Build Thread, Six Sigma No-Budget Build

[tdbru]

besides prayers, send some $ to help with the medical expenses, which i assume are daunting. hence my challenge earlier to the vile horde :-)
Tell Blake to stay strong, were all sending prayers.
-tdbru

[FRB6.5]

Nice job! Hope you and your boy have enjoyable and memorable times shooting it.

[rebby]

I FINALLY got this out to the range today! I was a bit delayed because I managed to put a nail through my foot and couldn't walk for the last couple of weeks. It's feeling just good enough that I could do a little walking so I decided to get the barrel (partially) broke in and work on getting the gas block and muzzle break tuned.

Weather was cold and windy but I managed to get 15 rounds downrange which is more than it sounds like with all the cleaning that is part of a break in process. I threw on the MagnetoSpeed while I was at it to get some rough numbers. Since I was playing with the gas a little bit, I'll need to verify these later but I'm not disappointed in them either. With Hornady Black 123gr, velocity averaged out to 2492 fps. Federal Gold Berger 130gr, clocked in slower at 2352 fps but had a standard deviation of 8.2 fps. These numbers should improve once the temperatures get a bit more tolerable.

Target was mounted at 100y and my primary goal was to get the rifle on paper. I did a quick "bore-sight" at 50y by sighting down the barrel and adjusting the scope to get things "close enough". I got lucky at was only about 8" off the center, a quick twist of the knobs and I was with-in an inch of the center so I called that good and focused on getting the rest of the rifle running right.

About a dozen rounds later I settled in on a final setting for the gas block and the muzzle break so, all in all, it was a pretty productive day. I'm going to try to get back out there again this weekend and get a few more rounds downrange to finish the break in process and fine tune the scope. Once that's finished, I'll let Blake loose and let him have at it. He's pretty excited to get out there and shoot but breaking in the barrel doesn't appeal to him either.

[tdbru]

how's Blake doing? has he got a chance to try it yet?
-tdbru

[rebby]

Finally, a long overdue update to this thread...

We had a scheduling mishap with the shoot in May so we weren't able to make the qualifier for the 300y shoot (medical reasons, of course). This time around however was a totally different story. The range that we shoot at generally maxes out just over 200y so a 300y shoot is a bit of a novelty. We close down the rifle/pistol ranges, set up some tents and benches and have some fun. The qualifier for the second shoot was to put one round on a 9" plate at 225y. Blake was able to achieve this with a single press of the trigger, he tossed the remain 19 rounds from the box at the 3" plate and got it spinning pretty good.

At 10 years old, Blake was easily the youngest one there. There were a couple of guys who were slightly concerned that he might toss a round or two into the shelters (we were shooting right between the shelters on the 200y range). That fear subsided pretty quickly despite near full value winds at ~10mph with near 20mph gusts. We shot 5 minute rotations, the first rotation was intended to let shooters get on paper (if needed) and/or get warmed up. Blake only put 10 rounds down range during this rotation and got a feel for what the wind was doing. We were shooting Shoot-N-C targets so he could easily see his hits through the scope (20x). For the most part he shot pretty good, only a few rounds drifted outside of the 10 ring (~5").

Round 2 was another story altogether. Blake wasn't messing around anymore. We had 50 rounds of Federal Gold Medal 130gr Bergers left and Blake put them to good use. The challenge for the evening was to get consistent hits on the 3" steel. About half of the shooters were getting hits on the 3" plate, not always consistently though. Blake proceeded to put on a clinic on how get that 3" plate spinning. In just over 4 minutes he put 48 of the 50 rounds that we had left on that plate, the other two just drifted off the left edge (wind was blowing right to left). It was very impressive and Blake had a great time! There were 3 spotting scopes setup and after the first 5 to 10 rounds, guys were taking turns watching "the kid" shoot.

Needless to say, Blake is pretty happy with this build. Truth be told, it's exceeded my expectations as well. Believe it or not though, he claims to like "the other one" better (a precision .223 that I built several years ago, his first "long range" gun). After the shoot Blake decided that we need to increase the difficulty for next time so he picked a 10.5" Lilja Grendel with a Leupold 2-12x42 VX6. LOL! Whatever keeps him interested...

It ended up being a really fun night. The heat was insane, especially for him (88' with 65% humidity), so he spent his time between rotations sitting in the truck playing games on his iPod in the A/C. We were fortunate that the shoot was scheduled for a Thursday night too. Blake shoots in a pistol league on Tuesdays and has dialysis over 2 hours away from home on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday nights. This was a nice little escape from what has become a pretty monotonous schedule for him. We're still working on getting transplant evaluations fully scheduled so there isn't much light at the end of the tunnel for him yet either. We do have some preliminary blood results though and it looks like this might be a difficult match (primary due to the number of blood transfusions that he's had over the years, 30+). Generally kidneys are relatively easy to match, not so in this case. Oh well, it'll work out, it's just going to take some time.

Anyway, the Grendel build turned out great. I still need to get him a little better bipod but the Magpul worked out just fine this time around. All in good time, for some odd reason, it's kind of difficult to get gun parts right now??? Sigh...

[tdbru]

Rebby,
good to hear from you again. Good to hear Blake is hanging in there. Tell Blake i'm rooting for him.

I hope Blake had fun. sounds like he did. it's nice to be a proud papa. do you suppose he liked the 223 better due to reduced recoil? curious.

did you lap / square the upper extension face and glue or shim in the barrel extension?

yeah, Blake may have to wait for awhile. parts are evaporating faster than politicians promises...
-tdbru

[Mustangfreek]

Sounds like it all came together. Always a good feeling.

Making memories!!

[Lastrites]

Well I guess it sounds like he put some old geezers to shame, lol, well done! Hope he's on the mend.

[rebby]

Rebby,
good to hear from you again. Good to hear Blake is hanging in there. Tell Blake i'm rooting for him.

I hope Blake had fun. sounds like he did. it's nice to be a proud papa. do you suppose he liked the 223 better due to reduced recoil? curious.

Blake always has a good time shooting. The current state of ammo/primers has me struggling to keep up but we haven't had to cut back, not yet anyway.

I think his connection to the .223 is multi-faceted. This was really the first "accurate" gun he ever shot. It's truly "point and click" (1/8 MOA gun w/the right load). The .223 is quieter and a little tamer than the Grendel. There is no muzzle brake and there is enough weight that the rifle doesn't even move when you squeeze one off. Throw in a 25x Vari-X 3 with a Varminter reticle (older Leupold) and hold overs are nearly as easy they are with a good FFP scope (especially since he's always shooting at full power). When you ask him he just says that he likes it better because he's shot it a lot. No reasoning needed for a 10 year-old, LOL!

did you lap / square the upper extension face and glue or shim in the barrel extension?

With the Seekins upper that I used there isn't really a way to square the extension. The barrel mount is "reversed" on this upper which makes it significantly more rigid. I didn't need shims since the barrel fit pretty tight out of the box. I did use Loctite 620 on the extension.

yeah, Blake may have to wait for awhile. parts are evaporating faster than politicians promises...
-tdbru

Still no new bipod. Still no stock for the new M16 either (I'm an 07/02). I think the missing stock is bothering him more than the missing bipod. He wants to go dump some mags at what is currently running about $20 each in ammo! I suppose he's got dad paying for it though. Still, cheaper than therapy!

[rebby]

Well I guess it sounds like he put some old geezers to shame, lol, well done! Hope he's on the mend.

This week will be a major step in the right direction. We're spending the majority of this week (finally) working our way through a full transplant evaluation. In addition we'll be readdressing his dialysis schedule and potentially moving from hemodialysis towards peritoneal dialysis (which we'd be able to accomplish at home). This new facility is also going to do a full cardiac review to make sure that they're fully versed in his cardiac situation. This will be a good opportunity to assure that we're still on the right path there as well. With any luck, Blake will finally be on a transplant list by the end of the week. This is obviously a very important step.

[tdbru]

i'll keep Blake in my prayers. hope he can get out again to shoot his new rifle. hang in there, being a dad is tough even when everything goes well.
-tdbru

[Kswhitetails]

Really good to read of the progress. Keep his spirits up, and let his mind wander into what he wants to do. Positive mental energy is probably the greatest part of recovery to any illness or injury. I hope things continue to improve for you all.