My new .243 Ultra varmint came in this week. While I was waiting the required 10 days here in California I spent quite a bit of time reading the posts here in this forum. they were extremely helpful and I think everyone who took time to post information.
Here is what I did prior to heading out to the range:
1) I used brake cleaner to thoroughly clean the barrel assembly and breach area. It took an amazing amount of work to free the extractor, but finally it broke loose and began to work. I have to wonder how many people who have had problems with extraction have simply not cleaned the rifle adequately. It took a lot of cleaning and work with brake cleaner to get the grease out.
2) Next I went ahead and thoroughly cleaned the bore and chamber, making sure to get rid of all traces of grease.
3) I polished the chamber with polishing compound as described in the posts here in this forum.
So with this I headed out to the range with 80 rounds of S&B 100 grain soft points. After reading the posts here, I was prepared to see keyholing with this weight bullet, but this is what I had, so I thought I would give it a try. I made sure I took a cleaning rod in case I had any cases stick.
After range I bore sighted the rifle and fired my first round at 25 yards. No keyholing - but when I opened the action the first case stuck. I thought, "Oh well I guess I'm going to have some problems here." However, when I fired the second round and opened the action it tossed the empty about ten feet behind me! It continued to eject reliably for the next 80 rounds. Not single case stuck after that first one.
Accuracy was pretty good, with a couple groups of three rounds under any inch at 100 yards. We had a pretty good cross wind blowing which started to spread the groups out horizontally. All in all, it was a pretty good start. Now I need to work up some loads and see what it can really do.
Thanks to everyone for their help!
Vince
