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Bolt action test bench

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thunderskunk

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 13, 2018
Location
Middle-of-nowhere
Hello again,

I went ahead and ordered a Howa 1500 action in .300 win mag per recommendations on this forum. For $500 bucks minus a few internet deals, I’m excited to find out if you get what you pay for. Supposedly a sub 1 MOA guarantee, which sounds a bit wide in my humble opinion, but ok.

I’m not a world class sharpshooter, but I’d like to start by finding out how good the rifle is before I find out how much worse I am at shooting it. In my mind, I’m thinking of a ground piece of 1/2” plate I could mill a slot and a few holes in: bolt the action to the plate, clamp the plate to the bench, and see what I get for a grouping at 100 and 300 yards.

Anyone ever try this? I’ve seen .22 rim fire competitions with guys who have similar “guns” bolted to benches, and something about the queen of England making a 1000 yard bullseye by pulling a string was mentioned in “The Perfectionists.”
 
Speerchucker who used to post here mentioned what he called a rail gun for experimenting. Do not remember the details, an internet search might be in order.
 
pat_j0nes said:
Tried one at work when I started, groups were larger than when using a bag and bipod.

--
Pat Jones
Firestone CO
Click to expand...

Harmonics

The point of contact must have been different, or the ammo, or the....

But it wasn't an action bolted to a plate.... You can't replicate that "barrel whip" any other way.

Look to the slow mo of firing cycles. The entire firearm goes through some gyrations. How does one make that repeatable? And how does one take the shooter out of the activity?

Hard to do.


Do you use a light cradle or a good firm grip on the fore stock? Big difference there!
 
Rail guns are pretty cool, but pricy to build if you want it to work without introducing yet another variable to your accuracy test. Look at it this way, your better off shooting the rifle yourself, a lot, to learn how it shoots. Using a lot of ammo and barrel life trying to see how accurate it really is without you holding it is not going to really help you increase your skill level. Most factory rifles will shoot better than a new shooter, or even one with some experience, either from the bench or in field positions. Trust your equipment if it is good equipment. The only way to really know if it was you, or the rifle that screwed up the shot, is to know that load, in that rifle, in that condition and the only way to know that is to shoot it often enough to have shot in those conditions with that load. Outside of that, ask a good shooter to shoot a few groups with it and see what they say.
 
dwebster said:
...Trust your equipment if it is good equipment...
Click to expand...

That’s the ticket there though: the only thing I own is the action. It’s a fun project, but I don’t really have a good stock I can trust, mostly because I don’t have one at all yet.

Will mounting this thing solid damage the action? That’s what it sounds like folks are saying, but I want to be black and white about it.
 
I don't "get" the objective.
What's important, is how well you can drive the rifle.

I get that it's an interesting data point to know whether inaccuracy is due to the hardware or the driver.

Many can't accurately shoot a .300 WM in a lightweight, no-brake rifle. If you have experience in the area of lightweight magnums and are not affected by recoil, you should be able to shoot it as accurately as you would anything else, right? Good front rest, rear bag should be all that's needed to assess the relative accuracy of the rifle.
 
It won't necessarily damage the action, but a rigid mount will also not be a true indicator of inherent accuracy because you are really interfering with the recoil harmonics in doing so. Look at BR rail guns, they have rollers and guide shafts and all sorts of engineering done to allow the action and barrel to recoil with near zero resistance, yet control it to be as straight in line with the bore as possible. If you must try this, find a cheap used factory stock, add as much weight to it as you can find room for and lay it in some heavy sand bags and shoot free recoil style. That will show you pretty well, what you can expect without your influence. Not perfect, but it should answer your question well enough. Just buy the best barrel you can and have it chambered and installed by a reputable gunsmith (preferably one who shoots long range) who understands what the end goal is (trust me- a gunsmith who cannot double as a decent machinist is one you need to walk away from in this case).
 
Lots of good stuff here. Let me circle back a bit as I definitely left some holes in my intent. I’ve learned a lot thus far, and the scope has changed to suit.

I’m now an owner of a Howa 1500 in .300 Winchester Magnum. I think it’s a absolutely beautiful firearm; you can see the dedication of its makers to produce the best they can within the budget. My go-to phrase is, “They want to take my money and give me nothing for it.” If it costs $50, it’s worth $10. If it costs $5000, it’s worth $2500. Well, I paid $450 for this action, and it’s worth $450, at least at first glance.

Anyways. For me, the end goal is to have a firearm to shoot in practicing for a competition. For the shop, I’m well suited to produce what they call a “chassis.” I honestly didn’t realize there was a difference between a stock and a chassis; I figured it was just a cool kid name for a sniper stock. Learn something new every day. I’ve got aluminum tooling and material, I’ve got suppliers that do coating and plating, etc. Maybe end up with something I can sell, maybe not. Regardless, I don’t want an of the shelf stock.... er, chassis.

I’m not a world class shot. I get the math behind it, I’ve got my fundamentals down, but there’s a significant gap between my capabilities and the firearm’s capabilities. Right now, my only data on the performance of said rifle is this nutter on YouTube who provided very little empirical evidence as to what was influencing rifle’s accuracy, and anything else is just hearsay. It’s like saying the Remington 700 is sub MOA capable. The 700 has been made to shoot every cartridge on the planet, and different cartridges do different things with accuracy. Shooting a 1MOA 5 shot group at 100 yards, bedding the rifle, then shooting a .5 MOA group tells you nothing. Maybe your heart rate was down. Maybe the wind wasn’t as bad. Maybe you had one particular cartridge with a bullet loaded cock eyed. It’s not very scientific.

So I want to start without operator error. I don’t need a $1000 gun and $500 in ammo to tell me I’m a crap shot. If I want to know how good the action is all on it’s own, it sound like I’m going to need to build a rail gun. Then, once I start making my own chassis, I can tell whether what I did to the rifle made the inherent accuracy worst and by how much. All said and done, I can tell you exactly how bad of a shot I am in comparison to how the gun shoots all on it’s own. The whole project honestly just sounds like fun, so if you want an explanation, there it is.
 
There are so many errors possible when first building for accuracy. I wouldn't worry about the operator when shooting well rested. Bags are useful tools. Use a bunch as needed.
 
thunderskunk said:
Lots of good stuff here. Let me circle back a bit as I definitely left some holes in my intent. I’ve learned a lot thus far, and the scope has changed to suit.

I’m now an owner of a Howa 1500 in .300 Winchester Magnum. I think it’s a absolutely beautiful firearm; you can see the dedication of its makers to produce the best they can within the budget. My go-to phrase is, “They want to take my money and give me nothing for it.” If it costs $50, it’s worth $10. If it costs $5000, it’s worth $2500. Well, I paid $450 for this action, and it’s worth $450, at least at first glance.

Anyways. For me, the end goal is to have a firearm to shoot in practicing for a competition. For the shop, I’m well suited to produce what they call a “chassis.” I honestly didn’t realize there was a difference between a stock and a chassis; I figured it was just a cool kid name for a sniper stock. Learn something new every day. I’ve got aluminum tooling and material, I’ve got suppliers that do coating and plating, etc. Maybe end up with something I can sell, maybe not. Regardless, I don’t want an of the shelf stock.... er, chassis.

I’m not a world class shot. I get the math behind it, I’ve got my fundamentals down, but there’s a significant gap between my capabilities and the firearm’s capabilities. Right now, my only data on the performance of said rifle is this nutter on YouTube who provided very little empirical evidence as to what was influencing rifle’s accuracy, and anything else is just hearsay. It’s like saying the Remington 700 is sub MOA capable. The 700 has been made to shoot every cartridge on the planet, and different cartridges do different things with accuracy. Shooting a 1MOA 5 shot group at 100 yards, bedding the rifle, then shooting a .5 MOA group tells you nothing. Maybe your heart rate was down. Maybe the wind wasn’t as bad. Maybe you had one particular cartridge with a bullet loaded cock eyed. It’s not very scientific.

So I want to start without operator error. I don’t need a $1000 gun and $500 in ammo to tell me I’m a crap shot. If I want to know how good the action is all on it’s own, it sound like I’m going to need to build a rail gun. Then, once I start making my own chassis, I can tell whether what I did to the rifle made the inherent accuracy worst and by how much. All said and done, I can tell you exactly how bad of a shot I am in comparison to how the gun shoots all on it’s own. The whole project honestly just sounds like fun, so if you want an explanation, there it is.
Click to expand...


Chuckle chuckle, I'll check back in a couple years!
 
For many decades if you wanted a tough, accurate, reliable rifle on the European side of the Atlantic, that did not cost a lot, you bought a CZ. For working men who had not a lot of money to spare on luxury, the CZ rifles were a bargain. I had a few of them over the years and they were excellent and excellent value for money.
 
Why 300wm? I own a CZ in 300wm and might use it for Brown bears. 30-06 is my goto. What is your ultimate target going to be? unless it is very far away or very dangerous(.338) there are probably better calibers. Not to say 300wm is bad, just unpleasant to shoot, expensive sometimes hard to find ammo and damages a lot of meat. targets of course don't have meat and you sound like you'll be reloading so what is your goal?

Ok upon actual reading all of the posts you intend to practice for a competition. What might that be? and are you sure that you need .300?

I really do hate that caliber, really i dislike anything that has magnum or ultra in the name. Except .22 magnum, that's very hard on grouse.
Merely my own bias do to being a guy who uses guns but isn't a gun "nut" and living in a state where the local store is likely to have 12 gauge, 30-06 and .22 and not much else.
 
one of the best benchrest shooters I knew had experimental guns with stocks that looked like something you'd shore up a mine with. They were big, chunky and HEAVY. He used them with a rest and sandbags at 200 yards and his goal, reloading a single case, (Schuetzen style) was to have a "group" that was basically a single hole. Many other shooters criticized the "frankenguns" but he told me these were test beds for the mechanical work and he didn't give a shit what they looked like. The slab-like foreends absolutely eliminated any errors from canting and the squared off shape made the stocks easy to "bed in" with sandbags.
 
seiner said:
Why 300wm? I own a CZ in 300wm and might use it for Brown bears. 30-06 is my goto. What is your ultimate target going to be?
Click to expand...

That’s the caliber we’re issued, so that’s the one I went with. You’re totally right, and honestly big Army agrees as well. I’m excited; this is the biggest thing I own minus the 3#er black powder cannon. I don’t have tons of experience with the heavy weights, and it sounded like .300 win mag was a good middle ground for 1000yds plus.
 
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