Sam's Dirt Bike Evolution - Honda to KTM

1/27/2015 - 22422 Drill Again with a Timer

After downloading a free shot timer app on my iphone, I decided to try my hand again at the 22422 drill.  Next time I'll put the targets a little closer together, after watching the drill online again after my outing, but I digress.  Althought the app on the phone isn't totally ideal, it did the job and I got some interesting results.

I shot the drill 3 times, twice with the Aero Precision AR, and the last time with the LRWC AR.  Each time I got a little faster than the time before.  The longest delay is the time to the first shot on the first target, since you only have the gun at the ready, but not on the shoulder.  By the end of the drill, all three targets should have four holes in them.  12 shots in all.  For this exercise I was simply using printer paper with a big black dot I had colored in with a Sharpie pen.

Since the very amazing Travis Haley can do this drill in around or under two seconds flat, I figured four seconds should be my par to begin.  To my surprise I was almost exactly that!  You hit the timer and it counts down from a preset time such as 2-3 seconds, then it beeps to signal the timer has begun.  With the gun at the ready (about a 45 degree angle to the ground) I waited for the signal.  At the beep, I brought the gun to the shoulder and fired the first two shots.  That first shot happened at .94 seconds with the second coming .17 later.  It took .5 seconds to swing to the next target with the follow up coming .18 later.  The second swing was .45 seconds and then three quick shots in  succession at .18, .17, and .16 seconds.  A swing is needed for the 9th shot and that took .38 seconds with the follow up shot coming .17 later.  The last swing took .47 seconds with the last shot coming at .18 later.  All told, the 12 shot string took 3.95 seconds!  I had four hits in the first target, three hits in the second target and four hits in the 4th target. Not too bad for a first time of actually timing the drill.

The second string was a bit better, with the first shot coming at .76 seconds, a marked improvement over the first string.  The overall time for the second drill was 3.87 seconds. Throughout the 3 drills, the swings between targets were talking between .35 and .5 seconds.  All the follow up shots were between .15 and .19 seconds with most at .17 seconds. 

On my third string the first shot was at .8 seconds and was 3.81 overall.  As mentioned, that means I got faster each time.  Next time, I'll need to bring more paper so that I can switch them out between each drill to really make sure of how many hits I'm making each time.  It's a fun exercise to do. 

Can you see the LWRC in plain sight?

1/10/2015 - Carbine Shooting Drill and Failure Point on a DI Action

Today Konnor and I went to the range to do some shooting with a couple of my AR15s.  We took the Aero Precision and the LWRC.  I had purposely not cleaned the action of either rifle for the last five or six outings.  At this point, both of them had about 250 rounds of ammo through them since getting any lube or attention.  To be honest, the LWRC got a fair number more rounds than the Aero because it's new and I'm getting used to how it shoots/feels.   For that stretch, I've been shooting PMC Bronze 55 grain bullets since they are the cheapest ammo that I can usually find that isn't steel cased.

After watching a video Travis Haley has on Youtube shooting drill called the 22422 drill, I decided I ought to give that a go.  In that drill you set up 3 targets in front of you.  The further the targets are spread out from each other, the harder this drill is, because you are only 7-10 yards away from them. You then shoot 2 rounds in the first one, 2 rounds in the second one, 4 shots in the third, then swing back to the 2nd target and put 2 more in that one, finishing with the 1st target with 2 final shots.   In total, you'll shoot 12 shots with each target getting a total of 4 in them. You are supposed to do this in as short of a time as possible.  Travis Haley can do this in under 2 seconds without missing most of the time.

Well... it's harder than it looks and I was more like 5-6 seconds, but I didn't have timer so I don't really know.  What I can tell you is that the LWRC ran the drill just fine.  I've got the Griffin Armament Compensator on that rifle currently and it seems to help to control muzzle jump a bit, although it makes it louder (for the shooter anyway) than a standard A2 flash hider.  When I switched over to the Aero Precision rifle to try the same drill, I had a failure to feed on about the 4th round.  I tore the magazine out of the mag well, cleared the malfunction, and sent the bolt back into battery again.  The rifle went bang once and then wouldn't feed another round in the chamber.  Over and over again with all 3 mags I had there, it would not chamber a round.  I had reached the failure point of this action after approximately 250 rounds of PMC ammo with it's current lubrication level.

This was after I cleaned the Aero Precision Direct Impingement (DI) gun running a Burris 1-4 scope that I painted

I'm not sure if other rounds really would be cleaner in the gun like I've read from some folks online.  IF this PMC ammo really is a "dirty" round, then perhaps you could get more than about 250 rounds between cleanings by shooting different ammunition. I'm guessing you can. Maybe I'd just have to run MORE lube in there from the beginning.  I've heard many guys say they'll go over 500 rounds between cleanings.  For the record, the last time I cleaned the rifle, I used Frog Lube on it.  I didn't leave a whole lot of the Frog Lube in there to run it "wet".  I'd say it was more "dry" than "wet" from a lubrication standpoint when I started that test run about 250 rounds ago.

The Aero Precision in all it's glory. I've recently gotten rid of vertical grips and opted for a smooth hand guard.

In any case, the Direct Impingement gas rifle wouldn't cycle.  The LWRC piston gun, on the other hand, kept rocking with no issues at all.  It was running smooth.  I don't have a ton of experience with these AR15s, although I've been doing a lot of research and I'm shooting more and more these days.  I'm working on weapons manipulation to make sure that I'm a competent handler with this platform.  I had been thinking that the Aero Precision would be my "go to" rifle since it was a bit lighter overall (much to do with the stocks I'm running on them) than the LWRC, but with today's result, that had got me rethinking that idea.  You see, even though it weighs about 1.5 pounds more in it's current configuration (knowing that I could shave 1 pound of that weight with a different stock), and that is a lot, it still went BANG when the lighter DI gun wouldn't.  Hopefully if those guns meant the difference between me living and dying, I'd keep both of them running as clean as possible, but what if situations wouldn't allow it?  What if I wasn't able to keep them lubed and clean?  What if I had to put 500 rounds of PMC ammo through them in one or two days to stay alive?  Would the DI gun fail while the piston gun keeps shooting? 

The LWRC M6 IC-SPR action runs smooth as butter

The M6 IC-SPR in all it's glory

Upon returning home, I cleaned both guns really well.  The DI gun was filthy and black inside the upper.  The DI bolt and bolt carrier were very dirty and black. They turned an entire shop rag black by the time I was finished scrubbing them down with solvent and a nylon brush.  The DI firing pin was black and had carbon built up on it. What a mess! The piston gun was completely different.  The bolt and bolt carrier were ALMOST as clean as when it had 0 rounds through the gun.  The firing pin was still bright and shiny.  I can honestly say that the bolt and carrier on the Piston gun was cleaner after 400 rounds (I know it got significantly more rounds than the DI gun in this test) than I've seen my DI guns after 5 rounds or less.  Of course the carbon and dirty stuff just exits the gun up by the hand guard on a piston rifle, which I attempted to clean a bit today.

Carbon deposits build up on the sides and on the top rail where the piston actuates under the hand guard on this piston gun

The Griffin Armament M4SD Tactical Compensator

This is a recent paint job on the Vortex PST 1-4 scope

I love the light weight feel of the Aero, but I have to say that if my life depended on it, I would have to trust the LWRC piston gun over the Aero Precision DI gun after today's outing.  I supposed if they were both clean, it wouldn't be an issue, but how long will they stay clean?

12/20/2014 - Testing Hornady 223 Match 75 grain ammo

Today I went the the range before sunrise to shoot the Aero Precision AR15 and the LWRC IC-SPR AR15.  I also took the SIG P226 and Glock 19 for some practice with those too.  I was impressed with how accurate both the SIG and the Glock actually are.  I'm not going to be shooting either one of them 1000 yards any time soon, or for that matter even 100 yards, but they are quite accurate at short ranges if you aim carefully.  I should have taken a picture of my pistol target before I really sprayed shots all over it running around with the rifles, but I didn't.

Aside from just getting in some more general practice/training with these rifles with the PMC Bronze ammo, I wanted to test out the Hornady 75 grain Match 223 ammo in these guns to see if they can produce any tighter groups.  The Hornady ammo tested is fairly expensive at about $1 per shot as opposed to the PMC which I'm getting for around 34-39 cents currently.  While they certainly did produce better groups at 100 yards, I'm not overly impressed with how the Aero Precision shoots it.  While there are some 3 shot or even 4 shot groups that are really good, I was shooting 5 shot groups and each one of the groups had a "flier" or two depending on how you look at it bringing the groups to around 2 MOA overall.

The LWRC barrel seemed to like the ammo better than the Aero Precision as you can see from the groups.  The two on the left (upper and lower aim-points) are from the Aero, while the middle target and lower right are from the LWRC IC-SPR.  In review, I'm fairly satisfied with how the LWRC shoots this load given that this is a fighting rifle, rather than some long range target gun.

The scope Vortex scope on the LWRC also lends it self to a little better accuracy than the Bushnell optic currently on the Aero  because of a better reticle.

The first group with the Aero was the lower left and then I adjusted the scope to be better alignment for the upper right group.  As for the LWRC I shot 4 shots in the bottom right and then went directly into the center target without walking up to inspect the target.  Subsequently, I didn't make any adjustments in the scope to correct the groups from going left since I couldn't really identify the groups at distance.   I guess you could say that I just got tired of walking back and forth.  I should make about 3 clicks on the .2 mill per click turret and reset the zero on the cap.

2 groups with the Aero Precision and 2 groups with the LWRC IC-SPR.

LWRC IC-SPR

This post has been a long time coming for my first piston driven AR-15, but here it is. Behold the LWRC Individual Carbine Special Purpose Rifle.   The original owner put bought this one as a duty weapon (he's an officer in Provo) but never actually put it into service because his role switched and he now needs a SCAR 17 in 308 Win.  Before I got it, he upgraded the stock to a Magpul UBR stock.  While it definitely adds some weight (a little over a pound) over other stocks, and makes this AR fairly heavy all "kitted out" (9.8 lbs), it's a really nice gun.  I have added the angled fore grip, sling, Surefire light, and the Vortex scope.  The magazine is one of the 12 Lancer L5 AWMs in FDE that came with the rifle from the previous owner.  He told me (and I believe him looking at the internals) that he had shot less than a magazine thought it.

Here is a pic I snapped with my phone tonight to test the rifle out on a hike up some steep hills behind the neighborhood. You can see Utah Lake in the background there.  It's all Cerakoted in FDE.  I have upgraded the charging handle beyond the BCM Gunfighter it came with to a Rainier Arms Raptor charging handle.  I still need to replace the muzzle device, and I'm going to get a different pistol grip. After that it will be pretty much set for action.

I really love the lower since it's fully ambidextrous with both catch/release and the magazine drop on either size of the weapon.  The 300 Blackout upper I have will work great with this lower although I may have a guy that wants to buy that upper from me.  I sold the Spikes Tactical lower to him to "thin the safe" a bit, but he may also want the upper too.  If he calls back and gives me a good price on it, I'll let him have it an find another 300 BLK down the road.  I like the idea of having options in calibers. 

LWRC IC-SPR in 5.56mm with Vortex PST 1-4 scope

Back on the Chrony - 12/11/2014

With the results of the last powder charge test for this Savage 308 Winchester, I loaded up 30 rounds of 43 grain Varget powder with the Sierra 175 grain BTHP tips and headed to the range. I set up the chronograph and was surprised to see that my average muzzle velocity was still right around 2757 fps after shooting a 10 shot string.  The chrony reset before saving the results for further review, so I have to work from memory.  My extreme spread was about 36 fps, so I wasn't too happy with that, but the overall group wasn't terrible for this rifle.  Three of five were extremely close with one flier that brought the overall package to just about 1 MOA.  The three tight shots were .5 MOA or better.

Data for this load with a 10 shot group:

Avg - 2753 fps
Min - 2746 fps
Max - 2782 fsp
Ex Spread - 36 FPS
St. DEV - 12 fps

I was surprised that 43 grains pushed the 175 grain tips so fast because I got 2751 fps average out of 45 grains of Varget with 175 grain tips in this barrel 3.5 years ago.  Very interesting result to say the least.

A 5 shot group with 1 flier bringing the group to 1 inch.

Since I had a little extra time on my hands (an unusual thing), I walked my target over to the 1000 yard spot and set up a stick-on target on a closet door someone had over there.  It took about 11 minutes to walk the 1000 yards through the sage brush.  After getting the target ready and another 11 minute walk, I was back at the shooting position nearly 30 minutes later!

I used 90 clicks of elevation on the Vortex Razor HD scope and sent a few shots down range.  Although I was able to maintain the sight picture better than usual, I wasn't picking up any real slash in the dirt to identify my impacts. I assumed I was making good hits and the splash was being obscured by the door.  After 10 shots, I drove over to check it out.  Sadly, the 43 grain powder load didn't seem to have quite the elevation sustaining power as the 45 grains I've been shooting, so all my shots were about 18-20 inches low from what I could tell. It was hard to positivity identify my shot in the well shot up door.  Many of my shots got pushed off to the right of the door and with the ground being moist, there wasn't much dust being kicked up.

One of the cases had a hard time ejecting from the action even with the lower powder load of 43 grains.  Some of the cases seemed to be getting around the 2.015 length, so I've spent some time trimming them down to around 2.004-2.005 to see if that helps on the next round.

11/13/2014 - Getting Back In The Saddle

The last time I shot my .308 (in April) left a bad taste in my mouth.  Not only did the bullets seem to be sprayed all over the place at 100 yards while attempting to reset my Zero, but the cases didn't want to eject from the action of my Savage 308 rifle.  I had many shots touching, but others seemed to by flying around to what ended up being about a 2.5 inch group of about 12 shots.  I was not impressed.  Since the 3-4 times reloaded Lapua Cases didn't seem to want to eject from the rifle even though I'm using a full size die, it seemed that I may be over pressuring the cases.  Given that they eject fine before shooting them, this is the only conclusion that makes any sense to me.  The weird thing is that I've used 45 grains of Varget powder for a few loads now. 

I have decided to load a few different loads and work back up to a good working shot and see how far that gets me.  For this test, I loaded 5 shots of the following loads all using Hodgdon Varget: 42, 42.5, 43, 43.5, 44, 44.5.

A range of different powder loads to try.

Tonight I was hoping to shoot those groups and see if the gun liked any of those better than the others and also look to find out where the cases begin to get hard to eject from the action. I ended up not having enough light (blasted daylight savings time) to get into those groups, but I was able to shoot 10-12 shots of another reload batch (same powder load but Black Hills Match Cases) in order to get an idea of where my zero was holding.  The picture below shows a 6 shot group that I produced with the 175 grain Sierra BTHP, Black Hills brass, 45 grains Varget, with CCI 200 Primers.  All told it's a 6 shot, sub MOA, group with two of the shots more or less in same hole and 4 others making only three holes all touching one another.  It's much better than the last time out, shown below today's result.

When I get a little more time to really be careful and take good notes, I'll be shooting those 30 shots of the five different loads and see if I learn anything.

Today's grouping of 6 shots.  .308 Win, Savage 10FP

6 months ago. Less than stellar...

Fall Moab Trip - October

We took one more trip to Moab this year but this time we stayed on the complete opposite end of town about 20 miles south of Moab.  We had a great time hiking in a cave near our camp, playing on the sand hill by the entrance to arches (long drive from our camp), and riding the Poison Spider/Golden Spike trail.   I made a video of this one, so I'll include the link to that.  Here are some other pics too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOo8qdN4rzI&list=UUj8_8RcJRf73iO_0o1Djd-g

Family Photo Shoots

Although these shoots had to come in 2 session due to unforeseen location difficulties, we ended up getting some pretty nice shots of the family.  I was using the Canon 6D with the 70-200mm lens that I just absolutely love.  I'd set the camera up on the tripod and use an intervalometer to take 5-10 pics of us in each pose in hopes of capturing a good pic.

What a looker!

Soapstone Camp - Aug 22nd-24th

Konnor, Kase, and I took the trailer up to Soapstone Basin on a Sunday afternoon before the actual camp in order to reserve a decent spot.  The Oldhams met us up there later in the week when we arrived.  Sam drove back to work on that Friday and I spent the day putting his hand-guards on his bike for him. 

As you can see from the pics, it got a little wet on Friday night and we woke up to snow in late August.  Good times!

2008 Cobalt 222 - 7/17/2014

This year we finally did it.  We've wanted a boat for a few years and with an over-crowded Lake Powell trip coming in less than a month, we pulled the trigger on this used boat.  It has 290 hours on it the 300 HP 5.7 liter fuel injected motor.  It's got a Volvo Penta Duo-prop with F4 props on it.  It's 22.5 feet long and about 25.1 feet with the swim deck. The interior is in really good shape and the outside of the boat only show minor scrapes in certain areas.

It seems to be a really good size for our family.  We took it to Utah Lake twice, Jordanelle Reservoir once, and twice to Lake Powell before putting it away for the winter (writing this post in November). The extended family Lake Powell trip was in August and then we went again for a shorter trip in September with our friends Tyler and Robin Hobbs and their kids. It was a really nice summer and we got to see a bit more sun than usual because of this fun new toy.  We put 40-50 hours on the boat in those trips alone.  I had to replace the Perfect Pass gauge after the 1st Lake Powell trip, but other than that, the boat ran flawlessly.

Waiting for the group at Cathedral in the Desert in August

Kaylee bow riding into the sunset in September

September Morning in Warm Creek Bay

Nice interior

Karen on our first time out at Utah Lake

Konnor taking the plunge at Jordanelle Reservoir

Getting ready to put in at Powell in August

Calm morning in August in Halls Bay with extended family. Great weather for August

Warm Creek Bay in September with the Hobb's. Perfect weather for this trip

Overlooking Padre Bay in September

New Bike 2014 KTM 300 XC-W - June 2014

On the 21st of June, I bought a replacement bike.  I loved the 2012 300 XC-W so much that I bought the same bike,  just 2 years newer.  What an amazing package the 300 is!  I spent a number of hours (8-10) pulling things off the old bike and installing them on the new bike.  I re-jetted the bike, installed the steering stabilizer with sub-mount, hand guards, FMF pipe, radiator guards, skid plate, and Tusk foot pegs.  Later on, I would install a rear disk guard on it too.

I'm actually writing this post in November and I have to say that all those extra gaurds have been well used.  In the 5-6 months of riding, this new bike has taken more abuse than my 2012 did in over 2 years of riding!  Lots of looping out on rocks and slamming down hills.  I think that's because I push things harder than I used to.  I don't back down from nearly as many obstacles.  That means I'm progressing, but it also means the bike is taking some real abuse! 

Since Karen had taken the kids to California to visit my mom while I stayed back to work starting on Sunday, I took the bike and trailer up to Strawberry Ridge to break it in later in the week. I only missed one day of work instead of missing the entire week like I would have done if I'd gone with Karen and the kids to California.  Scott Seely ended up camping over with me on Thursday and riding with me on Friday on the trails up there.  The bike took a MAJOR slam going up the "Wall of Death", but I ended up being able to climb that one one my second try up the hill.  This was my second time climbing that section and it was more torn up this time around making it more difficult than before.  The first time was last year on my 2012 when I didn't know the obstacle was there. 

A couple of weeks earlier Sam and I participated in a service project in conjunction with the Forrest Service in Willow Creek to help clear trails.  It was a fun day, but a lot of work.

A thing of Beauty! 2014 KTM 300 XC-W

It's a lot of fun to work on a clean fresh bike.

Swapping parts from one bike to the other took some real time!

Installed the Pipe and Silencer after going on the mountain.

This was before I installed the silencer and rear disk guard that came later during the summer.