Being Raked Over The Coals Over On 6BR Site

Friend J. Pendergraft:

Friend J:

I quote the last sentence of your last post:

"If it can be done we will eventually do it."

Friend J: You are absolutely correct......

Can you imagine my friend, when centerfire folks "stop" their muzzles, then can apply all their awesome abilities to producing the absolute best, most consistent ammunition in the world..... along with their awesome shooting abilities? My gosh, what awesome aggs will follow...

If one has to adjust their muzzle device, (tuner), at the bench, they might as well not have the muzzle device, (tuner) in the first place...

A muzzle device, properly used, will tune the gun/barrel......then, when the gun/barrel is properly tuned, no further adjustment of the muzzle device (tuner) is required....

Your friend, Bill Calfee
 
J.,

I didn't "state emphatically" that there was no difference. I will state emphatically that no one on here has yet demonstrated what that difference is. Everything, and I do mean everything, that has been posted on here about results with centerfire tuners is entirely consistent with what I've seen in the course of firing 19,065 rounds through a rimfire tuner. Now, you seem convinced that there is a difference, perhaps you can enlighten me. What exactly is the difference in the behavior of rimfire and centerfire tuners? I'm not interested in a priori assumptions that there has to be a difference. I would like to know what differences have actually been demonstrated by anyone anywhere. Make a list and if there's anything on it I haven't seen with a rimfire tuner, I'll concede your point and butt out.

Bill Calfee has been trying to tell everyone on here that a properly set up tuner never needs to be adjusted. Bill Calfee is right. I know because I've stumbled on such a set up and am here to tell you it is a marvelous thing. For the last several years, firing every brand and lot of ammo I can get my hands on through every weather condition Alaska has to offer, I have had an extremely well behaved barrel. And at the risk of getting Jackie and others riled up again, I will tell you that it is not only well behaved in calm conditions, it's well behaved in the wind as well. And that, my friend, is the only difference so far between centerfire and rimfire tuners. None of the centerfire experimenters has so far found a set up that will do that.

Jackie,

I don't think anyone will argue that adding weight to the muzzle doesn't do things. And you were no stranger to first place before you ever thought about tuners. Once again, you have failed to make a point, let alone prove your case. I will tell you, actually I'll make it a promise, when you find out Bill Calfee is right, your performance will take a giant step forward. If you are hard to beat now, you will be almost unstoppable afterwards. Everything will suddenly become a lot easier. Is your tuner giving you that now? You have a following on this forum, people look to you for guidance. So I'll repeat a question only this time addressed specifically to you.

Why re-invent the wheel? Why assume that adding a feathers worth of weight to a maximum stiffness barrel is the most productive approach?
 
Mike H

I am sorry, I have no comment on what you have said that would add to the discussion.

Bill:
I think I see the catch 22 here. It took me a while.
You say, "then, when the Gun/barrel is properly tuned, no further adjustment of the muzzle device is needed".
But, you say nothing about changing the powder charge, neck tension, or seating depth in order to keep the Rifle agging as the heat, humidity, DA etc change....jackie
 
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Joel Pendergraft And Mickey Coleman

Joel
I wholeheartedly agree with most(99%) of your post.I think we have more good information today than we did in the past few years and I honestly believe Bill Calfee has helped atleast for myself.My father and I have been using tuners for several years now and Cheechako,Don Nielsen and Lou Murdica have witnessed us shooting them at each match.When Bill Calfee came out with the two velocity spreads converging it really got us testing and sending work out to build the better tuner.
The only reason I even post on this forum is to give credit were credit is do and to point out who was not playing so nicely.I personaly like Jackie even though we have never met and we share many common traits.You probaly wouldn't believe that but it is true.

Mickey
I will PM you.
Lynn
 
to bill calfee,just got in from testing

now bill you said a week ago if nobody figured this out by this time next week you would tell how to do it.see if this sounds right.today i tested your theory to the best of my ablities today and at 1000yds, ultimately shot 1 group today that measured 7.6 inches with 3.9 inches of verticle,7 shot group,and the kicker is with a .8 difference of powder charge this was after i sent 30 or so rounds downrange just to get them to level up before i could shoot a group. it took forever to get the permanent piece i machined on the tuner set but it is there now.when i shot to adjust it was in dirt so i could judge each poi between the slow and fast rounds,i finally got them to hit level in the dirt,so i went to paper with only 7 rounds left[2slow charges and 5 fast charges]i then decided just to machine gun them all in for a mixed charge group because the winds were in my face and switching left to right about every 20 seconds or so.i realize this is just preliminary and will still have to agg,and this will happen over the next few weeks in prime shooting condition if possible. it is possible and it does work guys.but you still have to aim it windage wise ,i can say the slow bullet charges blew a little more so that has to be taken in consideration of this group.it apears bill and lynn are correct .this barrel has never put 5 bullets inside of 3.9 before in calm winds much less switchy and head winds about10-12mph, but that is only 1 group i know, but we will certainly explore this further. we will try it again sunday but now at least the tuner is set positively at 1000yds ,so i wont have to waist time and rounds,and get straight to doing the agg. tim in tx
 
Tim In Texas

Tim did you shoot your 0.8 gr variance to find a tuner weight then switch back to your good loads?
I will e-mail you.
Lynn
 
lynn

yes sir.i just threw in the low rounds in with the good because that was all of the ammo i had left.i only had 1 chance to shoot a group on paper when properly tuned. tim in tx
 
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Bill Calfee/ Mike H

Bill, its cool to see you reminince of the 77 Super Shoot, we can all relate to the same situation. Frustrating, but you never forget those moments!
Bill, I also have to add that we know and have heard you multiple times say that "tuners" are going to change the centerfire world and we get it. What would be nice is to hear what is needed and what perameters are suggested. I don't think anyone needs it spelled out, built for them and taken to the line and shot for them, but it would be nice to hear an experienced voice guide them to get close and a few pointers to identify when they are close. Very few want to take a great shooting barrel and modify it knowing they may be trashing it, and since centerfire barrels have a much shorter life is it even feasable to tune it to this dead spot and even have a couple competitions left? It really is not very helpful to hear how it was done all wrong and then leave and not leave a clue as to what or why.
I also think that you have not proved your theory in centerfire and that may be why you hesitate to spell it out, but if this is true, then say so and lets all put our ideas and prove this theory one way or the other. You have the ears of some of the top shooters in the country and now is the time to move forward.
Mike H I think you need to go back and read what Jackie all has done and you will find your statements a little out of order as Jackie did turn a barrel down and added a significant amount of weight in his last attempt. There is only so much you can remove from a barrel in centerfire and still be safe with the loads used nowadays and not get burned up, and yet we still have to make the 10 1/2 lb weight limit.
Centerfire and rimfire are different breeds, as was show'n by Varmint Al and I can guarantee that you will not get to try 19,000 rds through a centerfire barrel just to learn, we don't have that luxury.
 
one more thing

the bullets did flip at 1000yds,they ended up hitting about 4-6 inches higher with the slow rounds at one point in the adjustments,i knew then i went too far with the adjustment and bumped it back the other direction right at 1/40th of a turn. tim in tx
 
Jackie,

You've almost got your finger on it with your last question. Barrel vibrations aren't the only cause of inaccuracy. They appear to be a big part, but they're not the only part. A "tuner" will make your groups consistent, "tuning" will make them small.

John,

You caught me in a lie. I find this seemingly never ending discussion of tuners frustrating. I haven't read everything that's been posted on the subject. I'm finding it difficult to wade through all these theories on how and when to adjust a tuner when I know it's a lot simpler than that. Find the right tuner setting then never touch it again. My apologies to anyone I've misrepresented.

You've put your finger on a couple of things yourself. You can't make a centerfire barrel as thin as a rimfire barrel. Not for the full length anyway. Probably the biggest source of my frustration is that people seem to want to start with a 10.5# rifle and then find a tuner that works. In my opinion, a better approach would be to find something that works and then try to make weight. Making weight is a clear and simple goal that everyone can understand.

You're also right that the slow, methodical, empirical approach I took to find my tuner setting with my rimfire won't work in centerfire. As you rightly point out, you don't have the barrel life to do that with a centerfire.

You were asking Bill for some pointers on how to know when you were close with a tuner. Freely admitting that I'm no Bill Calfee and fully expecting some flames, I'll give you a few of my observations. First though, a brief summary of the methods used. I burned through roughly 10,000 rounds on relatively calm days testing tuner settings. I have tested tuner settings at intervals of full revolutions down to as fine as five click (roughly 0.005") intervals. Some regions of the tuner were tested at resolutions as fine as one click. I have tested as many tuner settings as I could in a single day and tested smaller ranges of tuner settings on multiple days. I measured every group and allowed no alibis. Every shot in every group counted. I have made scatter diagrams of large samples of groups and graphed both average group size and deviation from the average at every tuner setting tested.

First, to prove I don't worship at the alter of Bill Calfee, I believe Varmint Al may be right on at least one point. There appear to be more vibrational patterns at work than the one Bill looks at to find his tuner weight. All of my graphs look remarkably like the sum of multiple sine waves of varying frequencies. But with enough groups fired at enough tuner settings, one setting stands out as better than all the rest.

About the time the graphs were becoming clear, I noticed that the one best tuner setting seemed to shoot through conditions better than any of the others. Not that I could ignore the wind, I just got a lot fewer of the "Whoa! How'd that get way out there?" moments and a lot more of the "Huh, I held too far for that one" moments.

The increase in accuracy from a tuner seems to come mainly from eliminating almost all the flyers. If you throw out all the biggest and smallest groups you're shooting now and just look at the most frequently occurring range of group sizes, a tuner isn't going to improve on that much. A tuner seems to narrow the range of group sizes you get but the quality of the ammo determines what that average size is.

This one is going to get me flamed for sure. In the same way a tuner seems to eliminate the big groups, it also seems to eliminate the really small groups. Apparently there's some truth to the old insult that sometimes all the flyers go into the group. There are regions on the tuner that will let you shoot the occasional really small group, but it's a waste of time chasing tuner settings in that region. I don't understand it, but I saw it often enough that I could sometimes predict it. If I had three shots in a tiny little bughole but the group was forming low and a little right, the odds were very high that at least one of the two remaining shots would be a big flyer. Not always though, on rare occasions I got a nice little wallet group out of it. If your rifle with a tuner is capable of shooting really small groups, it will do it consistently from the moment you find your tuner setting. If it's not consistent, you don't have the right tuner setting. Bill is looking for some zero aggs, but even with widespread use of tuners, it's still going to take an exceptional shooter/rifle/ammo combination to do it.

That's enough of my bs, hope it helped someone. The rest of you can fire away now.
 
Mike H

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE WHAT WE NEED INFO WISE!

Thanks for that Mike.

Brian
 
Mike

You make the statement that the slow, empiricle work that you do with Rimfire won't work in centerfire is really not correct. I make it work. Here is how.
The first thing you have to do is choose a barrel type that just about guarantees the internal dimensions to be consistant from one barrel to the next. The one manufacturer that I have found that does this is Krieger. That is why I am able to shoot the same load in all of my Rifles, from Sporter, at 10.5 lbs, to HV at 13.5, to my Rail Guin, at gosh knows what.
I can bring a new barrel into competitive tune with no more than five 3-shot groups after I break it in. I use the same load in all, simply turning the tuner. In other words, the thing shoots pretty good right off, I get it at a competitive tune with the tuner.
Through the past three years, I never moved the powder measure unless I get into an extremely low humidity condition with the N133. Then I will go up about .3 grn.
My standard load works all of the other times. All I have to do is turn the tuner if I get a sense the Rifle is getting ragged.
I am a little perplexed as to how someone could think this is difficult, or how something could be easier. Having the adjustable tune allows me to leave every thing else alone.
That is one of the contentions I have with what the Rimfire Shooters are trying to lecture us on. I already have a very successful tuner set-up that is very user friendly at the line, and works. In fact, I would hate to have a 'locked" in tuner system. Because if the Rifle did start getting ragged, I would have to resort back to the very things that my tuner has allowed me to get away from.
I guess it is a matter of opinion.
As soon as someone finally builds a 100-200 yard Benchrest Rifle incorporating the Calfee system, we will not know if it works in our Arena. Varmint Al has given some pretty convincing data, theory wise, as to why it won't. I was hoping that Tim was going to use the parts I sent him on a 100-200 yard Benchrest Rifle. There is a lot of difference in the way long range Rifles are set-up and the way a point blank Rifle is. Maybe he will in the future......jackie
 
If I may, I would like to jest with you a little. I think I am starting to figure out where the problem is in this whole scenario so I am going to try and describe what I think is happening. I may be dead wrong and totally on Mars to:D but here goes. I believe that Bill and Mike and a few others have stumbled on to something and it has seen limited success. It seems that if you have a limp enough contour on the barrel and enough weight on the "tuner" and it is weighted to bring the "dead" or "node" or "parallel" to the muzzle, than you can tune your load and leave it. The problem is that non can answer what contour and how much weight will it take and how far past the muzzle will you have to go. We know that things like this will not be answered definitely because it hasn't been done in short range centerfire. I have read the rimfire forum and even there they have those who don't believe. Personally, I believe that it is possible and that some have seen and done it in rimfire, but I don't believe it has been done in centerfire. In fact I have serious reservations about it working at all in the lv or sporter class as I believe that the contour of the barrel and the weight restrictions won't allow enough room for this to even have a chance.
Jackie, what you are talking about is a tuner that the rimfire and the boss system that has been used for several years which does in effect dampen the muzzle. This system does work but according to some, does it on the ragged edge, if the adjustment is off a little it is out of tune and if the weather changes, again out of tune. Now we all agree that it is relatively easy to change the tune and with a little experience we might even be able to change settings in step with the weather etc. Buutttt what if Murphy's law steps in like it does at the big shoots and you blow a big group on target 5, was it the tuner or the load, condition, a fast change in weather? Essentially all the adjustable tuner does is give someone the chance to correct a problem in the field that we used to change at the loading table. Bill and Mike have seen it in rimfire that by changing the approach you may be able to take that ragged edge out of the equation.
Now this is how I understand it and though I have deep reservations about it all, I do believe it might be possible.
I am not posting this to poke any eyes but maybe try to clear up some confusion or add some of my own. FWIW
 
John

You said it yourself. It hasn't been done in 100-200 yard Benchrest, and those that are pushing the idea don't seem to want to anti-up and build a Rifle in order to test the concept.
I am almost tempted to put up $3000 so someone like Calfee can aquire the parts, build everything to his specifications, and then get it into the hands of a competent shooter who can see what is really going on in the Arena that we test in, that being Matches. That way, there would be no doubt as to whether things were done to the correct specifications.
I have enough parts laying around to assemble a Rifle. Barrels, A new SG&Y BRX Stock, trigger, guard, scope. I could get an action from Bruno in a couple of days.
But I don't know what to do. And I am not going to waste anymore time trying to solve riddles. But, I am willing to help in the way I just said.........jackie
 
JohnVm

John I think that the long skinny barrels require more weight than do the short stiff barrels.
I think most of the tuners used so far have been a "best guess" when it comes to the amount of weight required.
I think the short range shooter who is interested in finding a good tuner will stick to one barrel contour and length until the proper weight is found.
I think Jackie was close to figuring it all out but should have left his test barrel the same as his normal barrel.
I think Jackie might have actually found out it takes less weight to tune a centerfire barrel than it does to tune a skinny rimfire barrel.
I have been testing alot lately and a long skinny fluted barrel seems to require alot more weight and work to get it too shoot small.In a rifle that has shot very well in longrange competition with a 6 ounce tuner on we shot at 600 yards today and yesterday.We shot 3 groups at 6 ounces then shot single groups while increasing the weight in 1 ounce increments.When we got the smallest group we could shoot we pulled of the weight and shot one group with it and one group without it then repeated the test 3 times.We then switched shooters and repeated it 3 more times.
The gun with the 6 ounce tuner never once shot as good as it did with the additional weight added for either shooter.
The long skinny fluted barrel could not be made to shoot as good as the standard barreled gun mentioned above with 22 ounces added to its muzzle going up in one ounce increments.
We will re-test again tomorrow after easter is over to see if it is repeatable or just a fluke.
Lynn
 
Jackie, I haven't seen this phenomonen either, so I can't help and I don't have access to a lathe to do some of my own ideas.
I to am going to prepare for the upcoming season and think about it more later.
 
John,

You went right to the heart of the matter with your next to last post. There appears to be a whole lot of rimfire shooters who haven't yet identified the correct tuner setting for their rifle(s). There are a whole lot of "sweet spots" on a tuner and it's easy to find something that looks pretty good. But to identify all those sweet spots then test them to destruction means grinding away burning up a whole lot of ammo. A sweet spot that looks good now may not last till the end of the day. And a sweet spot that looks good today may not look so good tomorrow. Burn up enough ammo and one of those sweet spots will look good every time. I can't tell you how much you have to burn up, but it's a lot.

Bill has given us a concept for finding the correct tuner size/placement, but no one has yet generated a formula where you can plug in all your weights and dimensions and generate an answer to several decimal places. I'll take Bill at his word, but I found the whole process to be so tedious and exasperating, not to mention expensive, that I'm in no hurry to jump into another project just like it. I'm really hoping one of you will do it for me.

I do take issue with your thought that it's a "limited success". My guess is that people will have to experience a truly well behaved barrel to understand what a tremendous boost it is.

Jackie,

I wouldn't dream of telling you how to load ammo or shoot. And I wouldn't tell the guy cutting keys at Wal-Mart that I was a better machinist. But I will tell you that from time to time you're going to find your tuner is out of tune the hard way. The same way you do now with the powder charge/neck tension/seating depth approach. You're going to shoot a big group on a record target. I can't tell you what an effective tuner will mean for the traditional sort of "tuning", but my guess is it will still be important. I'm telling you this because I think you're one of those exceptional shooter/rifle/ammo combinations that could shoot zero aggs. If not you, then someone like you. And when it happens, that shooter may or may not be able to give hard data on how it was done, but there won't be any doubt in anyones mind that he's on to something. So make a note, I've got a big "I told you so" waiting for you at a future date.

Brian,

Thank you. I hope it helps.
 
Mike H

What I meant by "limited success" was it has only been accomplished by a few people
 
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