Well last Tuesday evening the brown truck finally dropped off my new 6.8 SPC upper. The upper arrived and was exactly as I'd asked it to be. I removed it
from the box and found that Bison Armory had included a few small parts with the upper at no charge. I had just sent a RRA upper and my bolt carrier, so they
could be sure it would work with the head spaced bolt I'd ordered along with the new barrel. Bison had completed the assembly with a firing pin, firing pin
retaining pin, and a cam pin. They also threw in a new charging handle. I had all of these small parts here planning to install them, so I didn't order
extra's. Bison threw them in at no charge. Can't beat that. I mounted a scope on the upper, and lubed up the bolt and carrier assembly.
I was able to get to the range Wednesday afternoon to zero the scope. I'd bought some SSA 90 grain Speer TNT's from Midway, so I zeroed the scope with them. I always begin zeroing a scope by firing a round at about 25 yards. The first round went off just fine and was on paper, so I began adjusting for elevation and windage. The rifle was functioning fine, feeding, chambering, firing, extracting, and ejecting just fine. On the fifth trigger pull all I got was a click. Knowing the SSA ammo I had was loaded with hard military primers I was expecting such a problem since I'm running a 3# Timney trigger in my lower. I simply ejected the misfire and continued with my project, After getting the rifle shooting a couple inches low at 25 yards, I moved to 100 yards and fired a single round from my shooting table. This round hit about 2 inches high. I made a 2 click elevation adjustment, and fired two more rounds that were touching at 1.5 inches high of my aiming point. Good enough. Nine rounds fired, one misfire.
On Thursday afternoon I decided to go to the range again. I loaded up somemore SSA 90 grain cartridges and fired two rounds. For some reason they went about 4 inches high. I made a scope adjustment then fired a 5/8ths inch three shot group right at my point of aim. The second round in this 3 shot string misfired, then misfired again when I rechambered it. Six rounds fired, one misfire that failed again, so only five rounds went downrange. Again the rifle functioned perfectly other than the misfire.
Now I have a delima. I want to do some coyote hunting with this new rifle, but I don't want a click when a coyote comes in. I don't want to replace the Timney trigger with a mil-spec FCG to reliably ignite the hard SSA primers. To solve this delima, I decided to buy some comercial 6.8 SPC ammo, and get away from the SSA military primers. Today I picked up a box of Hornady 110 grain ballstic tips. I traveled to the range, and loaded up a magazine with the Hornady's. Now I know I've changed bullet weight, and manufacturer, so I'm expecting to have to make a small scope adjustment for the Hornady ammo. I really wasn't expecting them to not even hit paper at 100 yards though. The Hornady stuff was shooting over 12 inches low and 4 inches left of the SSA stuff. I've deduced that the Hornady ammo is loaded to SAAMI commercial specs and is probably running about 400 FPS slower than the SAA ammo. This is going to be a total pain trying to shoot this different spec ammo. It's like shooting 44 special and 44 magnum.
I suppose the next step is to shoot up this factory loaded crap and get to handloading some ammo that will work. I have my dies, cases, primers, and will look for some RE7 at BassPro tomorow. If I can't find RE7 I'll use H335 that I have on hand. My next problem is that I want this thing shooting 90 grainers at 2900 FPS and that's a max load with H335. I"m going to have to work up to that, and that's going to require range time. Range time is going to be ending real soon, so it's going to be a slow process.
Here's what I have. (sorry for the crappy pic) It's cold in the garage. I'm not going back out there.
Both the upper and lower recievers are from RRA. I installed a Timney trigger in the lower. The stock is a Magpul MOE. I also installed a Magpul winter trigger guard. The barrel is a midlength 16" Bison Armory Recon profile, with the 6.8 SPC II chamber. It has a 1-11 twist. The freefloat handguard is a smooth midlength YHM. It has a full rail on top with 2.5 inch rails on the bottom and each side. The upper contains a Colt M-16 bolt carrier. The bolt is a Stag 6.8 SPC. The gas block is from Model 1 sales. I mounted a 3-9 burris FF II scope.
I put this rifle together to be a more powerful calling rifle on an AR platform. It's light, and looks as if it will be very accurate. The accuracy I've seen so far is very promising. As soon as I am able to get a reliable load worked up I think this is going to work fine.
The project continues.
Coyote 6974
I was able to get to the range Wednesday afternoon to zero the scope. I'd bought some SSA 90 grain Speer TNT's from Midway, so I zeroed the scope with them. I always begin zeroing a scope by firing a round at about 25 yards. The first round went off just fine and was on paper, so I began adjusting for elevation and windage. The rifle was functioning fine, feeding, chambering, firing, extracting, and ejecting just fine. On the fifth trigger pull all I got was a click. Knowing the SSA ammo I had was loaded with hard military primers I was expecting such a problem since I'm running a 3# Timney trigger in my lower. I simply ejected the misfire and continued with my project, After getting the rifle shooting a couple inches low at 25 yards, I moved to 100 yards and fired a single round from my shooting table. This round hit about 2 inches high. I made a 2 click elevation adjustment, and fired two more rounds that were touching at 1.5 inches high of my aiming point. Good enough. Nine rounds fired, one misfire.
On Thursday afternoon I decided to go to the range again. I loaded up somemore SSA 90 grain cartridges and fired two rounds. For some reason they went about 4 inches high. I made a scope adjustment then fired a 5/8ths inch three shot group right at my point of aim. The second round in this 3 shot string misfired, then misfired again when I rechambered it. Six rounds fired, one misfire that failed again, so only five rounds went downrange. Again the rifle functioned perfectly other than the misfire.
Now I have a delima. I want to do some coyote hunting with this new rifle, but I don't want a click when a coyote comes in. I don't want to replace the Timney trigger with a mil-spec FCG to reliably ignite the hard SSA primers. To solve this delima, I decided to buy some comercial 6.8 SPC ammo, and get away from the SSA military primers. Today I picked up a box of Hornady 110 grain ballstic tips. I traveled to the range, and loaded up a magazine with the Hornady's. Now I know I've changed bullet weight, and manufacturer, so I'm expecting to have to make a small scope adjustment for the Hornady ammo. I really wasn't expecting them to not even hit paper at 100 yards though. The Hornady stuff was shooting over 12 inches low and 4 inches left of the SSA stuff. I've deduced that the Hornady ammo is loaded to SAAMI commercial specs and is probably running about 400 FPS slower than the SAA ammo. This is going to be a total pain trying to shoot this different spec ammo. It's like shooting 44 special and 44 magnum.
I suppose the next step is to shoot up this factory loaded crap and get to handloading some ammo that will work. I have my dies, cases, primers, and will look for some RE7 at BassPro tomorow. If I can't find RE7 I'll use H335 that I have on hand. My next problem is that I want this thing shooting 90 grainers at 2900 FPS and that's a max load with H335. I"m going to have to work up to that, and that's going to require range time. Range time is going to be ending real soon, so it's going to be a slow process.
Here's what I have. (sorry for the crappy pic) It's cold in the garage. I'm not going back out there.
Both the upper and lower recievers are from RRA. I installed a Timney trigger in the lower. The stock is a Magpul MOE. I also installed a Magpul winter trigger guard. The barrel is a midlength 16" Bison Armory Recon profile, with the 6.8 SPC II chamber. It has a 1-11 twist. The freefloat handguard is a smooth midlength YHM. It has a full rail on top with 2.5 inch rails on the bottom and each side. The upper contains a Colt M-16 bolt carrier. The bolt is a Stag 6.8 SPC. The gas block is from Model 1 sales. I mounted a 3-9 burris FF II scope.
I put this rifle together to be a more powerful calling rifle on an AR platform. It's light, and looks as if it will be very accurate. The accuracy I've seen so far is very promising. As soon as I am able to get a reliable load worked up I think this is going to work fine.
The project continues.
Coyote 6974
