IOF 30-06 Rifle

[UDAYANJADHAV]

Ashokji this is really good information and advice from you. . I am happy to know what you did for your children, I wish other parents get inspired by you. Congratulations for your daughter, she will definitely make the nation proud.

[Tushar Kant]

Thanks sir for appreciating my purchase.
Today I fired five shots to check it’s functioning. I tried it with two types of ammunition.1 PPU. & 2) Federal 175 grain. I fired it on standard 50 meter target from obvious 50 meter distance. Longer range not available here. All shorts were on target not very accurate but still good enough for the first five shot.

I noticed that bolt is very stiff for loading ammunition although ejection is good. Magazine also sits well.

I noticed that after firing first five shorts the barrel was hot. By hot I mean just little more hot than Luke warm water or say half the heat we Will feel while grabbing a cup of tea.

Few questions has cropped into my empty brain.
1) Does imported rifle get less hot in comparison to IOF .30-06.
2) Does this heating affects accuracy / working of the rifle, if yes how?
3) in view of heating, How many rounds can the rifle fire in one session?
4) will overheating damage the rifle.
5) in big bore rifle competition, players fire 60 rounds in an hour. Will our IOF be able to do that.

Too many questions! I know.

Please guide.
Regards

[UDAYANJADHAV]

"Today I fired five shots to check it’s functioning. I tried it with two types of ammunition.1 PPU. & 2) Federal 175 grain. I fired it on standard 50 meter target from obvious 50 meter distance. Longer range not available here. All shorts were on target not very accurate but still good enough for the first five shot."
- What was the bullet weight in grain of PPU? Try lower grain bullets. I have found 150 grain Winchester to be better for accuracy in my rifle.

"I noticed that bolt is very stiff for loading ammunition although ejection is good. Magazine also sits well."
Almost everyone with IOF .3006 has some or the other time complained about it. Good cleaning with WD40 and oil will slowly reduce the stiffness. In my case cartridge was not chambering at all on first day, but after through cleaning of rifle it was working just fine.

"1) Does imported rifle get less hot in comparison to IOF .30-06."
All guns get hot when fired, how much hit they get depends on their build, mostly barrel thickness.
2) Does this heating affects accuracy / working of the rifle, if yes how?
Yes it does to some extent. Search about cold shot(though cold shot has much to do with oil and dirt residue inside the barrel rather than barrel temperature), you will get the idea. Bolt action guns do not get too hot to affect their working or accuracy in any significant manner.
3) in view of heating, How many rounds can the rifle fire in one session?
As long as you have ammo. There is enough time between shots to allow the barrel to cool down.
4) will overheating damage the rifle.
Yes, overheating can damage the barrel but as I said, bolt action guns don't get so hot to cause damage due to heating. This problem usually occurs in semi auto and automatic weapons. Still you see people doing mag dumps with pistols and ARs.
5) in big bore rifle competition, players fire 60 rounds in an hour. Will our IOF be able to do that.
Yes, definitely. It can take much more than that.

[timmy]

Tushar:

It is useful to divest one's self of the concept that steel is "hard". While steel may be hard in comparison to brass or butter, watching the barrel on fast frame filming will show you that it wobbles around like a fire hose when a gun is fired. Generally, it vibrates according to a somewhat repeatable pattern, and what you want to strive for is to get it to vibrate the same way every time you fire the weapon, so that it "throws" the bullet to the same point of impact.

Aside from having good ammunition (there are a number of ways accurate ammunition needs to be "good"), finding a load that gets your barrel vibrating in a repeatable manner is a concern. Ammunition that shoots well in one gun may shoot poorly in another. Even in reloading, where there's a lot of choice in primers, powder, bullets, and cartridge cases, finding a load that hits a "sweet spot" is every reloading rifleman's goal.

The shape, composition, and construction of the barrel all play a part in this. For instance, a heavier barrel is generally less susceptible to "walking" the point of impact over repeated shots that heat the barrel than a thin barrel experiences. One method that is used to deal with this is the bedding of the barrel in the stock. Sometimes, a pressure point is incorporated at the fore end of the stock, putting some amount of upward pressure on the barrel to dampen the harmonics of it's vibration when fired. Humidity and temperature, which can make stock wood swell and shrink, will vary the pressure on the barrel bedding and cause the point of impact to move in this case. (I know you are thinking, "but the barrel is steel and the stock is wood." but see my opening statements!) Or, if you sling up when shooting, the sling may pull the fore end away from the barrel and alter the bedding pressure.

Another issue complicating accuracy is the possible presence of stress risers in the barrel steel. In this case, the "steel's grain" in the barrel is not uniform, and expands at a different rate than other areas. This will cause the barrel to bend as it heats (you can't see it, but the bullet can!) and vibrate differently. Most modern barrels are "stress relieved" with heat treatment.

"Free floating" the barrel (where no part of the barrel touches the stock -- a bank note can be passed between the barrel and the stock all the way to the receiver) can get around this, but it isn't a cure-all, either, since it loses the vibration-dampening effect of bedding the barrel. Again, here, you see there is no solution that fits every gun in every situation. Some feel that laminated or composite stocks do a better job of dealing with the effects of weather and shooter technique.

The way the action is bedded can make a large difference in accuracy, as well. certain points, such as under the front receiver ring and the tang at the back of the receiver are often critical. Also, the design of the receiver and action can make a difference in bedding techniques and accuracy, as well. The unique 2 piece stock design and unique action of this rifle may call for different techniques for obtaining increased accuracy, as compared to more conventional bolt action rifles.

Heat, of course expands metal, which can affect metal to wood fit, and also the way metal parts interact with each other during operation.

You should be able to shoot a box of 20 cartridges with no problem. Out in the Western USA, where varmit hunting is popular, rifles are often fired continuously, and burning out the barrel is a real possibility. These hunters bring thousands of rounds with them on a trip, and may carry three or more rifles, alternating them so as to let them cool down while they are firing another rifle. You shouldn't have a problem, firing 60 rounds in an hour, by spacing your shooting in slow groups and letting it cool down a bit. When cooling, it does help to leave the bolt open. But your rifle shouldn't have any problem being used in competition, like you mention, or firing in similar patterns.

Another matter to consider is, if your rifle is new, there may be some roughness in it that will take a number of firings to smooth out. 10 rounds of two different types of cartridges isn't very much shooting -- this smoothing may happen over a hundred or so rounds. Beside your technique, getting as many different kinds of loads as possible and trying them is also not a bad idea. I realize that your yearly quota and availability of ammunition work against you in this matter.

One of my favorite rifles is an old Finnish M39, a rifle the Finns built on the old Mosin Nagant actions they recovered from the Tsarist regime. Although the Mosin Nagant is often scorned by "riflemen", there are aspects of it that are favorable to accuracy, and in the M39 redesign, the Finns made the most of these attributes. I competed in old military rifle competition, in the lowest class which precluded handloaded ammunition and non-stock sights. I bought and shot all sorts of surplus ammunition, and some commercial ammunition. I even tried the fancy Sellier & Ballot boat tail bullet loads. None of this ammuntion shot very well, except for some Hungarian heavy bullet surplus, which is what I used for practice. Finally, one day, I found some Barnaul (Russian brand) 203 grain round nose soft point loads, generally used for hunting. While the bullets looked nice, this was still steel case ammo, which again, a lot look down on. This load really shot exceptionally well in my M39, and is what I used in competition. I tell this to illustrate that, you just never know what ammunition is going to get along well with your rifle. The only way I know of to find out is to try.

[Vikram]

Excellent info, Tim. Thank you.

[winnie_the_pooh]

Timmy, very informative and thank you for the detailed post.

[Tushar Kant]

Thanks Uday jee and timmy for your valuable feedback.
Trying to understand as much as I can
Tushar

[4X4]

Hey Timmy,

Great information you've got there.

Clears a lot of myths about shooting. Never thought so much while shooting . Now gonna see a barrel in a different sense.

[timmy]

Thank you, gentlemen!

Perhaps I can illustrate my points a little bit by telling an old shikar story that happened a long time ago, maybe 40 years back. I had a friend working in the Forest Service in Southeastern Montana, and he invited me out for some deer hunting. I've never been particularly keen on deer hunting, because I'm not keen on the taste of venison. As the saying goes, "you are what you eat," and while elk are grazers (like cattle), deer are browsers, eating tree leaves and such. But my Wife likes game and lean meat, and "a happy wife is a happy life," so off I went.

One mistake along this line I won't make again is accepting some venison from a friend in Texas. A very common tree in Texas is the live oak, and the deer he shot must have had a steady diet of live oak, because the meat strongly tasted of tannin. (Here, I will pause to say, everything is NOT bigger in Texas, as their deer are about like big dogs, compared to our deer out West! Saying this is a sure way to make one's self very unpopular in certain circles!) Anyway, the venison I got from Dick was SO gamey that I got into the freezer and started hauling out bags of green chile from Hatch, New Mexico (the World capital of Chile!) to cut the gamey taste. By the time I had enough chile in the venison, it was far too hot to eat! (This upset me more because of the loss of the chile, than the loss of the venison!)

Back to my shikar story, I went out to Southeastern Montana to hunt deer. You may think that this area is flat prairie, but this isn't so. There are large mesas rising hundreds of feet above the plains that are well wooded, and having a lot of wild game. The views when one comes to the edges give spectacular views over the plains. I saw a rare sight on that hunt, a bald eagle and a golden eagle (they are the same size, but different species and color) circling a kill in a valley. I almost got a nice tom turkey with my 45 Auto 1911, but he took off and lighted in a tree farther away before I could squeeze one off on him.

But otherwise, hunting was a bit slow. As most of these tales go, it was late afternoon on my last day, when we saw deer in a large opening, at a distance I later paced off at 275 yards. We hopped out of the pickup and I laid my 270 Ruger #1 across the hood for a good rest, centered the crosshairs on a nice young buck who was still quite large for his age, and squeezed. The buck went down like he was poleaxed. Right away, as the #1 is a single shot, I reloaded and took off across the opening for the buck. When I was some 30 yards from him, he started to get up and I put another round into his boiler room, and that was the end for him.

Looking him over for a wound from the first shot, I found that I had hit him in the back of the head, almost on top, between the antlers. The bullet had laid open his hide for about an inch, but had bounced off of his skull without penetrating because of the shallow angle of impact. He must have felt that he was hit in the head by a hammer, which was why he went down so fast.

My rifle, upon a number of trips to the range before, was quite accurate and I had no problem putting 3 rounds into the target that a quarter would cover. I realize that a 3 round group isn't a very sure way of grouping a rifle, but the gun would consistently deliver without needing to be rezeroed on my trips to the range. But here, I was almost 2 feet off at almost 300 yards, a shocking change in point of impact.

To make a long story short, I got the book by Frank de Haas on single shot rifles and discovered the problem: On a Ruger #1, there is a rib projecting forward from the receiver. The first job of this rib is to provide a support for one end of the coil main spring, which powers the hammer. The second function of the rib is to provide the attachment point for the single screw that holds on the fore end. What happens in a #1 is that, as the weather changes, the fore end swells and shrinks, and while pressing on the barrel at its tip, the rib bends like a leaf spring, changing the pressure on the barrel and changing the point of impact.

de Haas, in his book, suggests some cures for this, but Ruger #1s are very attractive and have nicely figured wood, and I didn't want to conduct surgery. So I took the easy way out and put a thin metal shim between the rib and the fore end, thick enough to separate the tip from the barrel in most any condition. I haven't had any more problems with a wandering zero since then.

Now, in my old age, I'm pretty much fixed for casting bullets for all my guns, including 270 for this #1. I expect to go varmiting for prairie dogs with my own bullets, and I'll let you all know sometime how this works out. I have a 12x Weaver with adjustable objective mounted on this rifle now, in place of the 4x Leupold it used to have, so I'll be able to see out a few hundred yards with these old eyes. (Brihaji, please don't laugh!)

[Vikram]

Another excellent post, Tim. Loved it.

Question. Do you like elk meat? Thank you.

[timmy]

Thanks, Vikram! I love elk -- it is very good. Antelope can be good if the animal hasn't been run. They pretty much have to be dropped right away. They are a close relative of the goat, and when they are run, they will get all their stinky scent run through the meat and that isn't good. Moose, I like a lot. It is a very dark meat, and stringy. It has a sweet taste. Moose eat all of that algae and stuff from the bottom of ponds, which has a lot of nutrients. That's how they grow to be the largest member of the deer family in the world.

Elk are what I consider to be "royal" animals.If you see them, they've already seen you. If you can hear them, they've heard you long ago. Even if you smell them, you have already been detected. Up in the mountains, you'll often run into what is called "dog's hair lodgepole". These are young trees that are an inch or two in diameter, and very tall, as they are trying to reach some sunlight. Many are bent over by heavy winter snows, and trying to get through a patch is like trying to get through a giant piece of steel wool. But for Mr. Bull Elk, he just tips his big antlers back and blows through this thicket with no problem at all.

(BTW, what we call "moose", "elk, and "buffalo" here isn't the same as animals of that name in Europe. The proper name for "elk" is wapiti, a Native American word, and "buffalo" are nothing like what Africa has, they are really bison.)

I once came upon a cow moose and calf in this kind of country. I can't liken the noise of it to anything, except that it is VERY LOUD! They came bursting out of the thicket, making a HUGE noise! Such an experience would suffice as a substitute for a strong laxative, but thankfully, I avoided that.

You are in their country, and they know it and use it for their purposes, not yours. But the amazing thing is that the moose, deer, and other critters are at home in these places. Even more amazing is that it is NOT home to the elk. They were plains animals and grazers, like buffalo. But the pressure of humans and their own intelligence allowed them to adapt and survive. They are not stupid, like deer. They are majestic, beautiful creatures, and I admire them a lot.

[Vikram]

Thank you,Tim.

[AgentDoubleS]

Timmy, thanks for penning down the 2 detailed posts; educational and entertaining!

Cheers,
ADS

[timmy]

My pleasure, gentlemen!

[javedali923]

Dear Mambers
As i checked in indian RFI 30.06 rifle in some sites its showing 4 groovs and some are showing with 6 grooves what is the difference between 4 and 6 grooves and which one is perfect and more accurate and reliable if we purchase rifle. I am confused in this matter