Last year, as many of you recall, Mike got his first Encore frame from me, and I in return got my first Competitor. I know he really likes the Encore, as you all well know, and I really like the Competitor.
Well, around Christmas time of last year, I ran into a deal that I could not pass up on, 2 Competitors with dies and accessories for a "killer' price. One is a 22-250 AI, the other is a 40-65 Win. You can see these two in my signature of my posts on SP. Mike had a 405 Competitor barrel that he sent off to our good friend from the northlands, Mr. Mike of OTT fame. He intended to have it turned into a 405 Encore barrel, but after hearing about the 40-65 and seeing some dummies that I had made up, he changed his mind and had me send the dummies up to Mike to turn the 405 barrel into a 40-65 Encore barrel.
Now, since Mss is soooo busy being a "Dick-Tator", he had no time to go out and play with his newest addition to the Smith household, so he e-mailed me and asked if I would like it for 3 months to do a review and load work on it. Me, being the nice guy, said "sure". In retro-spect, Mss just wanted someone else to do the "grunt" work for him!!!! LOL Yeah, I'll have fun with another OTT rechamber, and just as I'm really getting' into it, he'll pull this "Jeff, your 3 months are over, I want my barrel and all the good load-info back" type thing. Yeah right!!!!!! I can see how this is gonna' end up!!!
Well, it was May 12, that the barrel arrived. I must say that I was pretty impressed how OTT Mike did the rechamber and added the lug to the Competitor barrel. He must have re-matted the finish, cause there was not a mark on the barrel, and I know Mss banged that barrel bustin' that poor little groundhog at the first Eastern Bull shoot. Mike had cut a line thru the "405" as the chambering, and on the right side, had cut a neat little "40-65 OTT LLC. The lug was professionally installed, and the old Competitor lug was professionally removed. Very nice and detailed. The extractor that Mike made up is pretty cool and has 3 steps to it.
My 1st two sessions with the 40-65 were interesting. The accuracy was not what I was hoping for, and powder was left in each fired case. Was told that my charges were too light, and I'm sure of that because there was no load data available anywhere. It wasn't until I recently purchased the latest Hodgdon's magizine with listed loads did I find anything on the 40-65. Listed were Varget, 4895, and a few others that I already had in stock, so that's where I started. I also began using a stiff crimp as well. The 2nd time out, almost all the powder was used in firing, which was good, but in resizing, my barrel's chamber is a little oversized.
So, my next idea was to try sort of neck sizing a straight walled cartridge. I used my 45-70 de-capper to remove the spent primer and to resize just the web, and then run the case empty, into the seating die all the way to bring a little neck tension to it. I then started new with these and did a stiff crimp as before, as well as add "magnum" primers this time. This is why it would not fit in Mike's chamber. OTT Mike really cut this one tight, which will at least save ME some $ in the amount of powder I'll be burning up in it. Not that I'll ever get re-imbursed when I turn in my expense account. But hey, that's what friends are for, right?!!!
Next up will be that actual review for the first time shooting and listed loads I will be trying. Now is the time I wish I had a chrony, but we'll just have to go on accuracy, felt recoil, and sticky extraction/flattened primers to tell when enough is enough and "back down" time is needed. More to come later……………
