OCW Test Barnes 120TTSX with CFE223

[Kikn]

First off let me say that the shooting was no all that great. I missed quite a few shots. Some of it was me some of it was the setup. The bench was a stone table with a ice chest on top that was a bit short and slightly wobbly. With a spring chair to sit on. the targets were duct taped to a panel and blowing in what little wind there was.

I probably should have waited and shot at a real range but it gave me something to do at the ranch.

On a side not I also had been going back and forth to the targets to shoo away a deer that kept standing in front of the target I was shooting at. so My heart rate was also up in most cases higher than normal when target shooting. And he nearly got shot on accident a time or two.

CFE223-29_4-Barnes120TTSX-Brass[1].jpgCFE223-29_4-Barnes120TTSX-Shots[1].jpgCFE223-29_7-Barnes120TTSX-Brass[1].jpgCFE223-29_7-Barnes120TTSX-Shots[1].jpgCFE223-30_0-Barnes120TTSX-Brass[1].jpgCFE223-30_0-Barnes120TTSX-Shots[1].jpgCFE223-30_3-Barnes120TTSX-Brass[1].jpgCFE223-30_3-Barnes120TTSX-Shots[1].jpgCFE223-30_6-Barnes120TTSX-Brass[1].jpgCFE223-30_6-Barnes120TTSX-Shots[1].jpg

[Fredman]

You should add a couple pictures of the deer. I have had the same issue of deer feeding around my target. It's kind of cool watching deer while shooting targets. They get used to just about anything.

I tried CFE223 but couldn't get the accuracy of 8208.

[LRRPF52]

Nice. What's your barrel length? You can see cratering with the 30.6gr load. What COL did you use?

[Kikn]

Nice. What's your barrel length? You can see cratering with the 30.6gr load. What COL did you use?

Its the 18" lilja (Original Group Buy) it has a longer throat. So I set the bullet seating die to .02 off the lands. Measured to the OAL to the Ogive I had 1.795 which had the COAL as 2.31x so it is beyond magazine length and all rounds had to be manually fed.

I did start to see some flat primers on the 30.3 and questioned whether or not I should of even shot the 30.6 grain loads.

I do plan on making some more rounds probably just to magazine length and a tick shorter to ensure reliable feeding. That should put me around a .04-.05 jump. I'll load up 29.9-30.4 and make a final decision on a load for hunting this season.

Tid Bits and disclaimers:

I also noticed some issues with the way I was loading the powder possibly trapping some powder and maybe increasing it a tick so next time I'll have to feed the powder directly into the case to prevent powder from hanging and dropping in later. I believe that is why there are some of the spikes and dips in velocity occurred.

What happened is I used an AP press to load this batch. All was well but the glitch was I used the powder drop and a funnel to dump the manually measured loads. Well some of the spacers in the tube caught some flakes that I didn't notice until I was done with it all and cleaning up.

So lesson learned there. I will now manually feed the powder directly into the cases to prevent that in the future and should see some better results and consistency.

[JASmith]

You should add a couple pictures of the deer. I have had the same issue of deer feeding around my target. It's kind of cool watching deer while shooting targets. They get used to just about anything.

I tried CFE223 but couldn't get the accuracy of 8208.

Watching deer being curious about the noise made when bullets hit a wood-backed target is almost mind-blowing!

[wraith1516]

Was out 2 weeks ago and was shootind on my 450meter range (hilltop to hilltop ) and just before I touched off the first round a doe trundled into the valley as there was no chance of hitting her I just shot she took off so fast and wasnt paying attention to were she was going she ran into a tree and knocked herself stupid I laughed my ass off (know she was fine I saw her on sunday

[Kikn]

Adding to this thread. I finally got around to finishing up my load work for the 120TTSX.

Temp was 78-85 F.

CFE 223 29.9 Gr COAL was 2.265-2.270 (length was reduced as to fit inside the magazine, Previous loadings above were at 2.31-2.315) It appears that the TTSX likes a bit more jump. Previously it was at .02-.03 this is an increase of .06-.08 jump)

22.9 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity: 2451 , 2417, 2450, 2442, 2427
29.9_CFE223-120ttsx_Brass.jpg
29.9_CFE223-120ttsx_shots.jpg

30.0 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity: 2415, 2422, 2413, 2430
30.0_CFE223-120ttsx_shots.jpg
30.0_CFE223-120ttsx_brass.jpg

30.1 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity: 2421, 2442, 2422, 2438
30.1_CFE223-120ttsx_shots.jpg
30.1_CFE223-120ttsx_brass.jpg

30.2 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity: 2430, 2446, 2459,2469
30.2_CFE223-120ttsx_brass.jpg
30.2_CFE223-120ttsx_shots.jpg

30.3 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity: 2473, 2473, 2487, 2463
30.3_CFE223-120ttsx.jpg

30.4 Gr. CFE 223 under 120ttsx
Velocity:2467, 2492, 2485, 2467
30.4_CFE223-120ttsx.jpg

Not making excuses just full disclosure of issues at the range.
I called ahead of time to make sure I could set up the chrony. Was told no problem. I get to the range pay wait an hour for cease fire and the range officer doesn't want to give me time to set it up. Even though I had mentioned it prior to the first cease fire before i got setup I let him know that I had to set it up. So I talk to the owner and they say OK hurry up. So I get it setup on my own without any help getting it lined up while everyone waits and it didn't get it as perfectly lined up with the table. so I had to have my butt stock teetering on the edge of the table about 75% teetering off the side. As I was in a rush and had to be somewhere in an hour I just made my shots and moved on. Did the best I could under the circumstances its not to bad.

[Kikn]

Some additional 5 shot groups using 123 Amax over CFE223

Temp was 78-85 F.

Velocity: 2495, 2536, 2505, 2536, 2513, 2518, 2562, 2551, 2526, 2539, 2551, 2477, 2487, 2551, error

Can't quite find my notes on the load that I used. But its the first attempt some time ago and just made a bunch of plinking rounds to shoot with at my friends place one day. It was a published load on here the most said shot well in the rifles. I'll probably have to dissect a few rounds to figure out how much powder got used. :-|