Well changed my plans and went to the range and had to shoot the new rifle. I was very impressed. I had to sight in the rifle first and this went well. The Leupold is a dream of a scope to work with. I ended up shooting three different type bullets. I sighted in with the Hornady FPB 300 gr. and this went well and then after doing this I had a lot of fun shooting my groups. All groups were shot with 90 grs. of BH209 at 50 yd. distances. All bullets were 300 grs in weight.
First I grouped the Hornady FPB 300 gr. bullets:
This pasty is the larger one and you can see the size of the group. I shot all these targets at 50 yds. So this group is considered ok for hunting purposes, but not mine.
Next I loaded up The Hornady XTP bullets:
Now this was a 6 shot group and I was very pleased. I can't wait till next week and shoot this gun out to 100 yds.
Last I shot the Parker bullets:
Now these bullets performed very nicely. And I can expect to see great groups out to 100 yds next week. This 6 shot group was the best. I love the XTP and the Parkers for sure!!!
I must say that during my stay at the range I never swabbed the barrel once with the BH209. It is great to use.
The recoil was very nice and din't bother me at all. The gun is light, but the recoil was not bad. The recoil pad is not as soft as some of the newer pad coming on the market today, but it worked well. I did have one problem with the gun.
After my shooting session and while I was getting ready to clean the rifle, I noticed that the weather guard chipped off around the muzzle:
Now this was the only thing that really bothered me about a new gun! I don't thnk I should experience this after the first shoot. I guess you can say I am not a happy person with this condition! The company should have known the this area of the barrel would be subject to severe and violent activity. They should have paid more attention to the coating in this area.
Other then the coating chipping off, I am happy with this gun. Now I have to figure out who to call to let them know I am unhappy with this problem and how we can solve it. Any ideas? Seems that when deal with a foreign company, I can expect to be prepared to go up against a wall.