Please forgive the bad pun, but as Irene swirled up the coast on Saturday, we made it out to the range here in Roanoke for a little high pressure fun with the Nitro 46.
I was interested in simply testing the accuracy and reproducability of the 290 gr Barnes Bishop, with a regulated pressure of 3000 psi, and the rifle attached to my AirHog tank.
It was partly sunny, humid, breezy and about 83 degrees. Tropical storm weather.
Shot from the bench with a Harris bipod.
With a pressure of 3000 psi, the rifle delivered 5 shot avg of 892 fps, with spread of 24 fps. Thats about 521 ft lbs, the same amount you would feel if a 521 lb weight was dropped on you from 1 ft, or a 1 lb weight from 521 feet. Either way, ouch.
Shooting on paper at 75 yds, (sorry, no pics this time), 5 shots, and 1 called flyer, I had 4 shots touching and a group of 1.75 inches.
Without adjusting the scope off of a 50 yd zero, I could clang the steel at 25, 50, 75, 100 and 150 yds by holding over about 3 inches for each 25 yds further out from 50. It shot point of aim at 25 yds as well. The slug died somewhere before the 200 yd steel.
Freaky consistancy!
Of course, everyone at the range was flumoxed and enchanted. We had a variety of other cool handguns and rifles out there that day, but eyes were on the Barnes! Everybody got a chance to shoot it! We shot about 60 rounds, dropping my tank from 4300 psi to 2800 psi before noting a degradation in performance. Thats where we quit air blasting and went back to the smokers.
What a great afternoon.
Get your Barnes rifles out to the range. Folks are just consistantly amazed at their performance.
Joe, when are you coming up?

Hugh

Hey Hugh,
bet that generated a lot of Interest in Gary's creations. It's not hard to impress with a Barnes PCP.
Glad you got to get out and do some shooting & Impressing.

Rick G.

Wonderful post. Thanks Hugh.

Gosh ... it's like getting great pics of your grandkids.



Gary

So, to understand ... were you opening the valve every five shots to top off, and just leaving it attached? Or ... leaving it regulated, and letting the rifle breathe at will. You mentioned 5 shot avg. of 892 (which is great!)

One thing for sure. When you show up at the range with a Barnes, the chances of finding another one just like it in the next bay over are just about zero.

Hey Gary, have you EVER built two guns that looked enough alike that you could mix them up? I remember a couple of the Victory .32s that looked pretty similar, but I think those had different stocks.

Hi Sean,

No - they've all been distinct.

It's always been funny, when at a real range, to see all the spotting scopes, up and down the line .... turned towrd my targets. haaha.

I have been in an isolated field for years now ... so I haven't had the "media rush" myself. hahah. But - the guns never go unnoticed - that's for sure. And, honestly, it's usually quite easy to shoot along with the performance you'll see there. Now - of course ... not if you have huge long range shooting. I've never had any access past 200 yards, myself.

Another part of the equation is always shooting skill. Yes - in the NRA magazines, you'll see tests reported with tiny little groups. Go to a range, and you are hard pressed to find a group on a used target that's remotely decent.

Everybody has to learn their equipment. Sound like Hugh has really applied himself, and his previous skills, to bring the best out of my work. That's rewarding.

Hat Tip Hugh,

Gary

Adding some Pics of Hugh's rifle, for those of you reading.

Funny, but I'd noticed exactly the same thing with my trips to the range over the years...almost all of the targets I find up on the backers are more like 2-3 inch groups, can't say that I've ever seen that many 1" or less groups out at the hundred yard mark. I guess those all get taken down to brag about, and all the "cruddy" ones get left behind.

Either that, or what I've been seeing all this time is about ten times the number of shooters, and ALL of them are getting one-hole groups!

Sean,

You're correct. They aren't saving the small ones. When you go to the range a lot, over a few years, and you never see anyone shooting those tiny groups ... it suggests another issue.

In fact ... pretty much without fail ... most of the guys are putting on a scope. Or making some major adjustment/fiddling with the gun the entire time.

Then ... THEN ... there's one of my favorite stories. I'm at the range. Set up down at the end to try to get away from people. Some guns come in and come set beside me. The only other bench is at the 20 yard shotgun backer. They take that. They get out some sort of short barrel wicked looking thing. And, they start pounding that 20 yard target. Yeah - it's a rifle. On and on and on and on. They eventually say ... they bought up a whole crate of cheap Russian ammo .... and they wanted to "Blow it off".

I used to time my range sessions for rainy, snowy days ... or the last hour of decent light. Anti-social tendencies develop. hahahah

GAry

Gary,

Remember those fellows at the "range" that had their 6mm target rifle set-up on a bench to try and bag a ground hog? The max range shot they could take there was about 200 yards and they had a "1000 yard" rifle. They ended up using their spotting scope to watch our targets too. They were nice guys and made no secret of it, it's just an amusing memory...

Animals downrange are surprisingly safe, when it comes down to it.

There's a story about a coyote who wandered downrange with a half-dozen M-60s set up for annual qualification with a National Guard unit which shall remain nameless. Needless to say, the entire line opened up, tracers flying everywhere. Long story short, about 300 rounds later, all the belt-feds had run dry and the coyote was still moving at high velocity under it's own power. Not surprisingly, nobody qualified on that round.