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Midnight outside of Black Rapids, Alaska

Took the thumper out to get velocities from my latest small-ish batch of rounds. Turned out to be a not so great load but at least the weather was nice.

Had some time to hit the range and see how the new scope set up works out. It’s a Stith Mount for a Weaver K4 that I found that appears to be NOS. The scope is a refurbished earlier Weaver K4 from Vintage Gun Scopes.

Lucky me, the scope was darn near dead nuts on at 50 yards as it came to me and as I mounted it. No real accuracy testing was done today, I was mainly focused on getting a velocity average from the Hornady 150SST factory loads so I have something to aim for with my reloads. This is gonna be a fun one.

I’ve been looking at fat bikes for quite some time, wanting something I can ride on trails in the summer with my kids and ride through the winter here in Fairbanks. I’ve got a nice Fuji touring series 4 for a road bike that I love and picked up at a yard sale for $20 a couple years ago. I think the last time I got a new bike for myself was in middle school… my wife and I stopped at REI today not even for bikes and we saw this one on the floor on clearance with an additional 30% off. She said “Wow that’s a really good deal, is that what you’ve been wanting? Well go ahead and swipe the card”. It was $1900 down from the $3299 msrp.

So here’s my new Salsa Heyday! C Deore 12. I’ve only ridden around the neighborhood with it so far literally just got home with it, but this thing is a hoot!

I picked up this early post-war Savage 99 in 300 savage a while back. When I got it the magazine was gummed up and had a decent amount of verdigris forming so before I shot it I spent a couple hours tearing it down to clean it up and get the magazine polished and nice. After everything internal was clean and fresh, I took it to the range for a function test and it ran perfect. Sweet.

I knew when I bought this rifle that I wanted a scope, but this rifle was made before they were drilled and tapped at the factory. Stith made scope mounts in the 40’s and 50’s for the early rifles, and there used to be a guy making mounts for the early 99’s but stopped a few years ago. I’ve searched eBay periodically for Stith mounts and got really lucky to find this one at a more than reasonable price ($150). I purchased a refurbished Weaver K4 from Vintage Gun Scopes. The scope arrived beautifully packaged, the glass is perfect, and I am very happy with this “good” condition scope. I think it matches the rifle really well. A 4x scope should be plenty for 300 savage and I’m looking forward to getting it out to the range and field.

Using a combination of Hodgdon’s data and GRT, I loaded up the last of my Hornady 300gr HP over 36gr of CFE BLK at 2.04 COL and WLP. GRT said to expect around 1850fps, my chronograph said 1810.7fps. I had to reset my zero as I changed placement of my scope, 1st group was high right but a couple spins of the dial seems to have it adjusted properly for windage and about inch or 2 high at 50yards. Group size is rough but is as much a testament to my flinch as my rifles capability. Sub 7 pound AR’s aren’t fun with this cartridge and full power loads.

I also loaded some 300gr Buffalo #1’s from MBC at 2.04 over 43gr of CFE BLK. GRT said expect around 1700, first shot went 1650 and 2nd shot was a squib that dumped powder down the barrel so I decided to call it a day.

Working with CFE BLK after finding a few pounds of it and seeing intriguing load data for it from Hodgdon. Loading on a Lee turret, auto drum powder measure, and dies including a FCD. I set up with the large drum which dispenses 36.5gr at basically the minimum which was a nice lower starting load for the 325ftx (min is 35.5 and max is 39.9gr) and medium hot 400gr Speer load (min is 34.8, max is 38.9) so I went with it. I also loaded up some 410 MBC thumpers.

Rifle is an Aero XL upper, 16” Tromix barrel and bolt, and weighs right at 7 pounds with a PA SLX 3x micro prism. Which is probably too light.

The FTX loads were slower than anticipated by almost 200fps. Nice to shoot though. Will play it higher next time.

The speers felt sturdy. I don’t know if my shoulder wants me to go hotter, and an ounce of lead moving at 1500+ fps will get most anything done.

The 410 MBC felt violent, even only being 50fps faster than the Speers. I’m going to pull back on these. Brass looked good though, no pressure signs. Just…. Unpleasant.

All of the loads shot clean and didn’t leave much in the way of soot.