Spent another day at the range yesterday with my friend's ultra, my 7x57 and a couple of other rifles. After considering everyone's input and rereading the FAQ's I eagerly anticipated burning up my supply of 4895. Another reason was some things I discovered while cleaning the rifle after the last range session. I was going to try shooting groups without the forearm attached, but when I pulled it off for cleaning I noticed that the forearm was pressing HEAVILY against the forearm retaining screw "lug" on the bottom of the barrel. Now in bolt guns this would be a big no-no, so I relived it with a few judicious swipes of a file. I also noticed that the breach area had a lot of oil like stuff on it and remembered that my friend's cleaning regeame, good ol' boy that he is, consists of spraying the entier firearm with silicone.
At the range, the first thing I noticed was that the POI had shifted about 5 inches high. The second thing was that the incidence of fliers had decreased from every group to VERY seldom! Group size ranged from "pretty good" to "kinda bad" but at least they were nice triangular groups! Me and my barrel channel tool are gonna get up close and personal with that fore end to eliminate any stress points before the next outing!
This chamber end/standing breach face gap thing worries me though. The rifle closes on a .005 feeler gauge. I didn't have the nerve to go any higher! What's normal for these rifles?
My 7x57 Ultra is starting to show some promise, and now that I've got that new brass fired once I'll know a little more about her after next we dance.
Keep them ideas and comments comming sports fans!
Richard
