6 PPC - Loading and shooting my first rounds

all right folks it's time to jump into something new today and try out a six PPC benchrest rifle 6 PPC is the king of short-range benchrest or at least I think it still is and my grandfather has given me a gun that he bought about 20 years ago it's a full-blown benchrest rig that's built on a custom haul action apparently haul actions are much more common in rimfire benchrest but that's what this guy's got it's got a heart barrel and the markings on the barrel say it has a point two six two inch neck the trigger is a two ounce jewel benchrest trigger and it's got a fixed 36 by 40 weaver scope on it now when my grandfather first gave me the gun the scope had a broken crosshair so I pulled off the scope and sent it off to Weaver I wasn't expecting much like their warranty says that it's not transferable and all of that stuff but I went ahead and shipped it in I expected them to give me a call with a quote of how much it would be to fix it but instead they just shipped me a new scope that's pretty sweet the only the only bad thing is I sent them a silver one and they sent back a black one but I'm not gonna complain too much I'm just happy to have a usable scope again and it didn't cost me a dime so the plan for today is simply to load up a few rounds we'll talk a little bit about reloading and then just go out and shoot the gun I've only shot it 10 times I fired it a few times just to get the the scope sighted in and to get some empty brass that we could play around with reloading a little bit with but the main point of today is just to get some range time behind the gun get a little bit more comfortable that 2 ounce trigger is absurd like you don't even feel your finger touching it and the thing goes off so I just need to get you know comfortable with the gun and I suspect we're gonna be shooting some pretty good groups the barrel has a ton of shots on it I mean it's probably pretty much gone my grandfather kept meticulous notes so I have a record of every shot he fired through the gun and looking at the last couple times he had it out it still shoots great like the barrels got a lot of shots on it but it's still shooting lots of point one point two and point three-inch groups so that's more than good enough for us to play around with here and just have a little bit of fun the 6p PC is a cousin of another cartridge we shoot the 6.5 Grindle here they are side by side both of these cartridges use the 220 Russian as a parent case so you'll see the six PVC good bit shorter shoulder much lower than the Grendel but still kind of pretty similar ish now one thing I should have mentioned I do have quite a bit of loaded ammunition that my grandfather had loaded up and I've got notes about exactly what's in them and all of that stuff so we really need to kind of empty some brass before we can have any fun of our own but like I said we are going to load we're going to load up 10 rounds just to you know try out the process and see the tools that are involved now the bullet selection is a little bit weird here unless you're into bench rest you may not have heard of some of these before my grandfather's go-to bullet seemed to be the 68th grain ubirr EU ber I did find a thread over at accurate shooter comm the forums over there where the phone number and address and all of that for you BER bullets is available I think a lot of these are just you know guys who compete and then decide to start making their own bullets and then decide to start selling them they all look exactly the same right on the left that's the ubirr right next to it is a 68 grain Ulrich this is the same sort of deal I found a phone number and address and stuff over at accurate shooter comm in a forum thread you know just another small bullet maker that you ordered directly from okay next to that the third one over is the Bart's this is a 58 grain Bart's I think this one's called the ultra now Bart's is a little bit bigger there is a website Bart's bullets comm where you can go I think he's got 22 6 millimeter and even some 30 caliber offerings so it seems to be a slightly bigger manufacturer there and the last one on the right there is a 68 grain Berger flat based target so extremely similar bullets from all of the makers they're all flat base and this seems to be what my grandfather had narrowed down to what you know what this gun really liked powder selection is similarly boring everybody shoots the same couple powders you've got video for en 133 and I've actually got one of his old cans yeah there you go that's what the video vory packaging used to look like tis vid of orion 133 another popular option is Austan h3 22 but my grandfather's main competition load was with Hodgdon benchmark 29.2 grains of benchmark looks like it was what gave him the best performance there are a couple others like I saw that he had tested a little bit with reloader 7 I think 8208 XBR is used sometimes and as far as I know that's pretty much it yeah that's one thing I should have mentioned at the very beginning of this video and I meant to make a point of it I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about I don't know anything about this game I've never shot a bench rest match in my life I've fired a 6p PC exactly 10 times this morning to sight in a scope so take everything I say and do with a grain of salt because you know everything I know is from just some basic research getting ready to to do this video so I could be way off now he seemed to almost exclusively use GM 205 M primers the federal small rifle match primers I think he had used some remington 7 and a half's as well those seem to be the most common choices from what I've read and this thing here is called an arbor press and we flip it around here it's a little handle here this is what you use to do your neck sizing and your bullets eating now I think some guys will actually you know take this to their matches and weigh their charges and see if their bullets right there at the range I guess that gives them the opportunity to tweak their charge weights a little bit or whatever I'm not sure exactly how common that is like I said my grandfather had quite a bit of ammunition pre-loaded so I don't think he generally loaded it the shooting bench but I don't think it's uncommon so this is his set of dies and stuff first up is the this is an Ellie Wilson neck sizing die it uses bushings and stuff and we'll cover this here later once we're ready to load up a few rounds and this guy here is the bullets eating die so basically these just go in the arbor press and get smooshed to put your rounds together it's pretty cool stuff now he's also got a reading body die this is six millimeter PPC body die so if it's not obvious this would be used in you know our standard reloading press and this is used to size the body of the case and bump the shoulder so every couple firings you go ahead and run him through the body diet now what I found and you'll see here in a little bit whenever we get to the loading process these le Wilson dies case goes up in here extremely tight and the cases I chose to reload I think they really probably needed run through the body die because they were hard to get in and out of the dies you know out of the le Wilson dies that I was using with the arbor press got a kam neck turning tool and all of the various accessories that go along with it like the handle and an expanding mandrel we've got a modified case for the Stoney Point tool for the or these days the Hornady overall length gauge so I've got everything I need as I mentioned one of his better loads seemed to be the twenty nine point two grains of bench mark with the 68 grain ubirr and most of the bullets are broken down and put into smaller containers and they're pre-sorted like this little can were sixty eight point zero to sixty eight point one grains in weight and point eight four to two point eight four five in length I assume that's probably pretty common you buy a big batch of bullets and then sort them in two batches before you start loading you know anything to tighten up the groups a little bit right so I think that's pretty much it folks so let's move on to the loading process okay folks let's get started first of all I want to look at the Le Wilson le Wilson PPC neck die so le Wilson has a video on how to use these that is really good it was posted a few years back so I think I've got the process down but you might want to check out their video as well I'll be sure to link it at the end of this video it comes with this little bass thingy and the way this works the the decapping pin actually kind of floats like yeah you leave it kind of loose but let's look and see what's going on in here we pull out these two screws out comes the the D cap apart there are there's a screw on both sides so that side and then that side to where you set the pressure so that your decapping pin is sliding through halfway decent but still you know a little bit of a little bit of friction going on there and you'll notice right where we just took this off is where the bushings get installed see if I can pop that out of there there it is this is a reading a reading 257 now in his kit he also had a 258 and a to 59 but looking back through his notes it seemed like he was testing and messing around with the 257 most recently so that's what we'll use we'll just use the 257 and it just sits right down in there so let me pull it out though and grab a case that we need to resize you can see primer still in there what you do is pop it in this end and you kind of push it in there a little bit and it should go just about flush and they say you know I do not have the bushing in there right now so they say I guess if it doesn't fit down in there pretty much all the way then I guess you either need to bump your shoulder or perhaps your chamber is too big for the way they cut this this first one here we're looking at this is a piece of Lapua 220 russian brass so that's in there pretty good kind of hopefully I can get it out of there but yeah it's supposed to go in and out reasonably easy these are right at the limit let's try them give it a little pressure here see if we can get it to pop out okay so I had to push against the table so I'm assuming these but probably these are pretty close to needing that shoulder bumped and this kit only sizes the neck so if you need to bump the shoulder this is a reading body die that sizes the body and allows you to bump the shoulder without messing with the neck so you'd bump your shoulder with these and then come back to this die and size the neck alright where were we we've got our bushing installed no we don't and they say that at least with the le Wilson brand you should be able to see the writing I assume it's the same here with this reading this is the way it was installed the first time I opened it up so so the next step we put our decapping thingy back in and they tell you not to tighten these down all the way so we'll get them close to tight but not quite tight there we go so we've got a little bit a little bit of slop here and then you take a case that's already been sized and Dee capped and push that guy in there to make sure you get the decapping pin aligned correctly so now that we know that the decapping pin is aligned we go ahead and finish tightening it down right there so now we're back together and ready to go take that case out that's one of the ones I already did as a practice run before I turn the camera on but back to the one that actually need to size and d-cap the first step is we can go ahead and push the decapping pin out of the way a little bit and then put this guy in there as far as we can then we set it on the press and I need to adjust my arm on the press down a little bit there we go that should give us enough so we set it under there and this pushes the case down into the die and it goes all the way down and makes contact and that part of the process is done so now the case was pushed up through that bushing then we flip it the other way around and this will push out the primer there went and it also pushes out the case and there it is comes right out so the primer is gone and our neck is sized so let's try and do this next one a little bit faster pop that in push it down flip it over it's going to decap and then pop the brass out of the die so that's pretty darn easy not a whole lot to it so this second row of cases that I'm working through or Norma there it is Norma ppz figured we'd try five of the Lapua and five of the Norma this is actually a pretty darn fast process Ellie Wilson makes these dyes for pretty much any cartridge maybe I should pick up a set for a different cartridge that I shoot a little bit more often just to try them out it's pretty cool set up all right that's it ten cases in no time our primers which you can't really see get deposited at the bottom of that base so that's all there is to it so the next step I want to take with these is to just scrape out the primer pockets a little bit with a little Lea primer pocket scraper nothing crazy just get most of the gunk out of there and I guess I should probably chain for that case mouth maybe yeah we'll just use a standard tool here I don't want to go crazy just knock off any burrs and and shine up the chamber that's already there just to make sure that our bullet seating goes easily and then I'm just going to install the primers with an RCBS hand priming tool I'm sure the benchrest guys take a lot more care with this getting the primer seating depth very precise perhaps I know there are some tools in my grandpa's kit related to priming that I haven't really pulled out and played with yet about hopefully this will this would be fine for our little test now I need a funnel and I'll weigh out our 29.2 grain charges of benchmark there we go let's see what see what the case fill let's see what the case fill looks like with this charge yep right up in to the bottom and the neck good deal I'll get these weighed out and we'll be ready to seat bullets boat city is next and this is the Le Wilson seating died 6 millimeter PPC unfortunately le Wilson doesn't have a video on this guy but it seems pretty straightforward the dye has a chamber that the case goes up into it sits on this little pedestal thingy and then you've just got a seating stem so it seems seems pretty straightforward seating stem has a lock screw on the side and then an adjustment screw down the center and it's locked down I'm just gonna try seating a bullet and see where it puts us so let me put the base up on there set the case on the base set the die over the case I guess I probably should have set a bullet on top of it I don't know can I just drop it down here without yeah that works and then on goes the seating stem let's see where it yeah so it stops about right there good let's see where this puts us trying to get it centered under the Arbor I guess that's what you call that and down it goes that is taking way too much pressure like that was I took a lot of pressure but looks like it's seated it didn't booger up the bullet I don't see any copper getting scraped or anything might just be you know that that 2:57 call it in the sizing die I guess it's just a lot of neck tension I guess all right so now luckily you know I've still got lots of his stuff that he had loaded so what I've done is grab my Hornady bullet comparator and it looks like one point seven to seven is the target so let's let's see where this guy's at one point seven to nine yeah actually there it is one I think that's like that's fine that's pretty much the same good deal I say we just roll with it I mean I wouldn't have minded the opportunity to get to mess around with this and adjust it a little bit and show you guys but I mean it's pretty simple if that number was wrong we would just loosen that screw screw that one down just to touch and tighten up the set screw try it again and keep going back and forth until we got the number we were looking for you don't need a demonstration of that do you okay there's the case there's that guy there's a bullet and cedar and press yeah I'm thinking these guys are going to need a body dye next time because they were a little tight in the sizing die and they're a little bit tight in this bullets eating die last like you can actually it's so tight in there and this fits so tightly you can actually feel suction and pressure the last one I just put the cedar back in there and the air pressure was enough to blow it out but this one this one didn't want to come out come out so easy let's see if I can extremely gently just get under the rim and coax it out nope that doesn't seem to want to work all right here's a decapping pin I'm just gonna slide this down on the top of the bullet and just very gently well kinda gently it didn't take that much force make sure we didn't bugger up the me Platt yeah no that didn't hurt anything let's make sure that our cartridge-based ogive is still one point seven two seven right there it is this is pretty easy here right I was afraid we might run into complications but it doesn't look like that's gonna be the case okay there's those first five pieces where the Lapua brass let's try this Norma and see if it acts any differently I can't imagine it would there we go yeah it feels just the same and our resulting overall length is the same if I wiggle it just right yeah trust me there you go there it is one point seven two seven so I think that covers the process here folks I'm going to get these other four seated and unless something interesting happens I will just see you guys on the range all right folks it's time to see if we can shoot a group of this thing if there are any benchrest viewers watching they are probably cringing inside-out right now I don't have a front rest that will fit this four in it's big and wide and flat so before the next range trip I'm going to see if I can get my grandpa set up but for the time being what I've had to do is I removed the little ear bag out of this you know standard little Caldwell front rest and I've got a flat bag in here so this guy is kind of gonna be able to flop around a little bit and this is certainly not a proper way to do this it also gives a good built-in excuse in case we can't shoot a decent group today now another thing I'm not sure what to do about is cleaning so I did clean the gun after I sided in the scope so it's clean right now now as far as I know most benchrest shooters clean these guns a lot like constantly shoot a five shot group clean it shoot an oil shot into a cider target or into the berm and then shoot your five shot group and then clean it again and do the whole same thing over again I didn't bring my cleaning gear out here but I might take a break I don't maybe we'll shoot 10 15 20 shots and then maybe I'll take a break go in and run some patches through it I'm not really sure on that I don't want to like do something detrimental here you know but I also don't want to be ridiculous about it when I'm in my backyard just having some fun so all right let's get shootin the target is at 100 yards the dots are three quarters of an inch in diameter we're going to start with some of my grandpa's loads in Lapua brass and then once we get comfortable we'll switch over to the ones we just loaded I'm also not gonna worry about a fouling shot we'll just start shooting a group so let's see what happens got that trigger is just absurd so no ejector here you kind of gotta reach in there and dig out your fire piece yeah I didn't have my shoulder on the gun enough in that one it's a weird balance of trying to get a little bit of shoulder pressure on the buttstock while at the same time getting your face behind the scope and get ready to pull the trigger all without screwing up that sight picture all right a little bit more shoulder this time all right so except that first oil shot the rest of them stacked right in there nicely I guess we probably won't have any better barrel conditions than right now so let's go ahead and switch over to our own loads and we'll start with the five that we loaded in Lapua brass the temperature is just above freezing it's about 33 34 degrees and there's no wind whatsoever all right I'm gonna really try and make these count oh yeah not too shabby for our first five six PPC hand loads right and that's awesome so I just took a break for a couple minutes to go in and get my fingers warmed up like I mentioned it's right at freezing and a cold finger and a two-ounce trigger are not a good combination man there is no way I can put into words just how light this freakin trigger is it's pretty incredible so alright let's move on and shoot a five shot group with the hand loads we loaded the enormous I pulled that last shot just a touch they went off just a touch sooner than I wanted it to so I couldn't be happier with our first you know 10 rounds of hand loads it seems like we did something right after all so let's go ahead and shoot one or two more we're back to grandpa's loads this Row is Lapua brass so I'll keep catching myself like putting too much body input into it like a little too much shoulder or a little bit like too much pressure here with the side of my hand you know by the trigger and the cheek pressure like I can see that this is a very complicated process to get your shooting position just the way you want it and keep it consistent and doing it here on a crappy bag setup isn't really helping things all right that group turned out ok alright one more group and hopefully I'm not screwing this up here this is from two partial rows in the ammo box three are from one row to or from the next row they're all the pull of brass hopefully they're not different loads we'll keep an eye on that fourth and fifth shot see if they go into the same group with the first three well that was the fourth one it seemed to go into the group all right I think we'll call that done that's 25 shots through it without cleaning so I don't want to go any farther than that plus man I'm kind of like exhausted that's pretty intense like shooting and aiming and everything when you know that pretty much all of the group size down there are mistakes by you you know if you could do everything just perfect the group would be tiny so that kind of makes every single shot really an intense experience it's pretty cool I really enjoyed it but I can imagine it gets really really intense in competition alright let's get packed up let's get back to bench let's measure these groups all right folks let's review these groups I measured them two different ways I used my normal way which is the on target software and also did it manually with some calipers and the numbers I got with the calipers were just a touch better and I think the error comes from the fact that I used the the dots being three quarters of an inch as the reference in the on target software and it seemed to be about 20,000 soph so whatever here here's the first group on target says 0.62 six my calipers say point five nine three and of course this is the one we had that first shot that went low that was the the clean barrel shot the oil shot if we drop that one shot the other four went into point one six nine so this could have been a really good group if we had shot that first shot just off into the dirt and then started our group you never know the second group where the rounds we loaded in Lapua brass on target says 0.2 for one my calipers say point two three zero this is better than I dared hope for i knew the gun was you know capable of this and even better but I thought it might take a little bit more practice to get us there so early success is a good thing the next group was also our hand loads that we in the Norma brass on target says point three to nine my calipers say point three to eight so definitely another good one the fourth group we went back to my grandpa's hand loads and this was a point three three eight or 0.3 to zero and the last group opened up a little bit to a point 407 or 0.4 to four somewhere in that range so I couldn't be happier this was a ton of fun and that's a pretty impressive little target for me I'm thinking that second group two point two three zero that might be the best group I've ever shot try to remember with we've come pretty close like in 223 and 6.5 Creedmoor I think we've shot groups in the twos here on the channel with both of those but we've definitely never followed up a point two with a couple of point threes I don't really know where to go from here you just ignore all the stuff here on the bench I'm in the middle of filming a different video and I'm too lazy to clear it all off actually if you want to know what I'm working on next that might give you some clue but as far as the 6p PC goes I don't know what to do from here guess it'll depend on your reaction and whether this video gets any views I thought it was a lot of fun but I'm afraid it might not appeal to that many people I don't know we'll see how it goes any of you guys who shoot benchrest please feel free down in the comments correct any stupid things I said or fill in basic information that I missed or highlight any mistakes I made in the reloading process hopefully this turns out isn't you know a basic overview of how the benchrest guys go about their reloading process maybe someday we'll reburial this gun and chamber it in something else I guess the easy one would be 6.5 Grendel it'd be a little bit stupid but I think it would be a fun test platform for testing bullets and stuff in the Grendel I wonder how well a setup like this would shoot with that cartridge I don't know that that's kind of stupid we'll see alright folks I think that's it I appreciate you joining me and I will see you next time

Channel: Johnny's Reloading Bench

Views: 56,150

Rating: 4.9556332 out of 5

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Id: OnD_REyMARg

Length: 28min 44sec (1724 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018