Hi all, I have finally had a chance to give my .308 Tactical a much needed overhaul. My Sightron S111 6-24x50 finally arrived so the 4-12 Leupold with its target turrets were removed from the Practical and mounted on the .308. I gave the Sightron a good test to check that the turret calibration was true to MOA and as usual for this brand, the Sightron was right on the money.

I have had a few camo painted rifles arrive on my bench this year and to be honest, the paint on some of these rifles has caused problems where it has run into the bedding (these rifles were bedded before I received them). Paint flaking and chipping during re-bedding was also a concern. For those contemplating a camo paint job to protect blued steel (or even a precious wood stock), the British sniper method is simply awesome.  By using common wound dressing/ ligament binding cloth tape (many will be familiar with the elastoplast brand), the tape can be applied to the rifle, then painted with heavy coats of flat enamel paint.

Earlier this year, my wife did a test piece by binding my hunting knife handle in tape and painting it.  The coating was heavy but the cloth ensures the paint cannot flake.  The adhesive side of the tape offers tremendous rust protection while the paint locks the tape in place, an almost fibreglass like matrix. The knife handle stood up well to mud and blood through the winter and was relatively easy to clean. I also peeled back the tape after the trial period and the knife handle was perfectly preserved underneath.  Following this, I gave the .308 Tactical the British Sniper tape and paint treatment. The finish is great, the metal is protected and can eventually be removed by simply peeling back the tape.

Well, the third Practical has been completed for a South Island hunter. The rifle, a Sako Finnbear is set up with the 168gr VLD at 3220fps, duplicating my own rifle.







Below is the final load, the barrel now fully run in, producing outstanding accuracy...

Hello all and welcome to the new TBR website!  Please take your time to have a look around and enjoy the new features, especially the forums section- be sure to stop and post a hello.

I have put two new articles on the site,  The 7mm Practical is about a wildcat magnum cartridge I designed while the article Hold that forend! focuses on a subject that has been very much on my mind for some time.

I would like to send out a huge thankyou to the team at Zeald.com for making all of this possible, especially their innovative user CP which now allows me to update articles and content regularly- no more notepad ++ and trying to convert documents to computer language! (anyone recall manually loading the Comodore 64).

MatchGrade Bedding Products are a new range of  products that have been specifically designed, developed and tested by Terminal Ballistics Research in conjunction with a leading New Zealand polymer resin manufacturer.

For optimum accuracy, a rifle should always be bedded at the action and beginning of the barrel. Along with bedding, the barrel should always be free floated (not touching the stock forend). Nevertheless, regardless of efforts to free float the barrel, plastic rifle stocks often suffer forend flexing. In some instances, flexing will cause direct pressure against the rifle barrel, in other cases, the stress is indirect. In either case, these stresses upset barrel harmonics with a drastically negative effect on rifle accuracy.

See the following links for more information:

• Matchgrade Bedding Products
• Matchgrade Synthetic Stock Stabiliser Instructions
• How to Bed a Riflle with MatchGrade Bedding Compound
• Article - What is Rifle Bedding?

To go with the release of our new MatchGrade Bedding Products, I have published a new article - What is Rifle Bedding?

Rifle bedding is fundamental to rifle accuracy. The term bedding refers to the fit and stability of a barreled action within the rifle stock. If the fit and stability of the metal work in relationship to the stock is poor, the rifle will be in-accurate. Bedding a rifle with a polymer resin is the optimum method of obtaining a correct fit, long term stock stability and optimum rifle accuracy.

To find out more about rifle bedding, you can read the full article here.

The word meplat is a term used in ballistics terminology that has survived from a bygone era. The word itself is a french noun which means 'the flat of' and in ballistics it refers to the tip of a projectile. Meplat is not an adjective, it does not describe the shape of the tip or diameter in any way. Our current term could easily have been 'tip' or 'point' or even 'Fred' but instead, ballistic engineers of the world use the word meplat. The French were very much at the cutting edge of ballistics during the 19th century and the word meplat has survived out of an unconcious respect for these eary pioneers. The term mostly likely stems from the days when all conical projectiles had flat points. The front was therefore called the flat and the rear dubbed the heel. Nevertheless, do not be confused, the word meplat simply means 'tip' in today's terms.

As most will guess, the shape of the meplat (tip) has a great effect on external ballistics (how the projectile flys through the air). The shape can also have an effect on terminal ballistics and performance with regard to projectile energy transfer on game, projectile expansion and stress to the projectile during this rapid change in medium.  To find out all about what sort of effect the meplat has on a projectile, you can read the full article here.