F Class UK

 

FCUK - Grant, many congratulations on winning the GB League this year and also your magnificent third place in the World Individual F Class Championships and second in the Europeans - just three V bulls behind the winner. You have had a great year.

 

Let's start off with a bit of background. When did you start shooting? How did you get into F Class? Do you shoot any other disciplines?

 

GT  - I have been shooting for most of my life. I used to go air-rifle shooting with my dad when I was very young. I then got into accurate rifles and precision reloading and shooting long-range vermin control. I tried my hand at practical rifle and benchrest shooting before settling on F-Class. I still like to shoot vermin  if I get the time.

 

 

FCUK - I've had an opportunity to have a close look at your rifle and it looks really nice. I know you built it yourself so tell us how that came about and what components you are using.  

 

GT  - I always wanted to build my own rifles and do well with them in competition

or in the field - there is no better feeling.

 

I had seen American shooter Charles Ballard's rifle on 6mmBR.com and he was having great success with it and it looked great, so it was time to start ordering some bits and pieces.

 

The stock is a Precision Rifle & Tool F-Class wood-laminate stock in purple-haze colour. The action is a BAT model M round and the barrel is a Bartlein 1-9 twist finished at 32inch. I know that seems like a long barrel but it works very well. I added a lot of lead to the butt to get the balance right.

 

 

FCUK - What about scopes? What are you using?

 

GT - I use a 12-42x56 BR Nightforce with the double dot reticule; I can't fault this scope. I use the Nightforce NSX models on my hunting rifles and of course I have the new Sightron that I received from Aimfield Sports for winning the League. I am going to use that on my new short range F-Class rifle.

 

 

FCUK - You are one of only a few UK shooters using the 'straight' 284 Winchester. What made you go down that route rather than the proven 7WSM?

 

GT - I am actually using the Shehane 284 - I did plan to go with the 284Win. but I got talking with Jim Hardy, a highpower shooter from the USA. He was having good success with this cartridge. We talked a lot about it and he convinced me to try the Shehane so I ordered  the reamers from Pacific Tool & Gauge.

 

I went the 284 route purely for barrel-life - 600 rounds from a WSM just isn't practical for me! I am hoping for more like 1800-2000 rounds from the Shehane - hopefully about two seasons worth.

 

 

 

FCUK - Have you any preference for barrels - cut or buttoned - any particular make?

 

GT - I have no preference on cut or buttoned but I really like the Bartlein barrels

I have two at the moment and both are awesome, they don't foul at all and I have two more on order as we speak.

 

 

FCUK - Give us a full spec. on the 284 Shehane - what brass, bullets, powder and primers you are using?

 

GT - Lapua brass obviously, the Berger 180grn VLD bullet over Hodgdon H4831sc powder and CCI BR2 primers.

 

 

FCUK - Are you running a tight-neck chamber?

 

GT - Yes, all my rifles are tight-necks. The Shehane is a .313 neck.

 

 

FCUK - What equipment to you use to turn the case-necks and what sort of clearance are you aiming for?

 

GT -  I used to use a K&M neck-turner which is very good but am now doing all  neck-turning on my Colchester lathe which does a awesome job - but expensive!

 

 

FCUK - We all weigh our powder-charges as accurately as we can - what scales are you using and for that matter, whose loading dies do you use?

 

GT - I have been using an RCBS 10-10 beam scale since I started reloading and it has served me really well. I made my own dies - a Wilson in-line seater and a Newlon full-length re-sizer.

 

 

FCUK - Let's get back to gunsmithing - the 284 Shehane reamer - did you simply order the PT&G standard reamer or did you spec. the freebore, neck-diameter etc?

 

GT - I did spec. the neck-diameter but as for freebore, I just let PT&G decide what was best for the 180 grain Berger bullet and it works really good.

 

 

FCUK - Clearly, the rifle has worked very well for you this year but is there any room for improvement? Are you planning on anything new for the 2010 season?

 

GT - The rifle and calibre combination has worked out even better than I expected I am definitely not changing calibres or rifles anytime soon. I think the 284 case is all you need - great accuracy and great barrel-life, you can't ask for more than that.

 

 

FCUK -  OK - what about the rest of your kit - what front rest are you using?

 

GT -  I use a Cicognani front rest which is a Bald Eagle look-alike but made in Italy. It's a good rest, not as good as the SEB maybe but it has done me well.  I intend to get a SEB for 2010.  

 

FCUK -  Like most of us, you have done your share of travelling this year to shoot in the F Class League and the Worlds but what is your favourite UK range?

 

GT -  My favourite has to be my home club - West Atholl in Scotland - the scenery

is amazing but it's a tricky range to shoot.

 

 

FCUK - Finally, is there anything you would like to see changed in F Class in general?  Can you suggest any improvements for the way we do things in the UK?

 

GT - I think the GB League is really well run and I'd like to thank all those involved in putting on the shoots. However, I wouldn't mind if we got to string-shoot at the big matches, like they do in the USA.

 

FCUK - Grant, many thanks for taking the trouble to do this interview and for sharing your information with us all. Good luck for 2010.

 

 

The 2008 US F-class National Championships

 

The US F-class Championships are held in a different location around the USA every year. In 2008, the tournament was held in Lodi, Wisconsin. The following is a personal account of how a group of Europeans went to take part.

 

The story started at the European F-class Championships at Bisley in 2007, when David Comerford of the NRAI (National Rifle Association of Ireland) suggested an F-class equivalent of the Ryder Cup golf tournament, when the Europeans combine to take on the USA. The idea immediately took root and before long we had several British and Irish shooters signed up for it.

 

The next step was to get the Americans on board! That did not take long, as I've noticed that when shooters put their minds to it, things start to happen - and quickly. In no time, we had a simple one-page set of rules for the match and we were in business.

 

Over the winter of 2007/08 arrangements were made for travel and accommodation, as it happens Wisconsin is the dairy-farming heart of America and the country's dairy farmers were having a major convention at the same time in Madison, just 15 miles from Lodi, so we were lucky to get hotel rooms - though they were pricey.

 

To visit the USA with a firearm you need a permit - approval is applied for on form 6NIA, available from the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms), so that was applied for, and granted without any difficulty - or so we thought. Our party of five shooters had obtained the 6NIAs and had arranged to have our ammo. shipped out in advance; what we did not know was that our shipper did not have a permit to import the ammo. and neither did we. So, we had a week of frantic transatlantic calls, faxes and e-mails to finally get the matter resolved at the last hour. Mercifully, the ammo. was released from customs and transported to Lodi the night before the match.

 

The nearest international airport to Lodi was Chicago, so we all made flight bookings via there. This trip was a little different from many of our previous ones in that we all made our way independently - due to us all having various onward travel plans.

 

Flying via British Airways should not have been a problem - I was attracted by their offer to carry the rifle for free. However, the check-in staff at Edinburgh seemed to think we could not be checked-through to Chicago and informed me to reclaim the rifle at Terminal 5 - Heathrow. Inevitably, this delay resulted in missing the onward flight to Chicago. BA staff at Heathrow were adamant that reclaiming and re-checking the rifle was not necessary. There ensued a tedious 5 hour delay in the journey awaiting the next flight.

 

Lodi is some 150 or so miles north of Chicago, but the journey was simple enough due to the excellent Interstate network, it was just a case of getting onto the I-90 and staying on it all the way to Lodi. The journey was broken only by the need to stop and pay at toll booths.

 

Arriving at 1am Sunday evening at Lodi, I was pleased to see the Best Western from the Interstate; it was a large and very new hotel, I was even more relieved on entering to see the ammo. was ready and waiting in reception. I crashed out - exhausted from 24hrs of constant travel.

 

Shooting in American US Nationals, involves one thing if nothing else; it means getting up early,so I didn't have long to recover from travelling before rising at 6am again to get ready. As always, even at that hour many F-classers were already up and ready to go.

 

The ranges are situated just about 5 miles from the hotel, at the Winnequah gun club in farmland to the north west of Lodi. There, in the dark of early morning, F-classers from all over the country and from abroad were gathering to renew acquaintances.

 

Day one and the schedule was for informal practice at 600yds, 1,000yds and unusually for the USA - 1,200yds. Most of the Europeans elected not to shoot at 1,200yds as it played no part in the actual Championships - it was regarded as something of a novelty.

 

Practice passed over without incident and all looked set for a good show at the formal squadded practice next day. Although it was just a practice, we had decided to use the scores earned in practice to determine who would be on the European Team.

 

The formalities were attended to such as getting score cards, finding out about the squadding and having our rifles weighed. During the weigh-in David's rifle was found to be overweight which for an F/TR rifle means it weighed more that 8.25kg, so some frantic weight-loss was called for and eventually he found a substitute lighter scope to bring him under the limit. Chris Cuthbert too, had problems while in the queue for weigh-in, his bolt clattered to the concrete floor and didn't function properly after that for much of the tournament. Perhaps these were portents of more bad luck to follow.

 

Squadded practice next day revealed some of Lodi's tricks, just when I had hoped for a good showing, the 6.5/284 sent bullets high and low into the target, with a few wide ones for good measure. That ended my hopes of being on Team Europe.

 

David took stock of the scores and announced his Team, for some it meant shooting on the team and for others it meant register keeping and target pulling. For my sins; coaching.

 

One of the Irish contingent, Ray O'Brien, very kindly kitted out the whole European squad with team kit; sweatshirts, polo shirts, jackets and hats. We were certainly the best kitted-out team at Lodi.

 

The Winnequah gun club had kindly put on transport for those 'target pullers' going to the 'pits'; it was a big old yellow school bus and it was good fun piling in and out at every changeover. The organisers deserve a special mention, it appeared to be largely a family-run match, the Liebetrau family seemed to provide the lion's share of range personnel, and a very good job they made of it. The match ran like clockwork, so top marks to all at Winnequah gun club and the Leibetrau family in particular.

 

Wednesday was the International challenge match; Europe verses the USA.

Coaching my group of 4 was illuminating; Lodi could play some odd tricks, we seemed to have vertical wind! The prevailing wind seemed to come round a little hill behind the targets and converge right in the middle of the range, causing the bullets to go yo-yoing up and down, while the flags on each side showed diametrically opposing wind! Weird Wisconsin lived up to its reputation.

 

To cut a long and painful story short, we did not fair well. More technical problems emerged when John Campbell had a series of light strikes and intermittent pierced primers this caused erratic fall of shot and made a big dent in the team scores. It was most unusual of John to have such problems, usually he is a very tough, reliable and fierce competitor. It seemed like our bad luck had returned, it had just been waiting until we were 3,000 miles from home before striking.

 

The USA cruised home to a comfortable win in the inaugural Europe v USA Challenge. That done, we returned to the hotel to lick our wounds and prepare for next day and the start of the 2008 US F-class Championships.

 

Rising in the middle of the night - or so it felt at 5.30am when it was pitch black, it seemed an odd thing to do simply to go shooting. Even stranger was what some folk have for breakfast - some of our American friends tucked into sticky buns and jam doughnuts - for breakfast! After scraping the frost from the car and driving to the range in darkness, it was obvious that winter was on its way to Wisconsin.

 

Karin Leibetrau had a roll-call on the 'firing line' as they call it, to ensure that everyone was present and correct. Four shooters were squadded to each target, two in the pits and two shooting  - but not shooting in pairs, our US friends shoot in strings. That is to say, each shooter is given a block of time and can shoot his string within that time as quickly or slowly as he likes. It is a different way of doing things and certainly allows the shooter to get his shots off pretty quickly.

 

I was pleased to see that I was squadded with two Brits; two veteran F-classers; Roger Wood and Chris Cuthbert. Along with us we had Nik Taylor, president of the North State gun club based at Butner, North Carolina and would you believe it, born and bred in Sheffield.

 

One advantage to getting up in the middle of the night to shoot, is that early in the morning it is often dead calm and so it was on the first morning of the FCNCs at 600yds. I was pleased to hammer in a 75.10 on the half MOA target and get off to a good start. Not quite good enough though, as I heard my neighbour, the former US Captain Larry Bartholome got a 75.13 - wow!

 

Well, to cut a long story short, that 75.10 was the highlight of my match and it was downhill from there on. At 600yds the rifle and I were holding the 1moa 10 ring, but on going back to 1,000yds it was clear that something was very badly wrong - the combination of me, the rifle and the ammo. could barely hold 2moa! I resigned myself to the fact that the barrel had apparently burnt out after just 600 rounds.

 

Other Brits had just as much rotten luck; Mik Maksimovic's barrel gave up after only 200-odd rounds. Seemingly, some inclusions in the steel had been exposed in the bore, these created cavities that tore the bullet jackets and caused the bullets to fly erratically and even blow up. John Campbell continued to soldier on with his light strikes followed by pierced primers - eventually, after many lost points a broken firing pin was diagnosed.

 

Peter Hunt had gone out to Wisconsin early to get in some practice, only to find to his horror that his trigger malfunctioned, he thankfully had a spare rifle but insufficient ammo. for the entire course of fire. To their credit, our American friends helped by ordering up a new trigger that enabled Peter to complete the match.

 

Of all the European competitors, David Comerford did best on the F/TR side and Joe Melia came top in the F/O side. So, it was a very significant result for Ireland with leaders in both classes in Team Europe.

 

The Americans led the way home in all the classes, winning all the major prizes. The current F/O record holder, Charles Ballard added to his achievements by taking the title of National Champion.  Danny Biggs, a veteran shooter, won the F/TR title.

Our hosts, the Winnequah gun club, put on a good show for the prize-giving by feeding and watering everyone in their impressively large club room. It was an excellent way to end the tournament.

 

On our last day in Lodi, we visited the barrel maker Bartleins. What a very impressive facility - so clean, so modern and so efficient, it was unlike any barrel-maker I had seen before and naturally, I didn't leave before placing an order with Tracy Bartlein the multi-talented owner. On our way back, we briefly visited the giant outdoor sports dealers, Cabelas, what a place - as big as a supermarket and filled with all manner of sporting goods; from fishing boats to antique firearms. We could easily have spent all day there - and all our money!

 

So that concluded our 2008 visit to the US F-class Nationals, it was great - apart from the shooting. I've never seen a team dogged by so much bad luck! As always, there are lessons to be learned from this cautionary tale - bring spare triggers, spare firing pins, spare barrels, in fact just bring a spare of everything!

 

The US Nationals will continue moving to a different location each year, and in 2009, it will be going to Camp Butner, North Carolina. We look forward to visiting the North State club there and renewing acquaintances with F-classers from across the States. Feel free to join us.

 

Des Parr

GB Captain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know that a few Association members have ordered rifles from Pete Walker so I thought that a visit to Pete's workshop might be appropriate.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        m  Remember Pete builds 'em and shoots 'em - remember that very wet Diggle shoot? Here's Pete getting wet with the rest of us!

As a benchrest shooter, I’m well familiar with Walker Custom Rifles, as proprietor Pete Walker is responsible for quite a number of rifles currently contesting the 100 yard and 1000 yard UK Championships.

Peter has also built a good few F Class rifles and since another Peter – our own Peter Wilson - won the F Class League Championship with a Walker-built rifle, he is rapidly developing a reputation in this direction and I thought that the readers of this website might be interested in a visit to the Walker Custom Rifles workshop.

 

 

 

Walker Custom Rifles is situated in the heartland of Britain’s precision engineering heritage and many of the famous precision tool makers are in the West Yorkshire area – Colchester, Harrison, Boxford and Dean, Smith & Grace to name a few.

 

Pete’s introduction to engineering came at an early age and Pete cut his first thread at an age when most of us were struggling to cut a slice of bread! Having said that, Pete’s decision to turn a hobby into a full-time business was a relatively recent one and Walker Custom Rifles was established about five years ago.

 

                                                                                                                                                  It's not just competition rifles - here's a nice little foxing rig - but it's still on a BAT!

 

The workshop is built of natural stone and blends in well with the architecture of the surrounding area and is close to Pete’s home that he shares with his wife, Tracy. Situated high in the Pennines, it affords spectacular views but Pete has little time to spend admiring the scenery.

 

The first thing which strikes most customers who visit Pete is the overall tidiness of the place; it’s immaculate. The walls, ceiling and even the floor are freshly painted and all the machine-tools gleam.

 

But let’s get down to the business of building accurate rifles………………

 

                                                                                                                      The enormous DSG lathe dominates the workshop.

 

The workshop is dominated by an enormous Dean, Smith & Grace lathe on which Pete does all his barrelling work. The DSG, in case you are not familiar, is regarded as the Rolls Royce of lathes and is an impressive piece of equipment weighing about three and a half tons.

 

Pete chambers all his barrels through the headstock, a method which takes full advantage of the lathe’s inherent accuracy and Pete has further upgraded his lathe to make this process even more precise. Pete also uses a muzzle-flush system when chambering, which again ensures the finest possible results. Whilst we’re specifically mentioning chambering, Pete has a great selection of reamers covering most of the popular ‘accuracy’ chamberings and new reamers are added constantly.

 

                                                                                                             

 

'Clocking' a barrel prior to chambering. The barrel must run true to 0.0001 inches (one tenth of a thou.) on the bore! 

 

I spent the best part of a day watching Pete thread and chamber a barrel and his attention to detail and standard of work is second to none. In short, whether the barrel is for a brand-new bench-gun or a re-barrelling a Remmy foxing-rifle, it will receive the same attention and be as perfect as Pete can possibly make it. 

 

Peter has developed a relationship with Bruce Thom of Bat Machine, maker of the superb BAT actions and because of their sheer quality, Pete loves to work with BATs. Having said that, he will obtain any action to the customer’s choice and the same with barrels. Currently, Pete is using Krieger and Lilja and a batch of the new Bartlein barrels is in the pipe-line.

 

                                                                                                                      The BAT action - is there anything better as the basis of an accurate rifle?

 

The building of accurate rifles is not simply a matter of assembling the components – they must be assembled precisely, accurately, otherwise the rifle will never deliver its best. Few rifle-stocks are absolutely true. In fact, some are disgracefully warped and give the gunsmith a real challenge and at the time of my visit Pete showed me just such a stock which was limiting the potential of a customer’s benchrest rifle – not incidentally built by him, I hasten to add.

 

Finally, if you are thinking of a new rifle, think well ahead. Have a look at the Walker Custom Rifles website at www.walkerrifles.co.uk and give Pete a ring. There’s nothing like specifying your own custom rifle but, even if you live in the States you will not get components off the shelf – you have to wait and if you are in a hurry that means compromise and if you want the very best you shouldn’t have to compromise. Get that order in - in plenty of time!

 

 

 

 

 

Les Holgate's experiences importing a custom rifle from America

 

                                                                                                                                     It finally arrived - complete with muzzle-brake and a fancy carry-case!

 

Are you considering a new custom rifle? Ever thought about importing one? It might not be as difficult as you think.

 

In October 2005 I decided to invest in a new F class rifle. The question was what calibre to choose and who would build it.

 

After reading Jerry Tierney’s experiences on www.6mmBR.com (Gun of the Week 53) I settled on the .284 Winchester chambering.  Why the .284Win.? Well I wanted a rifle to shoot the new 7mm 175 grain Sierras but not in the WSM case. I didn’t want to have to buy a new barrel every year and the ‘straight’ 284Win. is reckoned to be better in this regard than the 6.5-284Win.

 

So that was chambering decided but who would be the gunsmith? I already had an excellent rifle in 6.5 x 55 Imp. built on an RPA Quadlock action by Norman Clarke of Rugby. Also, I mainly shoot at Diggle so I know Peter Walker of Walker Custom Rifles in West Yorkshire to be an excellent gunsmith but I had an urge to do something different.

 

Obviously rifles can be imported into the UK but how easy was it to do this as an individual rather than a dealer? I didn’t know of anyone who had done it but even so, I thought I would give it a try. With that decision made, all I had to decide was which foreign gunsmith would I use.

 

I went back to 6mmBR.com website and the Benchrest Central website looking at their recommended gunsmiths list and finally settled on an American gunsmith by the name of Mike Bryant. Mike had an excellent reputation in the benchrest world and was a regular contributor to Precision Shooting magazine in the US.

 

I contacted Mike by e-mail and yes, he would be delighted to build my rifle but he had someone else who organises the exportation of his rifles. This was done by Dan Lilja, the barrel manufacturer and I would have to contact Dan direct so that he could arrange the necessary export licence. Also, Lilja would only export rifles with their barrels on. Clever, but I had no real preference for a barrel-maker so this would not be a problem.

 

Dan advised me that I would need a letter from the relevant UK authority permitting the rifle to be imported. This is where I assumed it would all go ‘pear shaped’. But no, when I contacted the Department of Trade & Industry, I was told that providing it was for personal use and not as part of a business, importation would be simple. A few days later the relevant letter arrived.

 

Once a copy was faxed to Dan Lilja, with the original to follow in the post, the process could be started. They sent me an export form, which was very simple to fill in and with this returned to Lija, all I had to do now was wait. The cost for all this would be $275 for the permit plus the shipping costs - not payable until the rifle was shipped. By November, Lilja informed me my export permit had come through, so that was the paperwork done.

 

But back to the rifle, Mike had a pricing system that I had not come across in the UK. The basic package would be his ‘long-range benchrest package’ plus the cost of which ever action I chose – in my case the BAT ‘M’ action. These prices would include all work and a chamber gauge. He could also provide extras such as dies, rings and bore-guide. The price seemed to be very competitive but of course this will vary in accordance with the specification and the current exchange rate.

 

                                                                                                              The beautiful BAT 'M' action - well worth the wait.

 

I had settled on a fibreglass Tooley MBR stock (which I use on my current rifle), a Lilja barrel (of course!) a Jewell trigger and a tapered scope-base for the BAT. The calibre would be 284 Win. with a tight neck. Mike had advised me that none of the above would be a problem but there could be a delay waiting for a BAT action. Mike asked for a 50% deposit up-front and as soon as this was received  he would start ordering the bits. Mike’s extensive reamer collection didn’t include one which would be suitable for use with the new 7mm 175 Sierra Matchking so he agreed to buy a box and check the freebore so he could order the relevant dimensioned reamer. Now all I had to do was wait.

 

                                                                                                                                    There is a vast difference between the 180 gn. Berger (left) and the 175 gn. Sierra Matchking. You must decide on which bullet to use as the chamber cannot be cut for both without compromising performance

 

By March 2006 I was anxious to know how my rifle was coming along. It was at this stage that Mike informed me that there was a 6 months delay on the BAT action. Ouch, I new there was going to be some waiting involved and there was nothing I could do. It finally arrived at Mike’s workshop in June. As he put it “ BAT may take a while but they are worth the wait”.

 

Now all the items had arrived, it was just a matter of waiting for the work to commence and sure enough Mike told me that he would be starting my rifle in late July. By September the rifle was complete and as soon as the final balance was paid it would be ready for shipping. It was actually ready earlier but the bolt had to be returned to BAT for diamond-fluting as this had been omitted when originally manufactured.

 

 

 

The rifle ready for shipping.

 

 

Now for what I thought would be the hard part - getting it into the country. Again I contacted the DTI to see what would happen next and if I needed to get a firm to handle the importation. Not necessary - it would be simple. Once the rifle arrived in the UK and I provided Customs with proof of my firearms licence it would be shipped on to me. That’s right, direct to my home address, not to a firearms dealer for me to collect. Another anomaly in our strange firearms laws. Surely it wouldn’t be that simple.

 

Mike shipped the rifle to Lilja and by using the UPS on-line tracking, I could see it arrived at Lilja seven days later. It was only at this stage that Dan charged me for the export permit and the shipping, which was a further $185. That was the first leg of the journey, now for the long leg. Still plenty of time for something to go wrong.

 

Almost a week later, I was contacted by the agent for UPS at Coventry asking me to fill in an import form. Again just a few simple questions - such as what the item was and who was the sender. Plus one other question - the potentially painful question - value and some form of proof of the value. This would be the basis for the duty and tax. Fortunately when Lilja invoiced me for shipping the value of the rifle was on the invoice, so this was also sent.

 

I was contacted the following day to tell me everything was in order and they would send it to Parcel Force for delivery the following day. No one had asked me about my licence but I thought I would see what happened. A few hours later they phoned to tell me that Customs wouldn’t release it without proof of a firearms licence - surprise surprise!  I asked if a faxed copy would be good enough as I didn’t want to lose my FAC it in the post. When they checked, it was fine and the rifle was finally released.

 

                                                                                                                 Fancy butt-plates and adjustable cheek-pieces just aren't needed for F Class - don't waste your money. 

 

The following day Parcel Force rang to advise me that as soon as I paid the invoice for the duty and tax the rifle would be delivered. I was unsure of how much to expect but in the end it worked out at £45 duty and £260 VAT, plus a small handling charge.

 

Twenty-four hours later, my yearlong wait came to an end. When I unpacked the parcel I was surprised to find a very good quality hard rifle-case with 5 locks that I hadn’t been charged extra for. Obviously the rifle would have to be packed in some kind of box but I didn’t expect anything quite that good. When I opened the box I got another shock, the rifle was threaded and had a muzzle break, again something that wasn’t asked for but had been included in the charge. So that was it, almost a year later and my rifle had arrived.

 

Along the way I had wondered about the sense in sending my hard earned cash halfway around the world to a person I had never met but all I can say is the service and cost was very satisfactory and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommending Mike Bryant. As for the rifle, I now have to start the process of developing a load. One thing is for sure though, if it doesn’t shoot it will be down to me, not the rifle.

 

Les Holgate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW ROBERTSON GB F CLASS STOCK

One of the new Robertson GB F Class stocks passed through my hands briefly the other day, so I took a few pics in case anyone is interested. It incorporates a few features that some of us have mulled over this past year.

The front section of the fore-end is thinner to keep the 'barrel to front-bag' height as low as possible to minimise torque action. This bit also has two rails on the underside, rather than being completely flat as with a McMillan. The rails, in theory, should help stability and reduce friction on the front-bag. I've done this on my own stock and it seems to work. The underside of the butt is parallel with the underside of the fore-end - which is good for a 'straight' recoil and the bottom of the butt is finished to a sharp but rounded 'V' - should work well with back-bags with just a single row of stitching between the ears.

The adjustable cheek-piece is superflous in my opinion but this one is neat and works very smoothly on the thumb-screw. One day, someone will put the adjustable bit on the underside - now that would be useful!

The stock is finished to a high standard with a very attractive high-gloss finish but the aluminium multi-adjustable butt-plate is simply screwed on and not in any way 'blended' into the firbreglass butt. This is not of course detrimental to the operation of the stock in any way but those of you who like a 'professional' standard might not be impressed. It's the aluminium which is oversize, so you could blend it in without hurting the stock finish.

The stock was ready-inletted for the Stolle Panda F Class action but no bolt or port cut-out. Action-screw holes were part-drilled and the trigger-well was also part-machined but not completely through to the underside. Also, there was no inlet for the trigger-guard. Any gunsmith would easily address these points but it could be challenging for the DIY shooter, who doesn't have access to a milling machine.

I didn't get chance to weigh the stock but it feels very dense and I would guess that it weighs about the same as the McMillan F Class stock. 

VinceB

                                                                                                                                               This shot is of the front underside showing the two rails

                                                                                                                                             Ever seen an adjustable butt or cheek-piece on a benchrest rifle? Can we have it without these expensive bits please?

                                                                                                                                      Inletting is neat but holes etc. are not drilled through