I reckon a piece of target and some masking tape won't cut it anymore?   Bill

I use a powered turner which takes all the strain out of it. At roughly nine hundred pounds, it's not really portable but it is precise. Regards,   Bill.

I've shot a bit over the years and have fitted and fired quite a few barrels. The first Ron Smith barrel I used was for a Hunter class rifle which I barreled in 1978. This was a chromoly barrel and I contoured and fitted it to a Remington 700 action. The rifle shot well and I believe it did hold the Canadian 100 yd hunter record briefly. The barrel was straight, consistent, and quite smooth for an unlapped, cut rifled barrel.
I have used only one 6mm Smith barrel on a light varmint rifle and it was competitive although there is some question as to whether or not I am. I have used the barrels on F class rifles with good results but I do lap them.
Interestingly enough, the straightest, and most consistent barrel I have ever had in my lathe was a Smith. I scoped this one and there was not a single visible tool mark in the barrel. In fact, I called Ron and asked if he had decided to start lapping his barrels. He denied this. I told him to make all the rest of my barrels just like that one.
John Howard used Ron's barrels on his fullbore rifles and enjoyed great success with them.
FWIW, My best barrels have been Harts. I have also had good results from Shilen, McClennan, McMillan and Sherer. The most disappointing barrels I have used were Lilgas. I presently have BR rifles with barrels from Hart, Shilen, and Gaillard and a hunter from Ron. I have F class barrels from Douglas, Smith, Hart, Benchmark, McGowan and Shilen.
Benchrest shooters have never been too adventurous when it came to making a barrel choice and I don't blame them. Barrels are not cheap and it costs time and money to get them installed and to see what they can do. Short range BR is an exacting sport and there isn't a lot of room for experimentation if one wants to be near the front of the pack.  Regards,   Bill

When I built my first PPC, the one thing I really liked about it and subsequent ppc's was it's ability to shoot well with a wide variety of powders. In fact, it was almost too tolerant and it was hard to make a choice. I used and won matches with 322, 4895 (both IMR and Hogdons), 3031, 748, and Re7. Today, I would try Benchmark and 2015 as well. Don't get sucked into a rut. The same thing goes for primers. It sometimes pays not to play follow the leader.    Regards,   Bill

Dennis,
It really is pretty simple for US citizens to bring their rifles up here. A lot more so than for a Canadian resident to take one down there. I have even heard of some who got a PAL and registered their rifle up here to make things even easier. I will do work for Americans only if they hand deliver the rifle or parts and pick it up in person as well. Life's too short to deal with that crap.   Regards,    Bill

Tony,
Since everthing the shooter sees and experiences is influenced by the thoughts of his competitors - keeping in mind that these fellow competitors will sometimes sink to surprising levels of subterfuge - the synaptic miscue could easily be no fault of the shooter. Instead, he might well be making a wrong choice based on skewed information. Indeed, this may the the only explanation for some of the groups I have fired. Never mind that even mechanical issues, if I read correctly, could have their roots in the negative vibes coming from the man on the next bench. The next time your rifle coughs up a flier for you, have a quick look around and see if you can catch another shooter with a smug look on his face. Odds are, this same shooter was the one glaring at your scope just prior to your shot.
I tell you, this little discussion has made me look at things in a whole new light. It might be that a tinfoil deflector will prove to be useful against those who would try to sabotage a shooters efforts via mental interference. At the same time, there may be a market for an amplifying device to aid in positive resonation. Regards,   Bill.

Jeff,
The flat bottomed buttstock was new in about 1992 (on benchrest rifles, that is. Or maybe not,  they were fairly common on rest rifles of the 1880's) It ain't new now. In addition, it's hardly a technological change. Benchrest rifle have had flat forends for as long as I've shot them. Most stock design changes have been stylistically mandated rather than an attempt to improve performance. The higher sides are in response to the rest top designs which had a tendency to grab the forend enough that the combo could have been considered illegal if anyone cared enough to complain. Nonetheless, I agree that stocks look different than the stocks of thirty years ago and I'm sure manufacturing technology has improved. The use of carbon fibre can be considered technological change; at least from the manufacturing standpoint if not from the standpoint of performance.
Action tolerances are better overall but, as I said, a Stolle action from 1980 looks and acts remarkably like a Stolle action from 2008. More custom action makers do produce actions which no longer need the attention of the gunsmith but this trend started with the Stolle and Hall actions of thirty years ago. It is indeed a nice trend. Ejectors and roller cams are fluff. Older actions didn't have ejectors because the shooters didn't want them. Now, enough shooters are convinced they are beneficial to their style of shooting that they are once again being offered (just like on 40x factory actions of 45 years ago).
Frozen scopes are in response to scope manufacturer's perceived inability to make a scope which will maintain zero. Non adjustable scopes are essentially a return to 1950's methodology though optics are, frankly, superior (optics, not mechanics). I think the frozen scopes are an indication that scope manufacturers have done a poor job of improving their products. The necessity of gluing a scope's adjustments can hardly be considered a technological advance.
Honestly, I don't think there is a lot of room for improvement and most changes will continue to be more style driven than performance driven. Mechanically, I think there are a couple of areas which might be improved. One is barrel attachment. An angled face on the receiver would provide a more stable seat and a corresponding seat at the breech end of the threads woud make it even better. A second improvement could be in the trigger. The Remington trigger system is not really all that great and the trigger manufacturers have done a super job of taking it as far as they can. Pivoting the sear at the rear instead of the front and making the contact vertical would be good moves. Anything which reduces lateral deflection and improves striker energy consistency might pay dividends.
The perfect stock and the perfect stock attachment has yet to appear but may exist. Again the answer might simply be in improved execution of old techniques.
I hope no one thinks I am trying to denigrate the efforts of shooters and builders. I'm just commenting on the lack of change over the last thirty years. A rifle from thirty years ago could be absolutely competitive at a match today. A rifle from 1960 would never have been competitive in 1980. In fact, the best rifles from 1970 would likely have come up way short ten years later.
Rick,
I think I put that wrong. I meant to say a smaller percentage of rifles would have been capable of agging in the teens. I'm sure we agree on that. Where we disagree is that I think they were technically capable of doing so but the shooter's expectations were a bit lower and lower expectations inevitably lead to poorer results. The point I am trying to make is that, in many respects, the equipment race is optional but shooter effort is not.
Now, Let's move on to components. Specifically, bullet design. Over the last 25 years or so, the trend has been toward bullets with longer ogives ans shorter bearing surfaces. In addition, the boattail fell out of favour entirely. Recently, there has been a bit of a resurrection of the boattail and, as well, some experimentation with shorter ogive bullets. Who likes what? Does anyone see a competitive monometal bullet in the future of the sport? Regards,   Bill.

Rick, there is little doubt that XP was modified to some extent but that doesn't change the fact that it was 1980-something rifle building technology. That people today choose to use one of the precise and commonly available (commonly available to those willing to wait, in some cases!) custom or semi-custom, precision actions instead of a modified Remington doesn't change the original premise; there is a lack of technological change. I'm sure Lester no longer uses, or even owns, that rifle but he probably doesn't wear the same shoes either. My only point was that real good rifles of thirty years ago may very well have been capable of competitive accuracy even by today's standards. This especially when used by today's best shooters.
In a backhanded way, I'm trying to point out that potential new shooters needn't fear the equipment they see on the line. None of it is in the least "magic". They are only rifle assemble using common machine shop techniques just as they have been for more than a quarter century. The new shooter doesn't need to cough up 1800 dollars for an action. He does need to have an action which is straight and concentric. He does need to have a good barrel, properly installed. The barreled action does have to be properly fitted and affixed to a stock designed to work well from the bench. He does need decent optics solidly attached to the rifle. All of these things can be accomplished just the same way they have been in the past. Now, the cold hard fact is this; a Remington rifle costs as much as many good precision actions so is hardly worth acquiring to use as the basis of a BR rifle. If, however, the Remington is the "bird in the hand" it might be worth considering. Regards,   Bill.

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.

I plan to modify my 300M "F" class rifle so it will make the weight as a heavy varminter. I plan to actually shoot my LV rifle enough to, once again, be somewhat competitive. I'm building a new rest top for my antique Wichita pedestal. I will continue to eschew the use of a PPC! Regards,   Bill.