Pueblo , Colorado ....June 2006
Last weekend Steve Hugel , aka ( SSCoyote ) , and myself , Ray Prager , aka ( Old Fart ) , had the opportunity to do some shooting with my Contender projects, I love my Contenders . They have been my passion before I could even shoot them, back when all I could do was read the stories and articles of such writers as Bob Milek and Steve Herrett and Oh what dreams I had about their hunting trips.
These Long Range Specialty Pistols are the current craze with some shooters and the " Bigger is definitely Better" attitude prevails. They say it takes a big bullet and a large capacity cartridge case full of powder to get " Way out there " .
The guys, besides myself, that have been experimenting with these include Steve and his partners, Ernie Bishop and Marc Sheehan , along with some others . They primarily use custom bolt action specialty pistols built on Remington XP 100 's, Trued actions, heavy custom barrels, match grade chambers, customs stocks after market triggers and always high powered expensive optics . Then a good gunsmith and lots of man-hours is required to put all this together.
For all their efforts they have had great success. These guys are currently working on engaging targets out to 1 mile. Just outstanding! This is due to the merging of equipment and marksmanship. All this adds up to many, many dollars and hours in this pursuit ...and there's nothing wrong with that. Being a old married man, that has raised four-children, I wanted to see if I could play the game and obtain a reasonable result with less of a financial burden, hence my Contender projects .
Now, If you own the latest offering from Thompson Center Arms, the Encore, you have one step up on me. They are much stronger and will handle any of the big cartridges these long range shooters are using.
In my case I have several Contenders but no Encores, for now...LOL .So my goal was to use what I have.
With the limited strength of the Contender frames my caliber choice would be critical. I would like to say here that, " these are my ideas and findings and are in no way absolutes I am just an " Old Fart " playing around ". The caliber I chose was .224 and the cartridges of choice were the 223 Ackey Improved, a wildcat that I put together the 22-204 Imp and the last wildcat, which is in progress now, is the 5.6 x 50r Imp., which might be finished by the end of the summer . Why these? The small web diameter of these cases would allow me to load these to maximum and limit the back thrust in the guns. That would help maintain safe limits and not destroy the guns or hurt me .In case of the 223ai: the dies, brass and loading information is plentiful. The high power shooters have had excellent results out past 600 yards with the 223 and the improved case of the 223ai would give me a couple more grains of powder capacity. The guys in the varmint fields have also shared in this excellent result. The 22-204 Imp is based on the 204 Ruger case. It has the same length as the 222 Remington Magnum but with the shoulder moved forward and at a sharper angle. These cases are more plentiful now, cheaper than the 222 mag cases, and seem to work better in this transformation. What I've done is to expand this cases neck to .224 caliber and improve (blow out the shoulder) to 40 degrees to match the 223ai. That way the 223ai dies can handle both cartridges. The web area of the 22-204 imp is sized by a Lee .357 Magnum carbide sizer. How is this possible? Well ....that leads me to Mike Sirois, owner and operator of "On Target Technologies". He is a very gifted machinist and barrel maker, his innovations and EDM process has definitely changed the barrel building business. After many long and short talks with Mike, barrels were shipped and the process was started Yahoo..!!
The key feature, and what makes Mike so special, is that he can build his electrodes to any shape, dimension or design . His chambers are matched to the dies and brass that you are using, which adds to the longevity of the brass and the excellent accuracy of his barrels.
My goals were to put together a couple of guns on a budget that would get to, and possibly pass, 1000 yards , hopefully with 1 MOA accuracy my platforms would be the Contenders. Mike would build the barrels, but with a twist! I wouldn't be using the normal expensive and popular barrels that people say are needed to reach these goals.
Now here, I must apologize, this has been a long process, I have talked on several web sites about my plans and projects some people have gone along with interest and some have said " Why bother ", " Won't work ". People have asked what barrels were being used and I just answered Kreiger and Douglas. To explain now, I did use a Kreiger match SS blank 1-7.7 twist ,.224 caliber but this barrel was not new, My friend Frank Hoffman gave me this wore out AR barrel (has 2500 rounds threw it) for free . Mike cut off the chamber end and welded up the gas port, yep it had a hole in it. Mike built my 223ai barrel from this. My 22-204 Imp was built, not from a Douglas blank, but from a chrome moly Adams and Bennet barrel blank, a 1-7 twist, .224 caliber blank I bought on close out from Midway for $59.95, definitely a budget build.
My dies are Lee, Redding and RCBS. Most of which I purchased used at gun shows . The brass is Winchester and Remington. All pretty reasonable in price and quality. The barrels are fitted with Weaver bases and Burris Signature rings with inserts.
Scopes, both extremes were used, A new Burris Black Diamond 8x32 ,30 mm, a definite high dollar and very nice optic. This was mounted on the 22-204Imp. On the other end, I bought a very nice used Tasco World Class 6x24 at a gun show for $50.00. A nice optic but definitely not top end. This was mounted on the 223ai.
The Bower’s Rest and Forend System was used throughout. I have used this system for years, it was built by Don himself. These work very well in pulling all this equipment together and really help this old man hold things steadier.
In loading these cartridges, and throughout testing, AA2520, Varget, W760 and H414 were tried. All shot well but the powder selected was W760 just because I got the best price on a 8# jug. H414 and W760 gave almost identical results. Primers were tested and the CCI magnum primers gave the best results. The bullets exclusively used were the excellent Hornady 75 grain A-max. These were chosen over other 77 and 80 grain bullets for speed and there plastic tips . The higher BC's all helped to keep these supersonic at 1000 yards. I'm looking forward to testing the new 80 grain A-max bullets as soon as they are available.
After testing, loads for these 2 barrels were settled . Speeds of 2770 fps (+/-) with both barrels were accomplished. Both barrels averaged one half-inch groups and better at 100-yards. At 200-yards, the accuracy was hanging at one inch. Awesome, Happy! Happy!
A special thanks to Steve Hugel for this trip. Steve is a Lab Tech and part time gun writer, who has published articles in several national magazines but more important he is a accomplished long ranger shooter. He agreed to help me with these Contender projects, his help and friendship has been greatly appreciated .
Long Range can be accomplished on a Budget!!
Ray Prager aka (Old Fart)