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Arrested development?

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Bill Leeper:
When I attend a BR match today, it is often surprising to me how little the sport and especially the rifle, has changed in the past thirty-odd years. This is not to say that the scores have not improved; especially at the top levels. The technology has changed very little however. The basic rifle has been refined to a certain extent but is still remarkably similar to the winning rifles of over thirty years ago.
What has changed is the availabilty of real quality rifle components. In 1977 you could get glass stocks from Chet Brown,  Lee Six, or Gale MacMillan. Today there are a half dozen others at least.
In 1977, barrels came from Hart or Shilen. The occasional maverick would shoot something else (Atkinson, Sherer, Pat MacMillan). Today, one can still win with a Hart or a Shilen but he can also use Krieger, Pac-Nor, Lilga, Rock, Bartlien, Gaillard, Lothar-Walther  and a bunch of others.
The plethora of actions, and quality actions at that, is another change. Not too often will you see anyone competing with a common 40X action today.
These changes though, are not changes in technology; they are just changes in the landscape. Many of the actions are just Remington clones made with a greater attention to precision alignment and dimensional uniformity. The barrels are made in essentially the same way as they always have been.
The changes in stocks have amounted to slight changes in conformation and the utilization of materials which were unavailable or, at least, uncommon. in the 1970's. Still, there has at least been a certain amount of experimentation in the field of stocks. The rest of the rifle, not so much.
Essentially, the actual design parameters of the rifle have changed little if any since the late seventies. A short, stiff barrel is chambered (for a 6mmPPC, of course) and threaded as precisely as possible and is mated to a single shot bolt action which is rigid, concentric, and true. The resultant unit is glued into a synthetic stock. The 2 ounce trigger, which works just like the two ounce triggers of 40 years ago, is installed and the high powered scope is affixed to the receiver. This was the formula in 1977 and it is the formula today. That techniques have been refined and are more universally employed is meaningless. The design parameters are the same.
The upshot of all this is that benchresters have become shockingly conservative. Look past the brightly painted exteriors and you will a rifle which is technologically moribund. The response, of course, is that there is little reason to experiment, things work pretty darn good as they are and this is the truth. Have we reached the pinnacle of rifle developement? I don't know but it almost seems like we have hit, if not a pinnacle, at least a plateau.
Please understand, I'm not saying this is good or bad; I'm just saying it is so. Regards,   Bill.

cyanchycki:
Good read Bill.  

Now I am by no means a Machinist or Gunsmith.  I was going to say is not the equipment that is available for the gunsmith today better than when you were first building benchguns yesteryear?  Then I get realizing yes they are but as in your read, How much effect would that have in assembling a rifle that is known to us as a rifle built for the pinnacle of acccuracy?  Am I right to say not a lot.  If anything I can see the tooling may be better and constructed of better metal designed for withstanding wear.  

Is the same attention to detail used back then as it is today?  I would hope so if not more.

Has the basic stock changed?  No.  I would hope though that the glues, epoxies and glass used are better than they were used yesteryear.  There has been some experimentation but very limited.  The biggest I would see is the Gene Beggs stock which I still for the life of me understand how it can work??????????

If anything the availability of GREAT components is running rampant unless you live outside of the US.  We do have Robertson Composites and our own Boutique bullet maker in Alberta which helps us immensely.  With the introduction of the new IMR 8208 XBR we HOPEFULLY will have a powder available to us at a better price and work just as well if not better than VV133. 

I guess if anything, yes the basic concepts are the same but who is out there with the ability to experiment?  I am not one as I do not have the machining background or the ability to do so.  I have not seen a fraction of what you or Sorensen have seen over the years.  I hate to say it but you fellas have done your time and it is time to enjoy your lifes.  What is needed is the next generation to step up which we all know is tough to do and take up the slack.  Our best and most knowledgeable gunsmiths are at there retirement stages in there lives.  If the next generation is not willing to come in with an open mind and LEARN the right way if anything I can see it spiraling slightly backwards.  Anyone can call themselves a gunsmith but can they stand behind what they have done?

We are fortunate to have a few guys in the west who actively shoot benchrest and are good gunsmiths.  I will not mention names as I know some prefer to build guns at there own pleasure and not be swamped with work.

I am not sure if what I said makes any sense or not, nah probably not, but I had to ramble something this morning before making a trip to the range.

Calvin


 

rpollock:
Bill,

One of the overriding issues is the rule book. Anything that meets a definition of truly innovative probably falls outside our rulebook. Plus we are confined by the notion that there are only so many ways to hold a cartridge in a chamber and so many ways to drill and rifle a bar of steel. BR is no longer the refuge of the experimenter, it is dominated by people who don't really feel the urge to experiment all that much. They are too busy wearing barrels out at the top levels. The experimenters still exist, but you don't hear that much about them. I think dimishing returns are at work here. I agree the macro evolution appears stagnant, but the there is still experimentation at the micro evolution level.

As someone who was on a hiatus for about 5 yrs, I see a lot of changes. The equipment has changed or refined. Pretty much the trend is to ejector guns and shooting quick. Actions have been optimized for high pressure cartridges and speed. Barrels are better than ever. Continued refinement in the PPC never seems to stop. We have gone from .262 necks to no-turn necks, and now light turn necks. Almost nobody had coax rests 5rs ago, now it seems like everyone has them. The scope problem continues to be attacked, hopefully without spending $2500. The powder situation has people blending powders, sifting powders, now it looks like we will all be weighing charges at the range or pre-weighing and bringing the charges in vials. Winds flags are becoming quite sophisticated. I am not sure sure a BR rifle from 30 yrs ago, although appearing quite similar to today's rifle, would be all that competitive.

As you point out, the proof is in the pudding. The aggs are something to behold these days, even as compared to 5 yrs ago. In particular at the National level. It is daunting to say the least. Top 20 positions are teen aggs? Wow! Numerous records fell this year in the US, and Gary O'Cock was within 2 bullets of shooting a zero agg this year. Shooting a zero in competion was used to be very special (it still is to me) but to the top ranks it is somewhat routine.

The question as I see it, is where does the evolution go from here? Further refinments on the existing equipment, or will the rule books allow for true innovation? I am pretty sure we are locked in to the situation as it currently exists. This is probably fine with most competitors, since nobody wants to start over with all new equipments that takes most people a few years to acquire. Plus as I have mentioned before, the playing field as it exists today is incredibly level. This leveling of the playing field has improved over the years as the selection and availability of quality components has exploded over the last 10 years. Other than the border issues, there is more to choose from than ever before.

Good topic!

Rick

Bill Leeper:
I do believe there has been much more experimentation and change in accessories (rests, bags, etc.) than in the rifles themselves. The rests, especially.
It is my contention that the rifles have not changed but have simply settled into a configuration which was shown to be effective more than a quarter century ago. In the mid-eighties, Lester Bruno fired a .17something agg at the super shoot. His rifle was an XP100 action, unsleeved, glued into a glass stock. Hard to believe that rifle would not be competitive today!
The top shooters are vastly improved. They are capable of seeing wind changes that I, most likely, never could. They have the patience and ability to develope loads which bring out the best in their rifles. I can't help but think bullet quality has improved somewhat though, I must confess, I'm not sure how. Bullet balance is still dependent upon jacket quality and while jacket concentricity may have improved substantially, it happened when I wasn't looking! (feel free to speak up here, Dan).
The rule book specifies stock configuration to a certain extent but it still leaves a lot of room for individuality if the shooter so desires. Barrel dimensions are limited but don't seem to make a huge difference anyway. For the right shooter, tuners are an interesting and effective innovation (again, not a really recent innovation since I recall reading an article describing a barrel tuner when I was in high school).
The rapid fire technique employed by so many shooters today, is a technique which has taken a quarter century to become as popular as it has. In 1978, a fellow from Portland, Oregon, fired a number of groups in under 30 seconds each. His rifle was the first dual port rifle I had seen. In 1980, Allen Bench showed up with an ejector rifle which also feature a gravity feed, open, magazine which fed into the left port. You can understand why I think rifle developement is minimal. By the way, the original dimensions for the PPC featured a 264 neck (light turn) which was later reduced to .262 because too many of the cases available at the time wouldn't cleanup if turned to .010 thickness.
Cyanchycki,
Actually, I doubt the equipment has improved to any noticable extent. A lathe is a lathe. It's ability to spin true is dependent upon bearing quality. You would have to ask Timken if they think they make better precision class bearing than they did 50 years ago. I suspect the precision bearings are no better but are more easily produced. Work and tool holding methods are the same as they have been for fifty years. The reamers used today are just like the one's I bought in 1978. I have and use reamers made from '78 on and, since they all come from the same area in Oregon where, I suspect, all the reamer makers are related by marriage, if not blood, these reamers are essentially the same product. Again, the reamer makers are able to more easily produce a precision product and more easily measure it. All gunsmiths, myself included, have varied our techniques in an attempt to more easily get the best out of the tooling thus making results more repeatable. The goal, however, remains the same; precise alignment and concentricity of the finished product. Regards,   Bill

rpollock:

--- Quote from: Bill Leeper on December 26, 2009, 01:53:24 PM ---In the mid-eighties, Lester Bruno fired a .17 something agg at the super shoot. His rifle was an XP100 action, unsleeved, glued into a glass stock. Hard to believe that rifle would not be competitive today!   Bill


--- End quote ---

I don't disagree with your major points Bill, but we should note that Lester isn't shooting that XP anymore (at least as far as I know). The XP action really isn't doing the shooter any favours today. At least not without spending so much time and money on it, that it essentially becomes a custom action in terms of cost and performance. For all we know in this discussion, that XP may have been an XP in name only. Maybe someone on here knows more about that rifle?

Rick

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