It's a Remington I just finished that's chambered in the 6.5X444 Improved...


















DAVID

As usual, very nice work!

Mate...that is sweeeeet. As usual, your standard of work is phenomenal, absolutely magnificent. The stock, the heavy bbl, the jeweled bolt...the entire package looks brilliant mate. I particularly like the calibre...should be a nice, fast, flat shooting round. I would love to have one...PDs, watch out.

I think I might just have to go and sulk on the lounge and watch something depressing like Days of Our Lives.

the guys at NZ hunter have been doing similar cartridges lately but nothing as nice as your work. awesome as allways.

Glad you guys like the rifle - Thank You!

Dang Vince, I didn't mean to depress you

Maybe my rifle will cheer you up, if I can ever get a chance to put it together. I'll post pictures of it at a later date - once I do finally get it finished....

DAVID

Gidday Dave...depressed...nah...just wish I could produce a product even half as good as you mate.

I'll be looking forward to seeing you rifle mate...I reckon it will be a corker.

Tell us a bit about that cartridge if you would please. I am a 6.5 cal fan from way back shooting a 6.5X55 as well as an original .264 Win Mag Winchester Model 70 Westerner. There have been many wilcats over the years in 6.5 and a couple of them actually became production firearms. The BC in this calibre with bullets of over 120 grs. are nothing short of fantastic. Speaking of long and lean bullets what is the one you show loaded ? Looks to be longer than most 140 grainers I am familiar with or just not seated very far into that short neck ??? If I had it in me to build a custom 6.5 I would be looking to take a whirl at the 6.5 Shooting Times Westerner. This is a 6.5 on steroids and with all of the newer bullets capable of handling these kind of magnum velocities I think it would be a great plains rifle.

10 Spot

10 Spot,

my apologies for not getting back here sooner, to answer your questions...

The cartridge is my 6.5X444 Improved, and is loaded with a set of 6.5-06 Ackley Improved dies, that I modify to match the chambers that I cut...

New Remington 444 Marlin brass is first ran into a 308 Winchester size die to a specific neck length and to form the shoulder. It is then ran into a 7mm-08 size die and then finally a 260 Remington size die...

The case is trimmed back .020 to remove the slight bulge at the case mouth and to prevent the case neck from splitting...

When properly sized, there should be a light crush fit, to help keep headspace held to an absolute minimum. Fireform loads should also have the bullet seated to jam against the rifling. Even though modest in power, fireform loads will normally shoot under an inch at 100 yds. and are accurate enough to hunt with, out to several hundred yards. They are also accurate enough to do an initial scope sight-in and save the good ammo for target work...

The bullet shown in the case above is Hornady's 140 gr. A-MAX and is THE bullet this was built around. That bullets shank is seated to the base of the case neck...

Depending on bullet weight, some of the better powders for this cartridge are IMR-4831 and H-1000...

Ballistics are less than 100 fps. behind that of the 6.5-06...

I have built a couple of 6.5 STW rifles for guys out west and most have shot pronghorn antelope well in excess of 1,000 yds., which was their reason for wanting the cartridge. Also, load development should be done in 2 shot groups and the barrel NOT allowed to get hot. If it does, accuracy will go south real quick like....

DAVID

that's a beauty.. You should be very proud of it. I would be..

Hey, I just saw this on shooters forum too. You comment there you don't know how to take photos and just use an old Kodak.. Well, keep it up and don't bother learning , it will mess you up because you appear to be a natural. Just keep going by your gut .. Fantastic pictures..

Dan1dad,

thank you for the compliments, I appreciate it...

I hope the guy I built this gun for, is the one that's proud of it. He's going to put a Night Force 8X-32X-56mm scope on this rig and I'm really looking forward to his accuracy report and load data information...

As far as my picture taking goes, just guessing, I probably have "1" good picture out of every 7 or 8 that I take. I do appreciate the picture compliments....

DAVID

DS...that is the beauty of a digital camera mate...you get to see the resulting pic staraight away, and if you aren't happy with it you scrap it and take another.

But I agree with Dan1dad...nothing wrong with your photography skills mate...they are a damn sight better than mine.

Thank you Vince...

I think there are three different settings on the camera that I use to take pictures with and I keep forgetting to write down what pictures are taken on what setting. If its cloudy, one setting works best, if the sun's out, a couple different settings will work and if the sun's directly overhead, I have to guess and take SEVERAL different pictures on a couple of different settings and then wait to download all of them to my computer, so I can then weed out the fuzzy and blurry looking pictures...

Like those 6 pictures posted above; I believe I took 42 pictures, just to get those 6...

As long as everybody is happy with the pictures, I'll continue to post the good ones and scrap the rest....

The reason some folks get good pics is that they take a LOT of pics and sort out the good ones. That's just the way it is.