data-csrf="1711625040,91033a0057cb92b7544ce4e7ed7a9979" Mini Mark X project | As Real As It Gets

Mini Mark X project

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Midway has Hornie REAL 40-'Max..................................
I snagged a bunch of those...thanks for the heads up. (y)

My local shop had CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers in stock today, limit 1K per customer per day. I'm stopping in again this morning. Haven't shot it yet as it's been busy at the race car shop and last weekend was crammed with family events.

Good shootin'. -Al
 

Horse1

Well-known member
Dec 31, 2007
2,962
12
In the vicinity of dandihood
Dragged my 223 version outta the safe last week and gave the tube a good scrubbing. Ran the Teslong in and it's the roughest looking bbl I've ever looked down. Rings like a 12,000 year old tree the whole way down the bore. That said, grabbed a handful of FL sized mil cases loaded w/WSRs, 50-Max, and 26gn of '335. 200yd 5-shot group right @ MOA.

4.5-14 Leupold in Zee-rings and the non-bedded wood stock spooning the bbl like a teen-aged boy's 1st steady piece of ass.
 
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Big Stick

Well-known member
Nov 18, 2007
42,650
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Paradise
Was 223'n yesterday,but I don't think it were a 4.5-14x Reupold and I'm fairly certain there was a Free Float goin' on.



Have a NIB borescope better than a year old,that's never been outta the packaging and I'm in no hurry to change that....................(grin)
 
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tnv

Well-known member
Dec 25, 2007
726
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TN
I think the .223 has to be my favorite caliber.There is no equal when it comes to utility.
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Between the race car shop, helping a family member build a new home and crappy weather, my time just hasn't been there to sort this gun out.

Today was cloudy with winds from the NE at 14-17. With a few hours free time, I grabbed the gun and headed to the range with 10 rounds I'd tossed together a couple weeks ago. Load was a book minimum of 24.0 of AA2230, a 40 gr. Sierra Blitz King seated with .075 of the shank in the neck, Fed std 205's in used R-P cases sized with a .248 neck bushing. Since these little guns have a history of needing the bases to be shimmed, I decided just to head out and get on paper to minimize the jacking around that might happen on the first real range session.

Bore sighting and adjusting the scope at 100 yds, the first shot was 4" high and 3" right. Not too bad, all things considered. The next five shots seemed to indicate things were good though it seemed like it had some vertical in it. With four shots remaining, I hung a new target. After the first shot, I gave it 6 clicks left and fired this 3 shot group. Lots of vertical as the load is obviously too light. But not too shabby for the first group out of this old gun rack reject. :) Didn't even stick any flags out.....

Will continue as soon as the weather cooperates and keep going up with the 2230.

Good shootin'. -Al



 
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Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Wanted to add: Thanks to CWH for sending me some brass for the project. I didn't want to break into my stash of Lapua cases for this bargain basement gun and the other 223 cases I have are for the two other 223's here. CWH stepped up and sent me some fired RP cases that I was able to prep and get into shape for this project. On top of all that, he wouldn't take a dime for them, or the shipping.

One of the Good Guys, for sure. (y)
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
A little Burris Compact 4-12 A.O. with Duplex reticle and non-target turrets found it's way here for the little 'Mini Mouser' project. These are getting increasingly hard to find and it took a lot of bush-beating and following up on leads before this one was unearthed....apparently new and never mounted.

The weather hasn't been decent enough for any load work for a couple weeks now...typical Spring on the Northern Plains. With a bit of slack time coming up I'll get it back out, finish up load work with the 24X, swap to the Burris and put an "Amen!" to it, as The Duke would say.


 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
If only Burris ever made a scope worth a fuck.(grin)

That makes me cringe!.............
I never had any luck with anything Burris before. Tried three of their HBR scopes (two HBR and one HBR-2) on my HBR Benchrest rigs and none were acceptable. Others swear by them.

It's the perfect size package to try on this rig. Hopefully it will perform. -Al
 
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tnv

Well-known member
Dec 25, 2007
726
12
TN
I've had hit and miss with Burris. The XTRIIs I have seem like they're fine. The lower end stuff isn't worth the money. I have both a Droptine and a Fullfield E1. They're horrible both in optical clarity as well as the turrets. I cannot feels the clicks on the turrets when adjusting.
 

Big Stick

Well-known member
Nov 18, 2007
42,650
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Burris tends to tug at heart strings,as they're "Middle America" and the notion is warm/fuzzy. Reality is,they're Imported Dog Shit and horribly compromised mechanically and optically.

Other than that,all is"good".....................(grin)
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Other than the three 6X HBR's I mentioned earlier, my only other Burris experience was a Signature 8-32 with the Posi Lock, Light Collector aperture and a fine duplex reticle for Winter spot-and-stalk red fox and coyote hunting here on the Northern Plains. It was a great scope for the purpose and performed well for several seasons. I didn't like the length and moved on to a Leupold VXIII 6.5-20 X 50 with a fine Duplex.
 

tnv

Well-known member
Dec 25, 2007
726
12
TN
Burris tends to tug at heart strings,as they're "Middle America" and the notion is warm/fuzzy. Reality is,they're Imported Dog Shit and horribly compromised mechanically and optically.

Other than that,all is"good".....................(grin)
Sure you're not talking about Vortex? :)
 

Dude270

Well-known member
Dec 23, 2014
971
73
I like the concept of those old compact Burris scopes but aside from the 2-7 I found them almost unusable. The 3-9 and the 4-12 were super "fisheye" looking and critical of eye relief. Can't say about tracking because I never dialed them once I sighted them in
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Other than that 8-32 Signature, I'm bad snakebit with Burris stuff.

I had multiple Burris HBR scopes on my HBR guns and none of them made it past the testing stage and into registered competition. The final straw was the HBRII I had....a truly horrible thing. The parallax couldn't be removed in the vertical or horizontal plane at the same time! It was like the vertical line was on one lens and the horizontal was on another. It went back to Burris multiple times only to be returned with the same issues. Once, nothing had been done to it....the W/E adjustments were in the same spot as I'd intentionally put them when I shipped it back (full 'up' and full 'rt'). Finally, they agreed to replace it. Which they never did. And that's that's the last I saw of it or any replacement scope from Burris. I guess the guy I was dealing with must have missed the day in training when they went over Customer Service. Likely still being used as a door stop in the Burris bathroom.

Other guys have fantastic luck with their Burris HBR scopes, though....winning National Championships and shooting their way into the Hunter H.O.F. with them.

But I let Randy Robinett shame me into one more walk down the Mean Streets of Burristown for this project.
And he's never steered me me wrong before. Well, there was that one time in Mainville, Pa. after some adult beverages.....
-Al
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Yesterday wasn't exactly the kind of day to be testing with blustery and switchy winds from 15-25+. But around here, you either deal with shooting in windy conditions or stay home and mow the yard, so....

The previous bright spot of AA2230 proved to be a disaster as I went up in charge weight, giving big globby 3 shot groups well over 1". After that poor showing, I decided to jump right to WW748 next as it's always done well in any 223 I've shot it in. If 748 didn't show some improvement, that would be a good indicator that this barrel would be good for a jack handle and not much else. After a thorough cleaning (that 2230 was some dirty stuff) and a couple of foulers with 748, it perked right up. A bullet of vertical at 26.0, a round group at 26.5 and no vertical at 27.0. Since the winds were directly at 3:00 at that point, I decided to load three at 27.0 and just shoot with the flags in the same spot but disregard the wind speed changes. Over the years, that's proven to be a good way to test any load for vertical.....just let the push and the letoffs do what they do and see how the load reacts. The caveat is, there can't be any vertical component in the wind...it needs to be as close to a 3:00 or 9:00 direction as you can get.

Here's what it looked like...close to 1.5" of condition:



I wanted to quick shoot a three shot group but by the time I'd loaded three more, the flags had started moving and the winds were picking up some more. After about 15 minutes, the flags pretty well settled down to a 5:00 position...the absolute worst condition to shoot at my home range. Up and down vertical poppers are the norm in this condition on this range. Anyway, I made a scope adjustment to the left and shot this 3 shot group over about 10 minutes..still lost one out the bottom to the conditions.





Monday looks to be warmer with reasonable wind direction so I'll go verify the load and if it still hangs in there, swap the test scope out for the little Burris Compact, zero it at 200 yards and call it good.

My goals for this project when I started it was to end up with a light weight little knock around gun that would shoot honest 1/2" 3 shot groups with the Nosler 40 BTip, Hornady 40 gr. VMax, Sierra 40 gr. Blitz King, etc. And it looks like we're there.

The throat on this chamber is so long that even a 52 gr. conventional flat based BIB BR bullet can't get to the lands. I made the decision to just seat any bullet I was testing so that .075 of the bullets shank was in the case neck and wherever that was relative to the lands..so be it. The ammo needs to feed from the magazine without any chance of the bullet getting tweaked or knocked out of the neck in a hunting situation. The Nosler 40 BTip has shown to be very, very tolerant of long jumps to the lands so it got the nod for initial testing. And it's performed just as it always has, which is excellent. I've got thousands of the Nosler 40 gr. BTips on hand and scads of WW748 so that's worked out well, also. On a related note, if you haven't tried the 'new' 748 since WW powders have been brought into the Hodgden fold, you should. Same characteristics as the old 748 for metering, etc. but it's a lot cleaner.

Here's a couple other pics from he range yesterday. The Hart Accuracy Asset makes testing a sporter-stocked rifle a breeze. It goes on to the sling swivel stud and fits into a 3" bag. If you test sporter-style guns, you know how frustrating it can be to get them to behave in the front bag.



"Does this scope scope make my butt look big?" :eek:

 

Dude270

Well-known member
Dec 23, 2014
971
73
Looking good, Al.
I love the 40 NBT, I use them as my fireforming bullet in my 223 AI and have found it to be about the best bullet for fur I've tried
 

Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Yeah, the Nosler 40 BTip is just a wonderful little bullet. Over the years, I've used it on a couple truck loads of fox and 'dogs.

Grainy pics from the very early 90's...





Busting some 'dog towns with the Nosler 40 BTips in a 22BR...



 
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Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
Worked with H4198 and Benchmark yesterday. 26.5 of Benchmark looks to be the clear winner for this with the Nosler 40 BTip @ 3,580 avg. The Benchmark took away the vertical tendency and gave nice, round 3 shot groups of .454, .611 and .520.

Not quite as good as all those Interweb factory guns that shoot "....1/4" groups all day long with factory ammo" ;) but we'll deem it pretty good for a handy, lightweight , low $ walking varminter.
 

Dude270

Well-known member
Dec 23, 2014
971
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Benchmark has became my favorite powder for the light bullets in the 223.

You might be leaving some velocity on the table but if the accuracy is there so be it. You've got a great little walking varminter there, Al
 
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Al Nyhus

Well-known member
Dec 30, 2008
445
61
You might be leaving some velocity on the table but if the accuracy is there so be it.
The bolt and lugs on this thing is pretty petite and one lug is slotted for the ejector. So I decided to be cautious.

I usually lean on stuff a bit more...my 22BR that I use for fox and coyotes loves Benchmark @ 4,080 (cold weather velocity) with the Nosler 40 BTip. It's what I'll start with on my new 22BR build, as well.

Good shootin'. -Al
 

Big Stick

Well-known member
Nov 18, 2007
42,650
465
Paradise
Never could like 40's,though I've shot/killed with bajillions.

Too much steam,is lost to close to the muzzle..................