“The 22 Creedmoor Project”

[huntnful]

What I’m calling the 22 creedmoor project, has started.

The gun was built by @barehandlineman at High Voltage Armory.

1-8 twist 24” Heavy Palma Muller Works
Defiance SA HVA Exodus Action
MDT XRS Chassis
Bix N Andy tac sport pro trigger
Area 419 Hunt Rings. .94”
Trijicon Tenmile HX 5-25X50 MOA FFP

Scoped rifle weighs 14.56lbs. No muzzle threads.



This is just a data collection driven project. I will document as much as I can and share openly. Nothing hidden or knit picked.

I really want to personally learn as much as I can about shooting (especially positional and building effective positions) & reloading and what affects what, and by how much (if any). Also barrel life/wear and how it affects speeds/groups as the shot count grows.

I used my normal virgin brass prep and a load that worked well in my last barrel and loaded up 50 rounds. This is my “Control” load and groups. A generic baseline basically.

Alpha LRP brass
80 ELDM
41gr. H4350
CCI 200
2.660” COAL

I bore sighted the gun. Shot 3. Adjusted over. Shot 10. Aim point was black “X”.


I adjust right 1/4 and down 1/2. Scrubbed the barrel clean. Shot some foulers out of the group. Then shot 20 straight rounds for a group. No breaks other than swapping mags. This is my control group for future comparisons when testing.


I then went to 471 yards and shot 10 for a group to see how the load held up. There was a 5-10 MPH wind the whole range session. I did not hold for wind intentionally, so that I wouldn’t shoot out my aim point. Just testing the loads precision at a decent distance. It is trending high, but I’ll correct the data at 800-1000 yards later on.


Every one of these rounds was weighed within 1 kernel on an A&D FX 120i scale. This was the ES & SD over 25 rounds in virgin brass.



I have 500 pieces of the same lot of Virgin alpha brass. An 8lb of H4350. 1100 80 ELDMS of the same lot number. So testing can be consistent throughout.




A lot of this testing will be done for myself and my own curiosities. But I’m also considering this a community 22 CM. So if you have valid interests that you would like to see tested, and they’re reasonable to do, please share them and I’ll try to accommodate those interests as well!!

Also these new area 419 rings seem absolutely first class.


All animals you see killed in CA were shot with a random copper load . Just close range coyotes mostly in the future. All practing and target shooting will be mostly with 80 ELDM’s.

FYI, the chassis and donkey dick of a barrel were just selected because they were cheap, and available lol. Chassis seems nice to shoot behind and has a comfortable grip. Definitely plastic feeling and flimsy feeling. But I’m honestly not that critical of things anyways. It seems nice enough for $550.

 

[T_Widdy]

This will be fun to watch! Thanks!

You should try and tumble 30 of the new pieces of brass and see if that affects the sd?

 

[huntnful]

This will be fun to watch! Thanks!

You should try and tumble 30 of the new pieces of brass and see if that affects the sd?

Vibratory in corn media?

 

[T_Widdy]

Vibratory in corn media?

Yea, just used media if you have some. maybe for 45 minutes

 

[Lawnboi]

Vibratory in corn media?

Dirty dry media.

What’s what I normally do with premium brass. Can definetlu feel a difference seating on an arbor press. How much it translates I don’t know, but my pressures feel same after firing once as well.

Please record velocity for a group atleast every 100 rounds.

also curious if you will be cleaning?

 

[huntnful]

Yea, just used media if you have some. maybe for 45 minutes

Done. 20 pieces in the corn media. 20 should be plenty to see any significant change initially. If it looks promising, I’ll do more for sure.

 

[Jake Larsen]

Are you running virgin brass across a mandrel for consistent neck tension?

I’d like to see some specific testing on neck tension. My suspicion is that as long as it’s consistent, it won’t matter much. I ask about the new brass prep because as a “baseline” set of data, that would potentially affect how you’d run a test and what you might see.


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[huntnful]

Dirty dry media.

What’s what I normally do with premium brass. Can definetlu feel a difference seating on an arbor press. How much it translates I don’t know, but my pressures feel same after firing once as well.

Please record velocity for a group atleast every 100 rounds.

also curious if you will be cleaning?

Sure thing. Intentional velocity readings every 100 rounds or so will be a piece of cake.

The rifle has 48 rounds on it now, and the barrel is scrubbed clean. So it’s been cleaned twice now. I don’t intend to clean it again for a substantial, but undetermined amount of rounds.

 

[huntnful]

Are you running virgin brass across a mandrel for consistent neck tension?

I’d like to see some specific testing on neck tension. My suspicion is that as long as it’s consistent, it won’t matter much. I ask about the new brass prep because as a “baseline” set of data, that would potentially affect how you’d run a test and what you might see.


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Oh good question!!

So this is my initial baseline preferred way of prepping virgin brass.

1- chamfer inside and outside of neck.
2- brush inside of neck with oversized nylon brush on a drill.
3. Moly lube inside of neck
4. Mandrel with a .2235 mandrel


I’ll be testing the brushing portion, moly portion and mandrel portion separately as well.

Chamfering inside and out is absolutely not a question lol.

 

[Lawnboi]

Are you running virgin brass across a mandrel for consistent neck tension?

I’d like to see some specific testing on neck tension. My suspicion is that as long as it’s consistent, it won’t matter much. I ask about the new brass prep because as a “baseline” set of data, that would potentially affect how you’d run a test and what you might see.


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Virgin alpha, atleast lately really dosnt need it. I normally push a trying mandrel through Peterson and lapua, but the alpha was all two thou under loaded diameter to begin with.

Will be neat to see the difference in prep makes though.

 

[Bluumoon]

But why though? On the cleaning ? Habit /data/ break in ? I quit cleaning, so have never gone back and measured groups post cleaning to know if they would improve. So far I haven’t shot any barrel enough to see grounds fall out of what I want. I don’t shoot all that much though

 

[huntnful]

But why though? On the cleaning ? Habit /data/ break in ? I quit cleaning, so have never gone back and measured groups post cleaning to know if they would improve. So far I haven’t shot any barrel enough to see grounds fall out of what I want. I don’t shoot all that much though

Habit and bore scoping mostly. Most barrels grab a shit load of copper in the first 10 rounds. Because the bullets are getting scarred by the edges of the freshly machined lands and then deposit a ton of copper. I’ve seen this 100% is several barrels.

Once that initial copper is out, it looks like maybe 30 rounds later there’s another decent amount in there. And after that copper is removed, it can take hundreds of rounds to deposit as much copper as those first 10 rounds.

Whether is really would have affected this barrel IDK. But I’ve seen copper fouled barrels shoot like shit, and then be cleaned, and be back to stacking nice groups. So I just do it, instead of testing it with every barrel.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

Not that he needs it, but I can corroborate that Steve is doing all this work with a completely open mind with nothing to “prove” or “hide”. This is a learning project for him/all of us to witness.

I have unedited videos of real world, real time results from him, and this will be awesome to follow along here on Rokslide as well!

 

[Jake Larsen]

Virgin alpha, atleast lately really dosnt need it. I normally push a trying mandrel through Peterson and lapua, but the alpha was all two thou under loaded diameter to begin with.

Will be neat to see the difference in prep makes though.

My 7Saw Alpha brass needed it. Was quite tight


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[Jake Larsen]

Oh good question!!

So this is my initial baseline preferred way of prepping virgin brass.

1- chamfer inside and outside of neck.
2- brush inside of neck with oversized nylon brush on a drill.
3. Moly lube inside of neck
4. Mandrel with a .2235 mandrel


I’ll be testing the brushing portion, moly portion and mandrel portion separately as well.

Chamfering inside and out is absolutely not a question lol.

Once you get to re-sizing brass, I’d love to see a bushing style die used, with a couple different sized bushings. Then you could controll for .002, .004 ect neck tension and test. See if any specific tension is better, or also see if they group significantly differently. If you tracked speed throughout, that would be a neat data set.


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[huntnful]

Once you get to re-sizing brass, I’d love to see a bushing style die used, with a couple different sized bushings. Then you could controll for .002, .004 ect neck tension and test. See if any specific tension is better, or also see if they group significantly differently. If you tracked speed throughout, that would be a neat data set.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Absolutely a great and easy test to do in the future with fired brass. It will happen .

Not that he needs it, but I can corroborate that Steve is doing all this work with a completely open mind with nothing to “prove” or “hide”. This is a learning project for him/all of us to witness.

I have unedited videos of real world, real time results from him, and this will be awesome to follow along here on Rokslide as well!

Thank you! I’m looking forward to the learning and sharing as well!

 

[HighUintas]

I'm interested to know the difference in velocity and accuracy from Virgin to multiple loads on same brass, if the web (pressure ring and head) has grown in diameter substantially, and what you find for velocity and accuracy change in not cleaning after barrel is broken in.

I am convinced that the need for cleaning depends on the freebore diameter and the firing schedule (how hot you get the throat).

 

[Moose83]

How about loading 20 once-fired with zero extra prep. FL resize, prime, drop powder, seat bullet, shoot. I'm curious how much larger the group will be from your baseline.

 

[huntnful]

I'm interested to know the difference in velocity and accuracy from Virgin to multiple loads on same brass, if the web (pressure ring and head) has grown in diameter substantially, and what you find for velocity and accuracy change in not cleaning after barrel is broken in.

I am convinced that the need for cleaning depends on the freebore diameter and the firing schedule (how hot you get the throat).

I’m absolutely interested in and will be checking those things as well!!

How about loading 20 once-fired with zero extra prep. FL resize, prime, drop powder, seat bullet, shoot. I'm curious how much larger the group will be from your baseline.

Absolutely. I’ll do a “once fired” test day with lots of different tests on the fired brass! And will test that as well

 

[huntnful]

Prepping the next test.

I’ll be focused on verifying drop data with the tumbled pieces, and monitoring velocities.

The “no prep” seated with substantially more force (which I expected) and left a small dent in the circumference of the bullet.