257 questions
So, long 257 RL barrel is on its way. I’m curious to know what sort of accuracy everyone is getting? Who has the best valve for this barrel? What sort of distances is everyone getting out of them with what sort of long range accuracy?
All Replies
What does this mean?
Sorry smart phone a 4:30 in the morning.
To shoot slugs the leed in has to be hand fit. Everybody’s sizers are going to be a different size. You can have 2 lee sizers the same size and they will produce a different size bullet.
So if the leed is cut and your bullet is smaller it won’t be tight enough and if its cut to small you won’t be able to push it in.
If you look in my leed there is no rifling. I take a 25650″ reamer to take out most of them and then hand lap it until the slug I want to shoot pushes in which a nice snug fit.
Unless your going to shoot pellets out of the R&L barrels they are going to have to be hand fit if you want it to work right.
As for the valves go, you can use my .25 valve but you will never get the real .257 numbers that people post. But it will be 70-100 fps more than any other valve.
I believe I was informed that his valve will only work with one of his barrels due to the size of the barrel at the breech…?
What does this mean?
The .257 barrels that I have done are usually slug around .25670″-.25680″. Nothing wrong with them. I size my slugs to .25700″.
Your barrel sounds like it was machined backwards like you said. Some barrels are marked muzzle end and some are not.
To fit and shoot slugs you have to remove all the rifling and then I hand fit the leed in. You have to have the slugs sized in your sizer then you polishing the barrel until it pushes in perfect.
I am glad you chimed in, and not a moment too late, alittle longer and I would have a barrel as such and be really upset. I hope the issues get resolved and really can’t understand how the 257 barrel got so small in the 1st place.
Got my .257 barrel a few days ago from R&L and shot a few JSB kings with it as recommended by Randy. I thought it unusual that a .257 would do well with a .25 round but it does. When I originally slugged the barrel I found that there was a very short choke in it at the very end (maybe 1/8 inch long). I called Randy and he recommended that I lap the barrel to smooth out things where the slug stopped at the end of the barrel. That seemed to take out about about half of what was about .003 of choke. It turns out that on the latest batch of barrels he had TJ put some “extra pressure” on the hammer forge on the very end of the barrel. Barrels he gets are marked for breech and muzzle ends .. so he machines them down for the condors on the breech end and puts a nice crown on the muzzle end. When I first ordered the barrel I was told there was “no choke” so I went ahead and got it since my main reason for it was to shoot bullets I cast myself from a Lyman .257420 mould.
The bullets out of that mould are about .259 diameter. The barrel breech slugs out to be .2565 groove and .252 between rifling lands. So.. obviously I needed to run the bullets through a sizer. Commercial RCBS or Lyman sizers are available for .257 and bigger which is a problem if you dont want to make your own smaller one. I made my own dies for .257 , .2565 and .2555 and ran a few rounds through them. I couldn’t load any of them into the barrel without a hammer. I thought the .2555 would go in but not.. and I am a big guy with strong thumbs! The alloy used was only 2% tin so they are soft enough. I am a new guy to shooting bullets so was confused about how anybody got these to load into the breech. Another shooter asked if the barrel had a chamber lead in milled into the breech end of the barrel where the rifling was mostly removed. I think this is the problem.. rifling extends to the end of the breech end of the barrel.
So, from what I can gather so far.. I need to get some assist from Randy to solve a few issues before I can shoot bullets with it.
1. Remove the choke. This may require a different barrel because cutting off the end will make the barrel too short to use with a new shroud he is making for it.
2. Mill out the lead in on the breach end so bullets are possible to load by a mere mortal.
3. Find out why they are made with groove dimension of less than .257 so commercially available (non custom) sizers will work for it.
OR… maybe the barrel is simply not good for shooting cast bullets. I already have a good LW barrel for shooting .25 cal JSB Kings so it isnt needed for that.
Randy is very helpful in working through these things so I figure it is just a case of this barrel not ready for bullet shooting yet. I’ll work with him on it and post back about how it gets resolved.
Am I on the right track or have I missed something?
Eric
You really need the valve from Dyotat100, maxim power!!
Tofaz, shot a rabbit with his right off the bat, somethin like 180yrds.
Or look in the other guns section at the sticky at the top of the page. Lots of good info there.
Well, RoachCreek just busted a coke can at 615 yards!!! 😯
One of Tonys valves will work for short to medium range. Past that, Dyotat100 is the ticket!!! 😉 😀
Check out my post on this very subject in Genera Chat.
Knife
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Grrr….So now I need to send this barrel out, when I get it, so someone else can make it right? Alright, who’s up for this task?