Need help or advice transitioning to FTR?

[jasmay]

Hi Guys & Gals,

Just thought I would put it out there, if anyone needs any advice, or help with any aspect of transitioning to FTR I would be happy to help in anyway I can, advice on setup, where to get gear, what issues you may have with shooting the heavier projectiles etc etc.

I would love to see this discipline start to gain a bit more traction so anything I can do to help......

Feel free to PM me for my number if you want to chat or ask anything, if you local around SE QLD I would also be willing for a face to face if you like, I don't claim to be an expert, but if I can give you the leg up you need I am here to help!!

Jason.

[bshrestha01]

That would be a great help Jason,

I have some theoretical knowledge about F-Standard (though I am still in B grade).

I am about to start working on FTR from this Saturday. I have a Savage 12 FTR in .308 full factory rifle except for the bedding. The barrel is 1:12 twist factory barrel. It has a bipod and a NightForce 12-42x BR scope. All up, it is approximately 7.9 Kg.

I have with me Sierra 155grain 2156, Berger 155.5 grain hybrids, Berger 168 grain and Berger 185 grain projectiles ready to be tested. I will be using once or twice fired Lapua brasses and 2208 powder.

I am about to start load development. Where should I start? Do I use the standard 3 shot groupings or 0.1 grain different loads or is there something different that can be done which will be more effective.

I wish to be ready with the FTR for the NSW Queens starting 12 September. Is it possible?

Thanks in advance.

[Tim L]

I'll be interested in the advice here too. I'm maybe half a step ahead of you with loads for the 155 hbc and 168 vld confirmed, but I opted to do load development off a rest rather than a bipod. In hindsight that may have been an error. I know shooting off a bipod can affect POI, can it also effect grouping?

[jasmay]

The savage 12 FTR is a great base to start from, a really competitive factory rifle at the right price.

The only advice I would give you in regards to the rifle would be to pay particular attention to the comb of the stock (Part that rides the rear bag) there are a few people around making adapter that screw between the recoil pad and butt that provide a bag rider that is parallel with the barrel (or near enough).

This is especially important once you start shooting above the 155gr class projectiles.

Now to your load development.

A lot of people like the ladder test, it has not yielded great results for me, maybe I don't understand it well enough, or maybe it simply did not work for the loads I was testing. In any case I like to see 5 shot groups, and this is how I have developed all my current competition loads.

I begin my development a little different, it start right back at the chambering stage of building the rifle, you wont have this luxury obviously so I wont go into detail, a load spread for each projectile will be your best bet.

I think .1gr increments is a bit small for initial testing go for .2 or even .3, you can always refine it further after you get yourself in the ball park, hopefully you know roughly the area to start your tests powder weight wise.

I start all my development at the lands, IMO this gives me my peak pressure for each load, this way when I go away and tweak seating depth I don't have any fear that I will be increasing chamber pressure.

I also like to get out and do my testing at 100yds on a calm day, chronographing at a later stage.

Once you have done your initial batch of testing and your in the ball park you can begin to tweak your powder weight and then seating depth, I like to move in 10 thou increments for seating then I will fine tune that as I am shooting during club meets and smaller prize shoots. (I like to plot these tests so I have a good record, you wont see me with a plot during a comp though)

Either at this stage, or before you play with seating (i.e. while still at the lands), I run my load over a chronograph, if I don't like what I see I'll usually try a couple of different primers, seating depth can also have an effect here.

I have found some interesting things with primers. Without giving all my secrets away the most profound of these is with my current FTR load for 200hybrids.

Federal GMM primers are generally the 1st choice, I found them along with other premium primers were utterly hopeless in this heavier load, the blue box federal (205's) gave me amazing results when it came to ES and printing on paper. It is now my go to primer for heavy pills when I am using Palma brass.

The next step is starting to stretch the load out distance wise, how's your wind reading

I hope this helps, I am sure others will chime in with advice, its important to remember there is no one way to do this, it is what works for you!! I have always been very big on taking in all the advice I can then putting into practice the elements that work for me, I think its important we all do this to achieve the best results for ourselves personally!!

[jasmay]

I'll be interested in the advice here too. I'm maybe half a step ahead of you with loads for the 155 hbc and 168 vld confirmed, but I opted to do load development off a rest rather than a bipod. In hindsight that may have been an error. I know shooting off a bipod can affect POI, can it also effect grouping?

Tim, I have found with a Bipod attached my rifle behaves different, I now do all my testing off the bipod I will be using for the load. I have 2 one for FTR and one for FS.

Be interesting to see what you guys think of the 168, for me it was not a big enough jump in weight, I have 3 working loads that I like 155HBC 185juggs and 200Hybrids, but really only use 2 of them 155;s and 200H's.

[bshrestha01]

Thanks for that information Jason,

I am writing down my plans on my experience and from your advice as well as advice off the more experienced people in my club. If anybody has any opinions or comments I am sure they will be let known. I hope this to be a learning experience for everybody as more experienced people start chiming in.

First things first, this is how I did load development for my omark which has worked wonders for me. I still haven't found the nerves to get a 60 yet (multiple 59s with messed up last shot). And that omark has one of the cheapest setup around.

Anyways, I have a trick to find the exact length of the bullet from lands. I have used it multiple times before with great results and I won't need any extra equipment .

I suppose I will start with 5 shot groups at 0.2 grain difference which should give me an approximate of what I will be looking at developing further. I know the amount of powder I need to use (from the lowest to the highest weight for each projectile weight - I have 4 different projectiles to test).

Once I get the first approximation, I will go for a 5 shot groups at 0.1 grain difference, which should give me a better overview. If this group can give me a score of 60 first up with a proper string, I will leave the seating depth alone for bit later.

The range I go to runs the morning shoots at 300 metres most of the time and has a different distances during the afternoon shoot so 300 m will be my first test. Once I am happy with the 300 m, I will be moving back and try out longer distances. I am looking at using heavier projectiles at longer than 600 m.

My wind reading is OK at best and if I have to deal with mirage, I better throw the round . That is another aspect I am learning with my omark. It has a very light load as it is unable to take any higher pressure. This makes it very tricky in even moderately windy conditions.

[plumbs7]

With my Omark , it too won't take a lot off pressure . But it's very accurate for a $350 rifle plus scope!

Hi Jason , yep starting to look into it and may even dabble in a few OPM next year with F/tr.
What bi pod do you recommend and do u run spikes on that pod so u can preload ? I didn't take much notice of Mr Green's setup (I should have ! But I guess I was busy with the comp), but from
Memory he had a platform that his bi pod sat on .

Regards Graham.

[Amac]

Hey Jason

Time to call in that chip you offered.

So I have a few questions. I'm going all in for the F/TR game. Had my fun in Standard for the time being and feel that we need to promote the international side of the sport.

Having starting working on the new rifle I am starting to question a few things. For instance

Rifle hold - I've shot some excellent groups with next to no hold and allowing more free recoil so I'm tossing up which one to work on?

Bag set up - smaller bag or larger bigfoot?

Bipod - run with the Joy Pod (of which I will need a couple of more pic mounting points when you're ready and operating) or use the JP without the coax and bag squeeze?

I've probably got a little frustrated with the load development too. Been running some 180 and 210 JLK with some minor success. However, on the weekend it all went pear shaped I feel. It wouldn't hold waterline for me. So back to the drawing board and I ran a velocity test to find nodes for 210 JLK and 185 Jug. Found some really good nodes that I am going to work at. Jugs look like being good at 2815 fps behind 46.1 g 2208. Thoughts?

This is a different game from Standard where you can pin your rifle in the rest. Set up seems to be critical off the bi pod and bigger 308 load.

Happy to have any input at this stage. Whether I'm able to get it tuned for Crows Nest will be another story....might be pulling out the Panda again for one last run in Standard.....let's hope not.

Look forward to hearing back.

Cheers

Andrew

[slyone]

joy pod and free recoil work well for me . some people don't like 185 vld berger but again it works for me . how are people going with 200s and 210s and are they still using 155s in the same barrel ? to use 185s I have the throat pushed out and 155.5s are only in the case 80 tho . I assume you need a 200 grn dedicated barrel.

[Amac]

Slyone

I figure you might be Dan? Mate, not sure about the 200's but I have a good number of them and they will be my next trial effort after I get these others sorted.

Do you let go of the joystick prior to shooting? I was thinking about the process of shot release last night and perhaps holding on to the joystick under shot recoil might cause some issues I'm not aware of?

I had my chamber cut with 168 thou freebore. Will seat the 185 Jug and 200 gr Hybrid above the neck shoulder junction. 155's would fall out of the case. I'll look at another barrel or rifle to run 155's and 180/185's for shorter range perhaps.

Hope all is well.

Cheers

Andrew

[slyone]

yeah I let go of the joy stick and put it at the rear bag . I just don't feel stable with my left arm out in front

[jasmay]

Have had some great discussion with people on this subject, quite a few people have both called and messaged me, offer is still open if you have tried to contact me and had no success feel free to email me direct at sebaustralia@hotmail.com