ARTICLES

  • .22 Rimfire Accuracy Tests.
  • The venerable .22LR cartridge was created over a hundred and twenty years ago and is without doubt the most popular cartridge in the world today. However, it is in many ways a cartridge in separate class of its own in that the important factors for accurate rimfire shooting are quite different from the vast and voluminous family of centrefire cartridges, so the lessons that can be carried over from the dramatic advances in centrefire accuracy over the past few decades are limited. The result is that there has been little solid research which has improved rimfire accuracy much over the past 50 years and the smallbore world is rife with rumour and speculation rather than hard facts on how to get the best out of the .22LR cartridge.

  • Comments on Long Range Ballistics.
  • This article was originally published in the National Rifle Association Journal in 1996 as one of a series of articles, with the title "Even more on Long Range Ballistics". It was aimed particularly at Match Rifle Shooters, who in the UK are performers at ranges from 900 to 1200 yards, and are restricted to using the 308 Winchester cartridge and 30 calibre barrels with a weight of less than 2.5Kg or 5lbs. Fifteen years later, I did some editing and added some pertinent comments to reflect the changes in attitude and shooting practice over the intervening period. A further look back was added twenty five years later. This is the version of the article presented here.

  • Pressure Trials Consortium paper
  • "An investigation into the effects of tight throat and barrel dimensions on maximum chamber pressures for the 308 Winchester cartridge". This was an interesting piece of work we were involved with back in 1997. The prime motivator was the fullbore target rifle shooters wanting tight barrels, firstly to get the Radway Green 308 Win. ammunition of the day shoot well (the bullet had very little - if any - parallel on it) and secondly to increase the muzzle velocity for better performance at 1000 yards where the bullet velocity was trans-sonic. There had been a number of cases where ammunition (not Radway Green) loaded to the top end of CIP specifications and shot in these tight barrelled target rifles had clearly shown signs of overpressure. There had even been some 'incidents' where the primers or the back end of the cases had let go, with some shooters getting hot gas in the face. The problem was, there was no literature on how much chamber pressure would increase as a result of decreased bore, groove, or throat dimensions in a barrel. So, a number of interested parties in the UK gun trade got together to form the "Pressure Trials Consortium" and find answers this problem. I have to say, the joint venture worked very well and the outcome was a nice piece of work which is as relevant today as it was then.

  • The Making of a Rifled Barrel
  • The original version of this article was publised in 1991 in the now defunct Target Gun magazine. It was revised and published in the 1995 Precision Shooting Annual book and was subsequently revised again for web publication, which is what you see here. It has become something of a classic article, used as an instructional manual by US forensic specialists.