based on the advice posted in a few Tikka threads.

Fun fact: T085 Sportsmatch rings will work just fine with the Tikka. The only difference appears to be the recoil pin locations. If you aren't concerned about this, then go to town. I was unable to find any T084's right now (Canada) so made do with these. I added an old screw I had laying around in the parts bin as a pseudo recoil-pin. See pics. Its probably overkill, but whatever.

Done up with the rifle, rings, and 6x SWFA: 7.77lbs.

Hoping to maybe get out to the range Friday and give an update on both the 223 and the new 30-06.

 

[yycyak]

Misc Update

Ordered the Atlasworx bottom metal sized for a long action. The intention was to run the AICS magazines, and have a bit more room for the long high BC bullets. From what I read, the Atlasworx should have been plug and play.

It is not plug and play.

The whole point of this build was to avoid having to work/tinker on a rifle, so kind of a bummer to see that it doesn't just drop in. I'll need to do a bunch of extra inletting, and likely take out about 3/16" of material.

 

[yycyak]

Update - 17 May 2021

Yesterday I finally managed to make it out to the range. And by range I mean I drove about an hour an half out to public land, and then hiked 1km away from the truck to set things up. You’re guaranteed to avoid people this way, but you miss out on things like gongs and stuff (My city is stupid and there are no close firing ranges/clubs. Still on a wait list 2 years later….) I loaded up the 30-06, strapped the 223 on my pack along with ammo and targets, and off I went.

Next, fired some test groups with the 223 (prone over pack). Not the best, but felt nice shaking the rust off.

30-06 Time

Now it was time to break out the 30-06 and test it out. I used the patented @Formidilosus method of barrel break-in: Load ammo and start shooting. Went as follows:

- Bore sight (literally look down the bore and adjust scope to paper)
- 1x shot to see if I'm on paper;
- Adjust scope to impact;
- Shoot some 3x "fake groups" and fine tune;
- Shoot real 10x group;

Load is 48.7gr 4064 behind 178gr ELD-M. I also followed Form's advice here: skip the ballistics masturbation and load your shit to max load and magazine length. Don't overthink it.

After about 6 rds of junk Remington factory ammo to get things roughly adjusted (Duct-taped holes), time to shoot the handloads.

Here are the first 3 shots with the ELDM's:

So you could say I was pretty stoked at this point. And here are ten shots:

I fired this ten shot group in intervals: 3x, 3x, 2x, and 2x. (Was messing with the 223 in between to give the '06 a bit of a break.) The "top" two shots of the ten-shot group is that last 2x interval. I don't know what I did there, but maybe messed up my rest or position or something.

Anyway, it's obvious that this thing can shoot better than I can. With the way my 223 shooting went, I wasn't expecting these results with the heavier-recoiling rifle either. Rest of the day's generally session went like the ones above.

Conclusion

I think it's safe to wrap this story up. If you want an easy-button, the Tikka with an SWFA is a really solid choice. @Formidilosus 's stuff is legit. If you want to skip the internet masturbation and just get something that will work, I would 100% recommend going this route.

Next project is improving my field shooting. I shot the basic relay in this thread, and was ******* humbled.

Equipment versus practice posts and Rifle practice/shooting

This isn’t in response to anyone I particular, but there is an up tick in the amount of “I want a XXXX distance hunting rifle” traffic the last few months. I am getting a lot of questions relating to this, which I do not mind helping, but thought a public post might help answer some questions...

www.rokslide.com

Anyway if you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me. I'm going to update my first post with a TLDR.

 

[HighUintas]

Update - 17 May 2021

Yesterday I finally managed to make it out to the range. And by range I mean I drove about an hour an half out to public land, and then hiked 1km away from the truck to set things up. You’re guaranteed to avoid people this way, but you miss out on things like gongs and stuff (My city is stupid and there are no close firing ranges/clubs. Still on a wait list 2 years later….) I loaded up the 30-06, strapped the 223 on my pack along with ammo and targets, and off I went.

Fired some test groups with the 223 (prone over pack). Not the best, but felt nice shaking the rust off.

30-06 Time

Now it was time to break out the 30-06 and test it out. I used the patented @Formidilosus method of barrel break-in: Load ammo and start shooting. Went as follows:

- Bore sight (literally look down the bore and adjust scope to paper)
- 1x shot to see if I'm on paper;
- Adjust scope to impact;
- Shoot some 3x "fake groups" and fine tune;
- Shoot real 10x group;

Load is 48.7gr 4064 behind 178gr ELD-M. I also followed Form's advice here: skip the ballistics masturbation and load your shit to max load and magazine length. Don't overthink it.

After about 6 rds of junk Remington factory ammo to get things roughly adjusted (Duct-taped holes), time to shoot the handloads.

Here are the first 3 shots with the ELDM's:

So you could say I was pretty stoked at this point. And here are ten shots:

I fired this ten shot group in intervals: 3x, 3x, 2x, and 2x. (Was messing with the 223 in between to give the '06 a bit of a break.) The "top" two shots of the ten-shot group is that last 2x interval. I don't know what I did there, but maybe messed up my rest or position or something.

Anyway, it's obvious that this thing can shoot better than I can. With the way my 223 shooting went, I wasn't expecting these results with the heavier-recoiling rifle either. Rest of the day's generally session went like the ones above.

Conclusion

I think it's safe to wrap this story up. If you want an easy-button, the Tikka with an SWFA is a really solid choice. @Formidilosus 's stuff is legit. If you want to skip the internet masturbation and just get something that will work, I would 100% recommend going this route.

Next project is improving my field shooting. I shot the basic relay in this thread, and was ******* humbled.

Equipment versus practice posts and Rifle practice/shooting

This isn’t in response to anyone I particular, but there is an up tick in the amount of “I want a XXXX distance hunting rifle” traffic the last few months. I am getting a lot of questions relating to this, which I do not mind helping, but thought a public post might help answer some questions...

www.rokslide.com

Anyway if you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me. I'm going to update my first post with a TLDR.

I like your term "ballistics masturbation" haha

 

[yycyak]

I can't say I invented the term, but for me personally, I find I can get so caught up in the nuance and bull**** of analysis that I lose sight of what's important.

Who cares that Cartridge X drops 6" less at 600m vs Cartridge Y. Just dial higher.

My hope is that this thread lets people skip all the analysis crap. Get a Tikka. Get an SWFA. Done. Now, go spend all your money on actually hunting/shooting/gas to get to the field, instead of wasting your time analyzing what 50 grains of powder vs 50.2 grains of powder does.

I've wasted so much time and money on doing stupid Analysis of Minutiae (aka ballistics masturbation) that I joke that I'm in "internet forum rehab." (Rokslide is a bit of an exception, as we all know.)

I like your term "ballistics masturbation" haha

 

[ARK_Ginger]

If that atlasworxs bottom metal doesn't work out and you're still wanting a bigger magazine and OAL, I'd recommend trying to find a take off CTR stock. I just put one on both of mine. Neat thing is a MDT polymer AICS 223 magazine will fit and feed with some minor fitting

 

[brewster22]

View attachment 206132
Best thing I did for my shooting. Zero it then get off the bench!

that is a nice weapon

 

[Marbles]

Well, I dug this thread up to confirm that the 223 concept works. Hard to believe it took me more than 3 years to actually implement it from when this thread was started.

About the time this thread was started, and for the years in-between, 200 yards was my max hunting range, and that was pushing my comfort on an animal.

I got a 223 late last year and started shooting it a lot in January. The other day, I was scoring first round hits on rocks out to 490 yards, the rock at 490 was 0.5 mil.

Reloading helped (and at this point I have saved money versus shooting the same amount of factory ammo, even when considering the cost of getting set up to reload).