Resurrecting this thread for a follow up on the bullet movement.
I ordered a Hardened Arms Grendel upper as I already have two uppers from them that perform above their pay scale. Found one on a summer sale and it just arrived last week. Throat is on the short end of spec, but it is in spec.
Anyway, I seated the same old Nosler 120's in empty brass to make sure that they would feed and extract correctly. I ran three dummy rounds through the action a few different times and not a single bullet moved a thousandth!
I was finally able to get a half hour to get to the range yesterday evening and function test the upper. Everything ran well with no hiccups. In fact, just shooting at debris on the 100 yard berm seemed that shot #1 and #2 hit the same spot (relatively on dirt anyway). Impact seemed to be straight low on my first BDC ring in the Nikon, so I held that ring on a dirt clod and busted it. Two more adjustments and I need to move to paper targets as I think I am already really close to zero as shown by hits on a pop can. As part of this run, I fired the first four rounds and then cleared #5 and measured OAL and even gas-feeding did not move the bullet at all. And I was not using any crimp at all on these loads as I am right on the 0.004" neck tension with the Hornady dies.
So whatever problem I was having previously with the bullets moving while chambering in the junk BCA uppers, I cannot duplicate in my new Hardened Arms upper. And the only change has been the uppers; nothing changed on my sizing or loading procedures or with buffer or spring combo in the lower.
Once I get a chance to properly sight in and check accuracy, I will start another thread to report on the HA upper.
I ordered a Hardened Arms Grendel upper as I already have two uppers from them that perform above their pay scale. Found one on a summer sale and it just arrived last week. Throat is on the short end of spec, but it is in spec.
Anyway, I seated the same old Nosler 120's in empty brass to make sure that they would feed and extract correctly. I ran three dummy rounds through the action a few different times and not a single bullet moved a thousandth!
I was finally able to get a half hour to get to the range yesterday evening and function test the upper. Everything ran well with no hiccups. In fact, just shooting at debris on the 100 yard berm seemed that shot #1 and #2 hit the same spot (relatively on dirt anyway). Impact seemed to be straight low on my first BDC ring in the Nikon, so I held that ring on a dirt clod and busted it. Two more adjustments and I need to move to paper targets as I think I am already really close to zero as shown by hits on a pop can. As part of this run, I fired the first four rounds and then cleared #5 and measured OAL and even gas-feeding did not move the bullet at all. And I was not using any crimp at all on these loads as I am right on the 0.004" neck tension with the Hornady dies.
So whatever problem I was having previously with the bullets moving while chambering in the junk BCA uppers, I cannot duplicate in my new Hardened Arms upper. And the only change has been the uppers; nothing changed on my sizing or loading procedures or with buffer or spring combo in the lower.
Once I get a chance to properly sight in and check accuracy, I will start another thread to report on the HA upper.