I have had a P64 30-06 a few years. I have tried a bunch of different combinations through the rifle, put it in a McMillan stock, cleaned it, not cleaned it, etc.. It just never has shown me much of anything. I really like the rifle and wanted to use it but even with dedicated load work I couldn't do much with it. It would kinda get decent and then fall to pieces. Anyhow, I was almost at the point I was going to send it off to JES and really let him make something out of it (35 Whelen) but I figured I would try one last trick. The later years of the P64's had some tooling marks and somewhat rough bores, my old 338 did and a full round with Tubbs Final Finish bullets really turned the rifle around. The 338 shoots everything well, doesn't foul much and is a pleasure to use now.
Figured I'd give it a shot with the 06 before I let JES really "fix" the bore. I ordered up the 308 caliber bullets and when I got them, I saw they were 175 grain Sierra Matchkings so I loaded them up over 38 grains of H4895. Tubbs recommends using the lightest charge that'll get the bullet through the bore. No idea of the speed, but they were some kinda gentle to shoot.
Here is a picture of the groups of the Tubb's bullets at 100 yards. After every stage, I patched the tar out of it, getting it back to as clean as I could before I started with the next finest grit.
You can see that mostly, they all shot pretty decent, I lost out on the last 10 being on paper as I was messing with the zero and went just off the paper. Oh well, you can see generally how they looked.
That's the rifle, it weighs 8lbs on the nose with the SS 3x9 on top and is a sweetheart of a gun.
Anyhow, I shot all 50 of them and since I am out of town, decided to grab a random box of ammo to shoot it and see what happens. I found a box of 150 grain Winchesters. Nothing special, 20 bucks or so. I fired off 5 of them just as fast as I could aim, cycle the bolt and fire again.
5 shots into 1.25" - 1.5" without any wide fliers or weird stuff..
So I believe I am happy. I will try some better ammo once I get home this weekend and try it out one more time.
So if any of you have a rough barrel, or a rifle giving you fits, sometimes it pays off to try some firelapping bullets through it. I will say the barrel feels much more even now pushing a patch through it, from start to finish.
So, I am trying to like the 06! This one is just battling me some.. Hopefully it has turned the corner.. If not, I know JES will make it work too!
Figured I'd give it a shot with the 06 before I let JES really "fix" the bore. I ordered up the 308 caliber bullets and when I got them, I saw they were 175 grain Sierra Matchkings so I loaded them up over 38 grains of H4895. Tubbs recommends using the lightest charge that'll get the bullet through the bore. No idea of the speed, but they were some kinda gentle to shoot.
Here is a picture of the groups of the Tubb's bullets at 100 yards. After every stage, I patched the tar out of it, getting it back to as clean as I could before I started with the next finest grit.
You can see that mostly, they all shot pretty decent, I lost out on the last 10 being on paper as I was messing with the zero and went just off the paper. Oh well, you can see generally how they looked.
That's the rifle, it weighs 8lbs on the nose with the SS 3x9 on top and is a sweetheart of a gun.
Anyhow, I shot all 50 of them and since I am out of town, decided to grab a random box of ammo to shoot it and see what happens. I found a box of 150 grain Winchesters. Nothing special, 20 bucks or so. I fired off 5 of them just as fast as I could aim, cycle the bolt and fire again.
5 shots into 1.25" - 1.5" without any wide fliers or weird stuff..
So I believe I am happy. I will try some better ammo once I get home this weekend and try it out one more time.
So if any of you have a rough barrel, or a rifle giving you fits, sometimes it pays off to try some firelapping bullets through it. I will say the barrel feels much more even now pushing a patch through it, from start to finish.
So, I am trying to like the 06! This one is just battling me some.. Hopefully it has turned the corner.. If not, I know JES will make it work too!
lol
