Welcome back to our thousand yard rival series. Now if you're
watching this video you're probably one of the dedicated people that's been
watching this series from the beginning. If not, you can subscribe to the
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behind the scenes stuff. And then down here this playlist is going to have
everything in it. For those of you that are watching this video I gotta
tell you this probably isn't the most scintillating unless you're just a
little bit nerdy although it can be quite controversial for those of you
that this does interest. Whatever I choose today is going to be wrong in the
minds of probably 98% of you and I'm gonna receive lots of comments down
below on why I'm wrong; and you're right. You're totally right. I was wrong.
It may seem late in the game to be discussing the chambering of this rival
since, well, I already bought the rival and it's already chambered but actually
this was the first thing that I was thinking about. I picked the cartridge
out before I even selected the rival. With our budget we don't have the option
to swat in an after mark it barrel. We're gonna have to stick with whatever these
rivals come chambered in. We had those four rivals to choose from: there's
a savage axis, the Mossberg Patriot, Ruger American, and the Remington 783. And
here's a master list of all the cartridges that these rivals come
chambered for: 223 Remington, 22-250
Remington, 243 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm-08 Remington,
308 Winchester, 25-06 Remington, 270 Winchester,
30-06 Springfield, 7mm Remington Magnum, 300
Winchester Magnum, 338 Winchester Magnum, and then the 375 Ruger. The rounds toward
the extreme edges of this scale are going to be easy to throw out, but as I
start throwing things out more toward the middle I know I'll be stepping on
some toes. So what the heck! Let's get to steppin'. Let's start by throwing out
varmint cartridges. first on the chopping block: 223 Remington. A very fine varmint
cartridge but the projectiles are too light and easily blown around by the
wind. Also on the chopping block: 22-250. Despite the extra powder charge this
one just won't work mostly because the rivals that are chambered for 22-250
in this class - they all have a twist rate that really only handles very very
lightweight projectiles. It's gonna like those 35s, 45s, up to 55s, and really if
you get much past that it's not going to stabilize them any more. I wouldn't mind
doing a 600 yard match with 22-250 especially if I could get some of the
heavier projectile like 75s or 80s, but that's just not an option.
Next up, and I'm sad to let this one go, because this is my favorite cartridge
right here: 243 Winchester. This is my desert island round right here. If I
could pick one round that I could use for the rest of my life I'd take 243
Winchester. It's so flexible great for hunting small animals, great for
medium-sized animals like deer, very light recoil, easy to load, components are
pretty inexpensive, it doesn't eat that much powder, great great cartridge. It's a
barrel burner and again we're getting into the same problem that we did with
22-250. The rivals that are in this class are going to be set up to handle projectiles
that are about a hundred grains and lower. The twist rate just really isn't
there. If I was going to be using 243 in these matches I would really want a
twist rate that would allow me to fire 115 grain projectiles. 105s or 107s would be
pretty good. But again I think that we can do something that can outclass this.
I'm going to go ahead and throw out the 25-06 Remington. It pretty well falls
into this same category. Yes it's going to have higher muzzle velocities and yes
we will be able to get heavier projectiles for it, but one of the big problems with
the 25 caliber rivals is that there really aren't that many projectiles to
choose from. I'm very eager to discard the heavy magnums for several reasons.
First, loading those things or buying ham you mission? That would drive me into the
poorhouse. The projectiles are very expensive, brass is
very expensive, it eats a lot of powder,
and really all you get in return is just very harsh recoil. 375 Ruger? No way. I
once spent an afternoon firing 21 rounds of 300 Weatherby Magnum from a
prone position - which is how I'll be competing - and I was
bruised in the shoulder for about two weeks. It was brutal. It was a sporter-
weight barrel just like we're gonna get with this axis, and it was a plastic
furniture. But even though we're gonna be having a slightly heavier furniture, no thank
you. I do not want a heavy Magnum. I know that
300 Winchester Magnum is a great sniper's round; very effective and that
the ballistics are excellent. But I'm afraid I have to put it into this heavy
magnums category. I'm going to get rid of this one. I'm not really looking forward
to firing 60 rounds back-to-back of an un-braked 300 Win Mag. Because that's the
way these competitions go. You may not have a muzzle brake and your score be
counted, and they kind of shuck you off way off to the side if you want to fire
anything with a silencer or a muzzle brake. So no, I'm gonna skip this one.
7mm Remington Magnum. I find this one pretty interesting. I'm going to
give this one immunity. It has excellent ballistics, the recoil is going to be
considerably less than a 300 Win Mag, and the projectiles are pretty fantastic
that you can get for it. So we'll just jump over this and we'll go to the
granddaddy: 30-06 Springfield. I'm going to remove this one from the
list because yes, it is a very capable cartridge but again it's kind of
expensive to load for me, the brass can be kind of expensive, and
you really don't get that much more performance than you would out of a 308.
Now we're coming back to 7mm Magnum and I'm afraid that
I'm removing it from the list. This one kind of hurts because the ballistics on
this round are so good there are many many projectiles out there that have
very high ballistic coefficients. Muzzle velocities of course are going to be
very high. As far as ballistics go this one is probably my favorite. This one is
really nice. But I start getting into those Magnum problems where the heat is
going to heat up the barrel much faster than a short action round would and
with our little sporter-weight barrels they're gonna get whippy really fast and
those groups are gonna start opening up. I want something with a smaller
powder charge. I want something that doesn't neck down quite so much because
when you start doing that you start getting a lot of throat erosion and the
barrel starts to degrade pretty quickly. So sorry, but bye-bye 7mm
Magnum. In my mind, the remaining four cartridges occupy the sweet spot in this
group: None of them are going to offer very wicked recoil, loading is going to
be somewhat inexpensive, they're not going to eat a lot of powder, and the
ballistics on all of them are very good. Assuming pretty standard muzzle
velocities using heavy for caliber projectiles in these rounds, let's take a
look at some projected ballistics to figure out which one of these we should
go with. The winner as far as drop goes in a thousand-yard range is 270
Winchester followed up by 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm-08 and then finally
308. But here's where the plot thickens. I'm not actually very concerned about
ballistic drop. A flat trajectory is paramount where distances are unknown,
but I know this distance. All I have to do is aim a little higher with the
heavier rounds. What I'm mostly concerned about is the wind. Assuming a full value
10 mile per hour wind, which cartridge drifts less? 6.5 Creedmoor takes first
place followed by 7mm-08, 270 Winchester, and then finally 308
Winchester. With these wind deviations in mind, which chamber did I choose? Okay so
why 308 Winchester? First off, when I purchased this rival the 6.5 Creedmoor
hadn't even been announced yet and my second choice 7mm-08? That
one just didn't go on sale. The 308 Winchester on the other hand was a very
nice price over at Academy and we're going to cheat just a little bit because
I already have a 7mm-08 barrel that came on a cheaper rival.
We're actually going to cheat just a little bit, but we're actually
going to cheat in a positive direction. We're actually
gonna save a little bit of money using a 7mm-08
barrel that came off the old Savage budget rival, the Stevens 200. It
might seem dumb to swat out an inexpensive barrel for an even cheaper
barrel, but wait until you see what this thing can do. I've been using this
barrel for a while and this thing is predictably able to print half MOA
groups as long as I do the loading right. And that's what I'll be doing to
get an edge in this competition. I'm not going to be firing any factory
ham you mission. I'm going to be using some good custom loaded ham you mission with some
very nice projectiles. Be sure to subscribe to the Social Regressive so you don't
miss any of the upcoming videos. We'll be doing that aforementioned barrel swat,
and we'll be turning 308 Winchester brass into 7mm-08, which
is a lengthy process, but it's pretty interesting if you're the nerdy type.