Working on some Swedes with cast bullets

[Doug Coulter]

Haven't posted here in awhile, and well, I can't do fusor all day every day for a variety of reasons. Since I'm in "social isolation" - not actually all that different then normal for me...I thought I'd finish up some long running projects before the parts all rust...
Some time ago I'd thought I would get into class F competition (super long range stuff), I had one Swede 6.5x55 that was extremely nice, I liked the ratio between the damage at the ends (easy on me, but the target, not so much) and they are legendarily accurate. So, I collected up a few old mauser actions (from 8mm surplus) and a few barrels, a few old stocks, and....I'll get pictures of the results once they are a little more presentable - I've just finished chambering them all, maybe - I may put a couple back on the lathe and make them all exactly equal so fire-formed brass from one fits the others too...so far, that doesn't seem to matter much but I'm not testing at real ranges yet - just the checkout one in my front yard, which is only around 30 yards.

But very handy since the firing point is right next to the workshop so I can make one round or some change, test it, repeat...and so on. And no proudction or swapping virus with other people like going out would entail (not to mention lost time). I have a 200 yarder on the back 40, once I get a neighbor to brush-hog down the weed trees that grow like, well, weeds.

At any rate, I'm also doing some casting, have a decent pot of real hard alloy, around Bh 17.5 that fills nicely, using a lyman mold that's getting me 135 gr or so bullets, which I turn the bases flat (nice to have a machine shop and jigs) and gas check. Once set up, the price is really right on these.

So, on the gun with the lightest barrel and stock, which wasn't a great fit for the action ... needs bedding really bad - I discovered that just a tiny bit of extra tightness by adding a shim under the front action screw, made a huge difference in grouping - for the better of course. And in fact, compared to a very nice Cooper .223 I've set RR&R Club records with...it looks like I'm going to be out of excuses. The bench and I are both wobbly, and the wind was howling but...30 yards is more like rock throwing range than real rifle range. At any rate, educational.

I also discovered how unreal the penetration of these cast bullet is compared to jacketed ones. In this picture of the back of a thick oak burl that my hyrdralic splitter couldn't scratch... all the lead ones went right through (and some through a 2x4 after that) - and none of the jacketed ones did! Jacketed were Win corelokt 120 gr in 6.5 (around 2.7k f/s) and sierra 53 gr (around 3.3k f/s) in 223.
The cast load is right on 1600 f/s and is only 20 gr of Varget - the jacketed 6.5 load is 40 gr of Varget (and still not a max load by any means).

Oops, they go right through!

I had, um, put that stump there to catch the jacketed full power loads because I didn't want them to skip off the ground and maybe go over my border...turns out the lead ones were the issue if any.
This is a fairly stout piece of oak - yeah, it's not super thick, but like I said - my splitter wouldn't touch it, and it's from a huge crotch in a healthy tree.

side view - stops the hot loads easy!

The range I'm using - nothing special other than you should be jealous if you don't have one like this (or the big one in the back). Makes this work easy and more fun. Shown is the gun I expect the least accuracy or looks from - This is a good one to make any mistakes with. I shortened a Douglas barrel because mud wasps had made a nest in the end, and SS does rust if you leave things like that in there long enough.

I can miss my house from here.

The bullets I'm testing - these are roughly at the lands due to very blunt tips. Jacketed ones have to be a little off the lands to go through the magazine, or for that matter, be in the neck of the brass.

Same results with FLR as with fireformed brass
- I got this chamber perfect.

And now for the front of the targets...
Before tightening things down, the difference in aim point was ...um... dangerously extreme? The crisp holes from the jacketed load not only grouped poorly (remember, 30 yards) but .. that's not the bull I was aiming at! 6 or so inches high and right at 30 is *embarassing*.

The front of the log.

You can see the .223 group - none of those went through - since this gun puts that load all in the same hole at 200 meters...I guess I wasn't on form, but then again, it hadn't been fired in 2 years, so this isn't bad from a really cold and old bore.

Other groups all over the place were from previous sessions where I was trying to get the load crono'd and trying to figure out why they were so terrible...

And then there's that one - from a cold clean bore - that ain't so bad, even compared to a perfect rifle (it's all my bad it would seem). Upper right of the left target, marked "shim".

Can't wait to get to the really expensive match barrels and see how these work with real bedding and tuning...I'll need the big range to even see the errors, if I'm reasonably lucky.

[Donovan Ready]

Very nice. Got a pic of the rifle?

[Doug Coulter]

Soon, They are works in progress, this one is particularly ugly right now...There are half inch gaps in spots where the inletting in this surplus stock didn't match the surplus Czech M98 action...and so on. I'll be fixing some of that with dyed bedding. It'll never be pretty, but gee. One of the others is going to be a beauty queen fer sure. The 1907 original Swede is...what it is. And the one with the fancy handgrip stock looks like one of those, but I'm butchering it with saws because - the forend was so rounded it tended to jump off the bags and the bench as soon as you let go - bzzzz, now it's flat. And the length of pull on the fancy adjustable buttpad was an inch too long at the shortest, so...zzzt, that's going to be cut off...and so on. I mostly go for guns that shoot, if they look nice, that's a bonus, but if they're downright ugly, well, I show the targets!

The plan is to change a couple of these into a couple thousand bucks once they are at "aspirins at 400 meters" goodness. Shouldn't be too hard. I've pulled this off a couple times. You just go win a match, or almost after blowing like one shot - then say you're disgusted and the thing is for sale. Guys walk up with rolls of dough and start peeling it off...."I'll keep that nice scope, but OK".

Here's a teaser of the chassis gun and the purty one before I fit the recoil pad, make a scope mount, and finish the wood. That one has a "sleeper" cheap A*B barrel that 'just happens" to shoot insanely well after only a few tens of hours of lathe work on it and the action.

Last month...

[Donovan Ready]

Nice bit of work to do, but very nice, thanks.

[Doug Coulter]

Here's the one I'm working on, warts and all. I expect this to be the least accurate one, but it's also the most practical one to carry around, perhaps, being the lightest. It'll be as good as the 3-9x44 scope it's probably going to have in use.
Aftermarket bolt handle weld is bent, and it's an insanely bad fit on what was a pre-inlet stock. I had to carve the crap out of this to make it go in, and had to remove the cross bolt for the recoil lug (there's another one in there now, glued in, but it's not touching yet - there will be glass bedding...someday).

Here's the ugly one.

Did I say badly inlet? Holy crap. But it was a way to get the rest going and tested. If I like it I can always get another stock.

Rather a mess. I made a little shim to plug the hole so bedding wouldn't drip out when I apply it.

[Doug Coulter]

I'll have to get a pic of my 1907 model Swede up here - Hickock likes his younger one.
I got mine in a strange set of odd happenings. I'd counseled an anti-gun neighbor on getting his first gun, as varmints were wiping out his gardening efforts. He got this Swede, cheap, surplus, and brought it to me for checkout. The barrel looked like a rusty drainage culvert inside...I cleaned it and lapped it a little, but there were huge pits, and I told him not to expect too much.
He didn't like the disc on the side of the stock and replaced it with a Kennedy half dollar (which is how I know it's the same one).
He found he really, really liked this gun...a fresh convert. But then he got married and moved to Fla and left it behind, selling it to ???.
Years later, I ran into a guy at a gun show 70 miles from here who was selling it, touting how well it shot - and bought it.
It's the same gun! And yes, it really shoots. I'm not as good as Hickock, and golly, mine isn't quite as purty, but it's mine and was the inspiration for building a few more in this cartridge.
https://youtu.be/NOhwjQQTBRI

I'll get a pic of mine next time I take it off the wall - it's guarding the fusor over the shop door now.

[Donovan Ready]

Very nice. It cleaned up pretty good, hm?

[Doug Coulter]

In a serious case of 'Doh - I had set up the scope incorrectly and had a parallax issue. I guessed that might be it after friend DaveK came over and shot it better than I did - I know I was holding a lot better than that target was showing, so if he did better, it was technique, and since everything else had been quadruple checked and fine tooth combed, it had to be something like that. I checked, it was wrong, I fixed it, and now targets look more like my hold. I guess I'm glad I went over everything else so seriously, as now I can have confidence it's all very much right.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

[Donovan Ready]

What range?

[Doug Coulter]

Only 70 yards - spittin' distance. But with cast bullets clocking 1700 fps in a stiff wind. I'll take it. All these parts were the rejects from the real Swedes projects! More to come. Soon, on to the expensive barrels on blueprinted actions in stocks that fit with scopes that are good...and so on.
This gun looks like being sold to a local hunter for enough bucks to cover the costs of all the parts in all the projects...that'd be a big win!