Weatherby Nation

I thought I would sorta start a new thread on long range rifles. Ive been doing some research about competition shooting and discovered they shoot f class 80 miles away from me. Im not really interested in benchrest but f class sounds pretty cool. Ive been looking at different rifles just for the fun of it and curiosity for now. Remington makes there Sendero in 264 win mag, that would be a good rifle to start with and easy to rebuild as you go. Savage has a long range rifle in 6.5 284, theres always the option of building a rifle, make it however you want. I dont know alot about f class yet but been learning quickly. I do have some pretty good rifles that I can try it out with first. My gunsmith shoots a 6mm dasher in f class, thats a pretty cool round.
Corey, did you decide to go with the Savage ?

Seems as though a pretty fair number of 6Dashers, 6mmBR, 6.5x47 and 6.5x284 are finding their way to the winners circle.

The Savage 6.5x284 Norma will be on order this week- p/n 18155. Stock F Class Savage is all you need to get started. Don't go spending $4K on a custom rifle to get started. The Savage can be had for under $1200. The only downfall I see is barrel life on the 6.5x284- I hear they can go at 1200 rounds. In that case I may stick with the 6.5x284 if I like it, or decide to have it rebarreled in something else.

Once you burn the barrel out on the Savage all you need a is nice Broughton barrel and have it re-bedded. Stock action and trigger need NOTHING. Guy who built my front rest- and does so for many F Class shooters around the country, said guys are winning with STOCK Savages out of the box.

You may be well served going with the 6mmDasher if your smith has good luck with it. Always good to have someone's brain to pick when you need help. BC's are good, but personally I'm going with the 6.5x284 for bullet weight, velocity and wind bucking capability not withstanding the potentially shorter barrel life. I'm not gonna sacrifice ballistics for barrel life.Somewhere in Kenya.... a village is missing an idiot.....

I read 1 article on a guy going from 6.5-284 to .284 after shot out, supposedly easier on barrels etc... although quality brass he supposedly buys 6.5-284 and opens them up to 284, ie as quality 6.5 brass is available but not quality .284...

Also read 1 guy saying the .260rem he liked as much as the 6.5-284

The Savage models are the only ones I've seen recommended in factory form for BR, FTR, F Class and Palma.

There's over a dozen good choices for calibers. For the average long distance shooter (which I consider myself) any of the 6mm/6.5mm/7mm cartridges are going to work fine. Am I ever going to hit SUB-MOA groups at 1000yds? Probably not. Do I want to hit the gong every week at our 600- 1000yd club shoots.... yep.

The 6mm Dasher seems to be the latest craze, but I'd be interested to see how a 110g bullet performs consistently in a 10mph crosswind when compared to a 142g bullet with the 6.5x284 in the same conditions. I see many reports/results for the dasher at 600yds, but less at 1000yds. BR shooters (6mm Dasher, 6BR, 6AI) all rush to shoot 10 shots in about a minute once the line is hot. They rush before weather/wind changes since their last sighter shot. I don't think you'll see as many 6mm Dashers in F Class where each shot has to be scored before you shoot the next shot.

Here's a cool page to see what people are running, and in what class. You can even steal some load data

http://www.6mmbr.com/gunweekarchive.htmlSomewhere in Kenya.... a village is missing an idiot.....

Troy
In varmint leauge we only shoot A 100 yards but the top 2 shooters both used Savage's. Even knowing that I still went with the remington VLS to try and compete with them.Mark

This is pretty interesting, Im not jumping into this with both feet until Ive tried it. Ive been doing some research, seems the .284 is a excellent choice, also the 7mm wsm makes a good f class caliber also, hmm.. the 7mm fan in me likes that. Theres alot to learn when your new at something. I dont have a clue how the matches are formated, well enough that it interests me. What qualifies a rifle for the class and resrictions  I suppose you have to have a spotter, tons of questions and learning to do.

Corey, I too am interested in learning the in's and out's of this long range shooting. The one guy that ran A gun shop here retired and moved to Montana, he's involved but I don't know who else to contact, and have no way to get hold of him. Traveling is no problem as I'm semi-retired and have nothing but time on my hand's. It would be alot more fun than shooting out back by myself all the time. Any help, contact's, ect. would be great. Thanks... Jerry    PS are you allowed to use Moly on the bullet's or in the tube to extend barrel life? WBY MAG MAN

F ,  F/TR    class,       www.6mmbr.com/fclass.html    explains the differences.  Don't discount a hot loaded match barreled 243 or AI even the old 6.5x55 swedish mauser in the AI form it only runs about 50 fps less than the 6.5x284.  My gunsmith builds both the 6.5-06 and the 6.5x55AI,  both are extremely accurate.   One friend has a 6.5x300 ultramag running around 3600 fps with the 139 scenars,  roughly 100 inches less drop and 10 inches less windage in a 5 mph crosswind zeroed @ 100 yds than a 6.5x284,    It's a monster,   be great for cross canyon deer hunting, not something I want to sit at a bench with or on the ground with a bi-pod all day.  I'm not sure how long the barrel is going to last.       

zonnie, thanks for the site info. Very informative, this looks like it could be alot of fun between hunting season's. Thanks again...Jerry  WBY MAG MAN

Well..... she's all ordered

Savage 12 F Class in 6.5x284 Norma. $1150 ordered locally and I traded in a S&W .357 mag for $400 that has seen very little use, so my tab is $820 after tax. Should be here Friday..... maybe Thursday.

Picked up a Nightforce one piece extended 20 MOA base to mount my Warne Maxima rings and Leupold Mark 4 6.5-20x50mm LR/T M1 Mil-Dot scope. My poor DPMS is gonna be a peep sight shooter for a while now when I steal that scope off it!!

Order is in the Midway basket for 200 pieces of brass and dies along with a few other odds and ends. I will sort the brass by weight and load the majority where the lot falls. The outliers will be sighters. After talking to my future builder today when this thing needs a barrel, I'll be headed to Michigan to tour the shop and help with the upgrade.

My builder is going to put out a video in the next week or so on how to "properly" determine how to find the lands in your rifle..... no tools except a set of calipers required and it takes 5-10 minutes with one case, one bullet, your press and some steel wool   Video will be out when he finishes doing 12 barrels from Canada this weekend. These fancy $100 tools that go down the barrel are nonsense after he explained how all the class shooters do it.

Now I need to order a new Protektor front bag for my rest that is 3" wide for this F Class forend.

Anyone who is seriously interested in building one of these little buggers should hit me up. My builder is hooking me up with a lot of good tips. Anyone with 74 plaques on his shop wall must know his stuff.Somewhere in Kenya.... a village is missing an idiot.....

Congrats Corey.Sounds like you are getting setup to do it right.Keep us informed on how it shoots when you get  it going.Roger
Faster horses,younger women,older whiskey,and more money.

Ya cant wait to hear how it shoots and the loads you come up with. I thought ya used a bipod in f class, or can you use either ?

You can use a bi-pod or a nice F Class rest like this Mine just needs a new front bag for the 3" wide forend on F Class stocks.

My next stock is gonna be black and gold leaf to match the rest. It's cheaper than getting a new rest!!



Somewhere in Kenya.... a village is missing an idiot.....

cdl, is that considered an F-class rest or a bench rest?

And does that rest load your Rifle And pull the trigger to. Mark