Well - I had to try again today so I went to Little Boulder to see if I could get into the rock... It looked like the road still had 4 to 6" of rotten snow left on the road, but the enterance of the road was blocked by a snow burm plowed up from the main road. I looked along the whole burn and decided that I might break through in one place. Eased the truck into the burm and back out a couple of times trying to break the burm down. On the 3rd try I went a little to far and the left front tire went over the burm and dropped down the other side... tried backing out - luck so I decided the heck with it I was going to go forward. The rear tires were still on the grave road. So anyway - gave it a little gas and started forward gave a little more and busted through. I was able them to navigate the road to the rock pit and was able to get turned around. It was eventful, all four tires throwing snow all over the place, but I made it. I really did not want to get stuck.... even worse I really - really did not want to have to put the chains on.
Set up in the rock pit and really had an excellent morning. This was the first shots fired from the new Knight. I was hoping for the best and I was not to disappointed especially for a brand new barrel.
First I set the target at 25 yards to verify that my bore sighted scope was in the ball park. I shot 4 shots @ 25 yards. The HPH-24 loaded real smooth and with enough pressure I was pretty confident. I only loaded 100 grains of T7 for these first 4 shots. I was using the FPJ breech plug. After shooting that first 4 - I was really happy with the rifle. No sign of a "crud ring" but I did windex swab after each shot. Used on windex patch for all four shots.
Next moved the target to 75 yards -I was confident I would be OK... shot the same load 3 times but really did not like the group.
Moved the target to 100 yards and on the same trip pack 5 clay pigeons down to the end of the rock pit to use as killable targets. I also made my first scope adjustment.... Shot #7 and as you see - to much adjustment... adjusted again shot #8... closer but know cigar... One final adjustment and number nine was quite good - so I stopped adjusting the scope put the covers back on and started shooting for effect. I was at this point shooting 110 grains of T7 - shot 10 & 11 and thought to myself that was not a bad group and I was ready to go to shooting pigeons, but I remembered that Semi wanted more than 3 shots in group - so on came 12/13/14 - I was on a real roll should have never tried #15 dang!
From the paper I moved to the pigeons... 5 shots five kills... but I did do some sabot switching.... first shot was with a HPH-24, second & thrid were regular short black Harvesters and four and five were "crush ribs". All of the Harvester were very difficult to get through the crown after the crown they went down as the 24's did. I have decided the polymere used by MMP is more plyiable than the plastic/polymere of the Harvester. I also have decided that I do have a minor problem with the crown on the barrel - I beleive it is to shallow and there for the leading edge of the lands are to steep. When loading a conical - they will shave a piece of lead off the lead, when loading 24's they will sometimes distort the petal as the land gouges the petal. When loading the Harvesters the plastic does give as easily as the MMP's and it is much more difficult to start them. I am going to leave the crown as is for now - but I bet at some point I will re-crown the barrel....
Here is a pic of the 100 yard set up in the rock pit.
picture #1
And here is a pic of the target shot today...
picture #2
It was a fun day. The disc's worked well for me other than I need to learn how to drop them in the bolt correctly. The breech area was definitely dirty after todays shoot, but there was very little blow-back outside the breech area... the windage knob on the scope was a bit sooty on the bottom. I decapped disc's on site and reloaded them very easily. It was a good day and best of all the rifle shows promise!
mike
