Bench-Talk

  Here's a picture of a couple of 5 shot groups at 100 yds. I fired recently with some of Randy Robinett's 88 gr. 25 cal. bullets. They were fired with my SGR built 250 Ackley hunting rig....short 700, Hart #2 @22", McMillan Sako Hunter stock and a Weaver K6 six power scope.  For anyone wanting to tinker with a competitive .25 cal., the accuracy potential of these bullets in an Honest-to-Gawd BR rig is pretty apparent. These 88's in a BR case would be a dandy setup.   -Al

What else would one expect from an SGR rifle? :) Thanks for the plug, Al!  I wish I could say my IdiotMag shoots as well - it's pretty much a 0.5" tube . . . maybe it's the 3540 FPS!:(

Is the Hart a 1:10"or, a 12" twist deal? The hypothetical "ideal" twist for the 88's is 1:12.5" - so, anything between 12"  & 13" twist should be very good. I can state that the "soft" core 110 (1% antimony), at 3500+ FPS is a varmint bullet! The "hard" core 110s performed admirably on game. But come Jan., 08,  we'll get a clear pictur of the performance on deer, as I suspect that Tom and Steve will be shooting in excess of 50 antlerless deer with various .25 cal cartridges, ranging from the IdiotMag, down to a .250 Ackley.

What I REALLY want to know - how did you get a pic posted on the forum?? Are you special?? Stan, is Al special?? ;) RG

Nice shooting Al, Were the BIB 88's "hard" core or 1% antimony?.......

-H

    Randy, the Hart barrel on my 250 Ackley is twisted 1:10. Crunching some numbers on the JBM site, it's interesting that for the .25's., the 1:10 twist rate seems to be almost 'universal'...for lack of a better term...in these applications. After all these years of working with .30 cal. twist rates, it seems that I want to apply .30 cal. 'logic' to the .25's. I think it's entirely feasable that these .25's may need a bit faster twist rate than my brain wants them to use (grin).

    To add a picture to my post, I clicked on the little 'tree' icon on the top tool bar (insert/edit image), then copy/pasted the image url into the 'image url' box that appears when you click on the 'tree' icon. I use Photobucket as an imaging hosting site which makes it easy to do. If you don't have a imaging hosting site, give me a call and I can walk you through the deal. It's pretty straightfoward and saves space on your computer that your photos would normally take up. The Photo section on Bench-Talk is nice when you're posting a lot of pics in an album format, but it's nice to be able to drop a photo into a posting to better illustrate what we're talking about, isn't it? Thanks to Stan and Ryan for this feature.

   Hope, I haven't a clue what antimony mix Randy used in these 88's he sent me to test. Over the years, I've found out that when Randy sends me 'special' bullets to test, he goes into what I call his 'Joe Friday' (from Dragnet) personna : "Just the facts, pal".  So...that's what I do. He sends 'em, I shoot 'em and report back. HaHaHa! I'm afraid if I pressed him any further, BIG MIKE could emerge and tell me: " You shet up wif all dem kwestshuns and go bak to wurkin' wif dem thurdy kaliber bullets whut you make in yer basemunt. Dem thurdys aint no trik ta make, so leeve RG alone an' leev the real bullet makin to dem whut knowz whuz goin on, ya punk."  Notice his name has a line "..struck through it"...a bad sign that you may only appreciate after watching 'The Quiet Man' movie.

    Laughing in 'The Forbidden Zone'.    -Al

Hope, ALL of the 88s (.257) will be of the 1% antimony sort. The "soft" (1%) 110s should work fine [for deer] at 250 Sav. through .257 Ackley MV ranges at IdiotMag Mvs (3500+ FPS) , it looks like the hard cored  110s (3% antimony +1% tin) are the better choice.Again, we'll have much better data following the 08 antlerless deer season, wher I expect Steve and Tom to harvest 50 white-tails, using 250 Ack.( MV close to 3000 FPS) ; ,257 Ack (MVs about 3050 FPS). and the IdiotMag. AT 3540FPS, the "soft" cored 110s were a little over-board for paairie dogs. RG

Thank you for the info, Al. I  thought it was a 1:10 - more evidence that our  initial results (Tom's and mine) were either reamer or, barrel related; the barrels are all 1:10" twists, as I believed it prudent to err in favor of a number supporting the longest bullet(s) I'd be making . . .

So, being ignorant: can I upload from my tubes URL??? Or, possibly, from  a "shared web folder"??? I tried the "tree" but couldn't figgure the URL part out . . . :(

Yer brain is awl screwed up from watchin' too many John Wayne movies - you'd better stick to the Westerns! ;) RG 

Al, Tom "BLING BLING" Gollob is down, discussing TOP SECRET projects, today  - he's wondering if you have your feet and yards "mixed-up" (that's lingo you, in the hinterlands,  may understand: here in civilization, we call it, transposed): "there's NO WAY a #2 barrel can shoot that well'!!! ;) I must confess, once we READ your scratch marks, the barrel twist was 'cipherable' ! ;) RG

   R.G., please convey to 'der Blingle' (doubtless a distant cousin to the original der Bingle...Bing Crosby) that here on the lone prairie, such terms as 'transposed' are meaningless. We prefer terminology like:  "screwed up",  "all busted to pieces", "what a blankety blank    mess" and other colorful metaphors to describe situations.

    For units of measurements, we speak in broad terms. For example, Brother Todd and I were pallbearers today for the funeral of one of our aunts. It was in a town about an hour North of here..but to get there we used the Secret Dakota Directional Tool...available only to residents. We went up to the Lone Tree, then over some past the old place on the hill, up again on the Egan road a piece, roundabout where the old Indian school used to be, finally ending up just down the road a piece from Uncle Bob's house....which as everyone knows, is just a little ways  from The Home Place.

   For Tom, here's a picture of the slandered "..NO WAY a #2 barrel can shoot that well'!!!"   SGR-ified 250 Ackley in question (grin). Stan has built guns on this blueprint that run the gamut from .17 Rems. to 308's...all show a marked propensity to 'stuff 'em in a hole'.

    'Laffin' in The Forbidden Zone (up and over some from Central Iowa).   -Al

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I have a good picture of one of my BIB 88 groups and if I can figure out how to post a picture I will put it up here. It runs about a .178 Ted

    Randy, up here we don't say "transposed".  We call things that are turned around "...getting our turds all whisted up." In the classic John Wayne western 'The Searchers', John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards would have refered to transposers as N'yoka Comanche. In the words of The Duke: "Says he's goin' one way, he means 'ta go 't'other". The Searchers is, in my opinion, the finest John Wayne western.

   So "der Blingle"  can rest easier, here's a pic of the now-slandered SGR-ified 250 Ackley in question...complete with Hart #2 pencil barrel. "Bling Bling"  may notice a certain similarity of one of your rifles (the 257 Roberts Improved).

   Ted, if you email me the pic, I'll try to post it here for 'ya. We'd love to see it!   -Al

 Ted / All

 I've got the pictures working in the forum now.  When you are composing your message click on the options tab avove the subject line and you can add your photo there by clicking the add/update button and then checking the upload button .  It will appear in the forum then. The tree icon that Al is using is if you have photo's hosted on the internet in Photobucket, Snapfish, Flickr or the like.  

   Here's Ted's .178 group. Ted, how about some info on the rifle, scope, etc?  -Al

This gun is a 1979 vintage Stolle Panda with a Burns Trigger in the old style Kelblys thumbhole fiberglass stock. It is a screw in using the two front bedding holes. The barrel is a 1/12 Shilen Select Match LV taper about 25 inches long and it has a 36 power Leupold . The cartridge is the 257TEDNE, which is pretty close to a 25 PPC +.075 at the shoulder. Velocity for the 85 grain Fowler was in the 2950 to 3100 range depending on the load and I expect the BIB 88 bullet is close to that as well. It can shoot as fast as 3250 with bullets of that weight but I only neck size so I try to keep things reasonable.

I just got a new  hand lapped cromo match grade barrel from Shilen at the 3rd annual Shilen Swap meet for $96 .  After I get it chambered up and spun on the old Ruger M77 Long Action in 25-06 RCBS we will be able to launch those 88 grain pills at some real velocities and see how they do.

Ted

PS   1/12 twist no 5 contour.