I’ll shoot the same rifle and match lineup as last year.  Top to bottom:

1944 BSA No. 4 Mk I (T)

1944 Long Branch No. 4 Mk I/3

1942 Springfield M1 Garand

1943 Remington 1903A3

Wished these rifles could tell their story of where they have been. 

If I were to wager on the overall “3 Gun” winner, it will be my friend Keith. He deserves it.  He’s really worked hard these last several months. Will be tough keeping up with him. I’m hoping he sets a new match record and holds it for years to come. 

Tomorrow I’ll shoot the M1 and No. 4 in the vintage service rifle classes (the so called “CMP Games” matches). These are all the same course of fire,  ten record shots at 200 yards for each of three stages: prone slow fire, prone rapid fire and standing slow fire. 

Weather looking to be uncomfortable, high of 89 deg, likely humid, 50% chance of thunderstorms. 

Actually, the matches started today, already had two relays for the Garand, Springfield and Vintage Military Rifle (GSM) matches this afternoon. Tomorrow there will be 4 more relays and on Saturday, 2 more for a total of 8 relays.  The 54 firing point line looks nearly full for every relay so it looks like there will be a high turnout this year.  That is good to see! 

I look forward to the report and results!

Weather was hot and muggy. Temp got up to 91 degrees.  With the humidity, it felt like over 100, borderline miserable, especially wearing a shooting coat. If not for the roof over the firing line, I’m sure some would have passed out, including me!

Did fairly well with the M1 in prone slow and prone rapid, dropping one point going into the third stage, standing.  I threw a 7 and an 8 in standing that cost me. So far, in second place of 118 shooters. I expect Keith to bump me down further when he shoots tomorrow. 

My performance with the No. 4 was disappointing. I was down 5 points from the two prone stages, and during standing, I flinched badly right when I pulled the trigger, shot was a miss, just below the 5 ring. I’ve not done that in years, and it really cost me.  I’m out of the running for the 3 gun Aggragate.  For some reason, I’ve been shooting poor scores in matches with the No. 4 for a while now. What ever it is, I hope it’s over soon. 

Tomorrow, I’ll shoot the 1903A3 in the Springfield Match, then No. 4(T) in the Vintage Sniper match on Sunday. 

I shot the 1903A3.  Started out well with a clean 100-6x in prone slow fire. Nice little group. Then, in the prep for prone rapid fire, the follower jammed at the bottom of the magazine while attempting to load the first five round clip. The armorer came to help, but couldn’t free the follower and the bottom cartridge.  No alibis at these matches, so scored a 0 in the ten shot rapid fire stage. The next stage is standing off hand, which I thought about tapping out, but no, that did not seem sportsmanlike so shot it anyway, a decent score, 92-1x. 

No recovery from loosing 100 points in these matches, so there is always next year!

There was 155 shooters in the JC Garand Match.  

Tomorrow is the Vintage Sniper Match, looking forward to it. 

    

Bummer!

That's why I like detachable magazines though.

In retrospect, I should have attempted to single feed the cartridges into the chamber, I would have got at least 5 good shots off.  Oh well…

The upshot is that I took third place and high senior score with the M1, set a new D-Day Match record for high senior.  Almost half of the 155 shooters were seniors (age 60-69) and another 23 shooters in the grand senior (age 70+) category in the JC Garand match.  That’s 98 shooters age 60+ out of 155 total competitors, goes to show what the age profile is in these matches!  

My friend Keith cross fired in the rapids with his M1, cost him second place in the 3 Gun Agg, he finished in 3rd place. 

It’s all about not screwing up….

I hope the final match goes to plan!

 The 300 yard stage was poor, a score of just 92-1x. We should be able to shoot a clean 100 with high X count on this target with a 7 inch 10 ring and 3 inch X ring. 

The 600 yard stage score was similar, 91-1x. 

The CBI barrel now has 590 rounds thru it, and it’s not getting better, in fact, it’s been on a gradual accuracy decline after about 300 rounds fired.  It’s behaving just like a shot out barrel, first at 600 and now at 300 yds also.  I will remove the barrel and return it to CBI.  

I’ll have to decide if I’m going to install the new Lothar Walther barrel or wait for the new CBI barrel. 

Regardless, I really enjoy these matches, I get to spend time with my friends, and it sure beats working! 

My new No. 1 priority will be to get this sniper rifle to shoot like it should, that means hold 2 MOA out to 600 yds. 

Have you checked the rifle over, to see if anything came loose etc?

Could the high ambient temperature be throwing a banana into the equation?

Seems odd that a new barrel would go off so quickly.

Below are the 600 yard scores shot on the NRA Mid Range Target since I installed the CBI barrel.  The orange line is a running average of the last five 10 shot groups. It initially improved after break in, plateaued at an average score of 95 then dropped off.  This only shows the 600 yard groups, I also shot about twenty 10 shot groups at 300 yds, total round count now at 590.   

To be competitive in the Vintage Sniper Match, 300 yd scores need to be 100 and 600 yard scores 97 and higher.  

The bore is a bit larger on the LW barrel, a 0.3040- pin gage enters the muzzle.

This barrel requires machining of the breeching shoulder to correctly index. Had to take off 0.0158” which gave me a 14 deg “under turn” in the hand tight position. I decided to go with a bit less underturn this time.  Took about a 70 lb pull on the 12 inch action wrench to index the barrel, threads were coated with anti seize compound, so would have been a fair bit higher if dry. 

The LW barrel comes in the white, I sanded the outer surfaces and applied Birchwood Casey Perma Blue. Came out nice. 

Headspace is a bit shy of the 0.064 GO gage, the bolt handle is about 0.07” from contacting the action body butt socket.  I’ve never encountered rims that as thick as 0.064.  I’m shooting PPU brass which has rims that are 0.060 - 0.062 and they freely chamber and bolt fully locks. This is with a #1 bolt head. 

Rifle is now all assembled and ready for break in and test shooting. Crossing my fingers…

Pretty barrel, shame it has to be covered up with the hand guards.

This is a RH twist barrel, so there would be no tendency for bullet torque trying to unscrew the barrel, I didn’t see a reason that 100+ foot lbs of torque was necessary to shoot accurately and keep the barrel from loosening. 

A .3040- diameter pin gage enters the muzzle, 0.3045- does not. A bit larger than I expected. 4 groove barrel, looks like the lands are a bit narrower than the grooves.   Grooves are supposedly 0.314 but I’ve not slugged the bore yet. 

LW did a very good job on the throat, barely any visible reaming marks.  

Throat length is good too, a 174 gr SMK seated to 3.07” OAL jumps 0.06” to reach the lands.  A 174 gr Hornady .312 BTHP Match bullet contacts the lands at 3.072”, so these bullets probably need to be seated to 3.05” OAL. 

Borescope photo showing origin of the rifling. 

I hope you get better results than with the Criterion barrel. 

It will be interesting to see what they say regarding the issue you had with it. 

I contacted Lothar Walther USA this AM and they just replied saying they no longer produce the No. 4 barrel.  A shame, I wanted to get another one.  Its now just CBI, but they still don't have any for sale yet.  

Seems odd to me that LW USA stopped production, yet does not import from Germany. Perhaps they reached an agreement with CBI to stay out of each other’s turf.  But, I suspect there is such a relatively small production figures of these barrels, and that is a poor assumption on my part. 

I’m not giving up on CBI, I will return the barrel I removed from the T and see what they do with it. 

Had all the shooting gear packed in the truck, about to pull out of the driveway to make the 1.5 Hour trip to the CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park (TMP). Something told me to check the TMP Calendar on the website, so pulled out my phone and took a look….RANGE CLOSED. Crap. Was looking forward to testing out the new Lothar Walther barrel on the BSA No. 4 Mk I (T) I installed last weekend. Range is closed for two weeks for the Police and Fire Games. 

So, sent a text to my bud Steve, the smith that turned the barrel breeching shoulder back on my last two barrel installs, he lives about an hour away and has his own range. He’s got a bench in his shop and shoots out the window. That will do, tho was hoping to shoot the rifle out to 600 yds today. 

Set up a SR-1 target at 100 yds to do the initial sighting in and barrel break-in. The throat in this rifle is obviously hand lapped, no visible reamer marks with the borescope. 

I first bore-sighted the rifle to get it lined up on the target. I then adjust the scope to the desired POA (bottom of black for a 6 O’Clock hold.  It took 8 clicks (minutes) of right windage and no change in elevation setting (aligned with the 100 yd range index mark on elevation drum.  This method has always worked for me and usually gets the first shot “in the black”.

First shot from the rifle was a 10, at 12:30. Lowered the elevation one click then fired 5 more shots, 4 of which landed in the X ring. I cleaned the bore with Bore Tech Eliminator after the third and sixth shot. Not much copper at all. 

Took that target down and put up a SR-21 target, this is a SR 300 yd Target reduced to 100 yds, so 50% smaller score rings.  Took one sighter, then fired a 10 shot group.  7 of the 10 shots landed in the 3/4” diameter X ring.  Group was right at 1.0” (1 MOA). 

I won’t pass any judgment on this barrel just yet, not until I shoot it at 300 and 600 yds, but initial indications are promising. 

Incidentally, the load is:

PPU Case, neck sized

WLR Primer

40.3 gr Varget

174 gr Sierra MatchKing

3.07” Cartridge Overall Length

Chrono Data:

Temp - 85 deg

Humidity - 75%

MV = 2352 fps

ES = 47 fps

SD = 15 fps

Velocity is about 65 fps slower than the CBI barrel. 

Got there just at opening, 0900, wanted to get this done quick before the temps ran up into the 90’s. Weather was clear with light and variable winds. 

I had previously zeroed the rifle and scope at 100 yards. The trajectory of my match load follows Mk 7 ball ammo very closely, so that the 300 and 600 yd scope elevation settings get the center of the group very close (within 1/2 MOA) of the center of the target.

I fired two 300 yard 10 shot groups and two 600 yd 10 shot groups and I’m quite pleased with the results.  My 600 yard scores were 95 and 98. A significant improvement over the CBI barrel that has been averaging around 90. 

Muzzle velocity is ticking up slightly, now the mean velocity is at 2375 fps for the 40.3 gr Varget load with 174 SMKs. 

As luck would have it, my first shot at 600 yds was a center X. Had to stop and take a picture: 

The first shot on the second 600 yd group was a low 8, held the scope reticule a bit too low and that shot was the slowest velocity of the 10 shot group at 2350 fps. The next 9 shots were all good, just over 1.5 MOA group. 

So, I will send that Criterion barrel I installed in March back to CBI and see if they will send me a new one. It just won’t group well. 

I’m quite pleased with the Walther barrel, shame we can’t get them in the US anymore. 

Got a letter typed up and CBI barrel ready to return, should get it in the post this week.  I'm very curious to see what they find.  

The Lothar Walther barrel is giving me significantly lower ES and SD values, 30 and 10 fps respectively.  Nearly half what I was getting with the CBI barrel.  That is translating to tighter vertical spreads at 600 yards, 1.25 to 1.5 MOA. 

I wish I could find another LW barrel, nothing showing up on the web and US production of this barrel has ceased.    

Hopefully they'll find a defect & replace it with a good one!

Then all you'd have to do was learn to trust it!

That's a great job!

Its rather odd that Lothar Walther says the barrels come 0.01" short chambered and require reaming for headspace.  The throat was lapped beautifully, no reamer marks whatsoever.  Why would you do this if the intent is to run a reamer back into the chamber after installation to get correct headspace; it would destroy the lapped throat?  

Needless to say, I did not put a reamer in that chamber, but I did have to machine about 0.005" off the back of the barrel as the bolt with my shortest bolthead (#1) would not close on the GO gage.  As we all know, the .303 headspaces on the rim, not the case shoulder.  

CBI also says their barrels come 0.01" short chambered but by my measurements it was about 0.055" too long (length of chamber to 0.375" dia. shoulder datum, and length of throat for bullet to contact rifling).  I wonder if they mistakenly added 0.064" minimum headspace to the length of the reamer thinking of a cartridge that headspaces on the shoulder, then ran the reamer in about 0.01" short of that.  I'm just speculating of course, no way of knowing for sure. 

This one has similar throat dimensions, 174 SMK touches the lands at 3.140 inch cartridge OAL. I’ve noticed that the .303 barrels have a double throat (leade) angle, the first being very shallow.  So you feel some light resistance when pushing the bullet into the rifling with the Hornady OAL gage starting at around 2.950 inches. It’s a very light resistance until it contacts the second leade angle and it comes to a firm stop at 3.140 inches.  

Although I would have liked to hear back from CBI, I’m thankful for the new barrel!  They are a great company and stand behind their product. I probably won’t be using this barrel for a while, but at least will have it when I need it. 

 

This! 

I think part of the culture gap between the US & UK is that on my side of the pond we would probably just accept that we have a crap barrel and try and live with it. 

I can imagine a UK barrel manufacturer when faced with a complaint turning round and saying, prove it!

I had exactly this conversation with a friend who shoots at Talladega with Geoff and others at the weekend. 

We all know how much shooter skill plays a role in how well a rifle will shoot.  Why should they believe me?   And to be fair to them, I did all that I could to prove it to myself that the barrel was not up to par, including having a friend shoot the rifle off the bench who happens to be a Distinguished Rifleman that made it to the Top 20 shoot off in the Presidents 100 Service Rifle Match at the US Nationals.  

And, this was not my first barrel return from CBI.  I did write a very positive customer review on the CBI No. 4 barrel, might be the only one on their website.  They are probably thinking I hope we don't hear back from that guy again!

Hopefully CBI will be putting out another production run of these barrels, and despite some poor luck on my part, I will buy more of them.