Like Meriwether Lewis after returning from his to the left coast, Walter felt lost after zeroing in on a short-barreled 25 CM as the solution for 99% of his bowling needs. It does everything he wants a hunting rifle to do, and its performance will only increase with high-pressure casings. For a week, Walter stayed in his bathrobe and watched the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary on repeat, looking for some comfort. Once that high wore off, he switched to watching a mix of Red Dawn, Escape from New York, and Falling Down on repeat. He lacked purpose and felt listless in the sea of options. Eventually, he went down to the shop, dusted off his 8.6 Fix, his 300 Blackout Mini Fix, and his 8.6 Aero Solus, and started tinkering with subsonics.

Walter is turning his attention to the realm of bowling for slow people, aka subsonic precision, say out to 400 yards or so. Walter firmly believes that, for a bunch of different reasons, this type of shooting doesn’t get enough attention.

First and foremost, there is the issue of proper ballistic models and BC data on projectiles. Subsonic precision external ballistics is decades behind supersonic ballistics. All of the models favored by bowlers are optimized for supersonic speeds and, admittedly, stop tracking at the transonic zones. Based on the time-of-flight models, apps like Applied Ballistics, GeoBallistics, and 4DOF don’t get subsonic wind holds right, overestimating wind holds by two to three times. With fast-twist barrels and time-of-flight-based ballistic models, spin drift is also grossly overestimated.

Combine these shortcomings in ballistic models with BC numbers from repurposed supersonic projectiles, and figuring out an accurate shooting solution becomes very difficult. If anyone questions this, Walter encourages them to take the stated BC of a 220 SMK in 300 Blackout (0.629 G1) or a 300 SMK in 8.6 Blackout (0.750 G1), plug in 1,050 FPS, and then go try to hit a 10-inch plate at 350 yards.

With supersonic rifles, where, for all intents and purposes, say on animal-sized vitals inside of 500–600 yards, the only metric that really matters is group dispersion. As long as a rifle and bowler are shooting around 1.5 MOA groups and have a velocity spread of 150 FPS or less, in-field condition, a bowler’s shots will fall within the cone of fire and hit their intended target.

With subsonic precision bowling, even at ranges of a couple hundred yards, bowlers are forced to contend with velocity consistency and BC consistency—factors that aren’t even in the conversation until you get out past around 1,000 yards with modern precision supersonic rifles. Sure, most subsonic ammo manufacturers have reasonable velocity SD and ES, but if the SD of the BC of your projectile is above 5%, which many of the high-end expanding bullets are, that takes a velocity ES of, say, 40 FPS and makes it perform like a velocity ES of 100 FPS, or a 10% variation in total velocity. For reference, a Berger Hybrid Long Range Target typically has a BC SD of around 0.3%, or 1/20th of what the most popular 300 blackout or 8.6 expanders have.

As bowlers, we cannot approach subsonic external ballistics through the lens of modern supersonic shooting in the style popularized by PRS or NRL Hunter, but as its own thing—much more similar to ELR than plinking steel at 600 yards with a 6.5 Creedmoor. We need to apply the principles that create success with ELR, but to much closer distances. We need to think about velocity consistency as a function of total velocity, put an increased emphasis on BC consistency, and focus on projectiles that do this.

The guns are precise enough, the scopes are consistent enough, and range-finding technology is good enough to get a mechanical system accurate enough to hit animal-sized vitals at ranges far beyond what’s currently possible.

Walter firmly believes that, for the most part, projectile manufacturers have been barking up the wrong tree. Across the board, from boutique ammo manufacturers onward, there’s been an arms race to create the biggest, heaviest bullets with the most penetration and the prettiest results in gel. There’s a bias toward creating loadings and projectiles optimized for dangerous-game hunting because that’s where the current marketing budgets for subsonics are.

Sure, these bullets perform great on animals inside of 50 yards with a red dot, but fall apart at ranges past that. With a bit more R&D money, the big dogs, like Hornady, Sierra, etc., are effectively taking pistol bullets and lengthening them. While accurate and possessing consistent BCs, compared to the terminal performance of modern solid-copper expanders, they are the terminal equivalent of hunting with a field point in archery.

The vogue these days is to slow the twist rate down to 5 or 6, in an attempt to get these super-heavy log bullets, with lots of runout and BC SD, to print better. This might make them group better at 50 yards, but with a marginal stability factor, the issues of BC SD are only magnified, resulting in an increased cone of fire downrange relative to their group at 50 yards.

Subsonic precision ballistics are in their infancy. This is the Wild West, and lots of new shit will come to light over the next few years, especially with the increased distribution of suppressors.

Ultimately, we must come to terms with the reality that, despite our autism, we enjoy bowling because it is fun. And for Walter’s money, dialing 15 mils and hitting a small piece of steel at 400 yards is about as much fun as a bowler can possibly have. Right now, there are very few solutions for bowlers to get involved and do this quickly, let alone solutions for hunting like this.

Walter has been hard at work developing some quality-of-life upgrades for some of his favorite rifles, specifically the Toe Arca plate adapter for the Q Fix and Mini Fix, and an Old Hickory for the KRG Echo, Bravo, and Whiskey stocks.

The Toe has been in the works for a year, with the goal of moving the Arca mounting point backward toward the magwell in the sleekest mount possible. Walter went through 10 iterations and eventually settled on the Toe, with nail polish pictured here. It weighs in at 1.5 ounces and is compatible with all factory Q barrels, as well as the Noveske collaboration barrels and all future barrels we are working on with Helix 6 Precision. As far as Proof Sendero profiles go, Walter isn’t sure about fitment, as he doesn’t own one.

The benefit of the Toe over all other rails on the market is that it maintains the sleek handguard of the Fix while moving the mounting point back toward the center of gravity of the rifle, resulting in a more pleasant experience while bowling from a tripod, especially on a lightweight setup. Walter’s preferred way to run his Fix or Mini Fix is with a Toe and a section of 1913 further up the rail for mounting a bipod.

“Want a Toe?” Walter can get you a Toe for $50 shipped.

Next up, Walter has been messing with a walnut reverse-comb cheek riser for the KRG Echo, Bravo, and Whiskey. The KRG stocks are very good stocks for the money, fit a variety of platforms from R700 clones to Tikkas, and are incredibly ergonomic. Church your plastic fantastic KRG for $75 shipped. We are currently working on risers for the MDT CRBN for an offering before hunting season.

Lastly, as many of you likely know, some serious changes are afoot for the NFA with regard to silencers and SBRs. Walter is convinced that things will continue their path toward shorter barrels with suppressors, well beyond the lengths permitted under current NFA rules. Walter has been messing with these options for years and really thinks the 12.5–14.5-inch 25 CM is a very special combination of lethality, external ballistics, and recoil. The advent of this high-pressure casing from Federal, and allegedly what Hornady has up its sleeve, will only extend the capabilities of a 12.5-inch 25 Creedmoor. If you’re interested in these capabilities, a bowler should pick up one of our barrels for the Tikka and give it a go. Here’s one of our 14.5 barrels with a prototype old Hickory for the MDT CRBN. The Dude Abides.

There are two types of people in this world: those who carry a multitool and those who carry a pocket knife. Those inclined to haul around a multitool are infatuated with the potential capabilities of having scissors, needle-nose pliers, a screwdriver with interchangeable bits, a file, a wood saw, and, of course, multiple iterations of a knife, including—but not limited to—a serrated blade, a full-length blade, and a smaller blade. In general, the type of person who carries a multitool loves the idea of its capabilities more than actually using it. On the other end of the cutlery spectrum are people carrying a 3-inch, single-blade pocket knife, based on the idea that, in 98% of circumstances, that’s all they need.

These same phenotypes exist in the world of bowling. The equivalent of the multitool is the R700 clone with electronic LED levels, shooting bags attached to guns via bungee cords, deployable rear monopods, 26-inch MTU contour barrels, and magnum cartridges like the 7 PRC capable of engaging targets past a mile. Does a bowler really need all that shit? Are they going to need a can opener, a wire stripper, and a nail trimmer on their hunt?

For the last few years, Walter has been obsessed with finding the shortest, most capable rifle for hunting and bowling. Say what you will about the tenets of modern long-range hunting equipment, but Walter likes to limit his range to 600 yards and in. Beyond that, all the variables compound and hit percentages plummet. Time of flight gives animals the chance to move. The ability to make an accurate wind call at the muzzle—let alone account for changing wind conditions across canyons and ridges with updrafts, downdrafts, and unseen terrain features—is asking a lot. Walter loved the idea of his good friend Jeff Cooper’s Scout Rifle but hated the ballistic performance of a short 308.

With the goal of maximizing ballistic performance, terminal performance, and hit probability in the shortest package possible, Walter explored hundreds of permutations of caliber, cartridge, powder, and projectile hoping to find configuration that holds 1800 FPS out to around 600 yards. Big bullets at moderate velocities in high-pressure cases. Two-hundred-grain 8.6 Blackout supers at 2,200 fps with a G1 BC of .500 in Walter’s beloved Q Fix. Walter turned his attention from .338 to .308 and sized up some .277 Fury brass to 308, then started loading various projectiles, eventually settling on light-for-caliber, high-BC solid copper bullets as the ballistic standouts.

Next came the 12.5-inch 6 ARC, with loads ranging from 95-grain TMKs to 115-grain DTACs and as much LeverEvolution as Walter could fit into the tiny case. Six-millimeter bullets at 2,300 fps weren’t cutting it, so Walter jumped straight to a 12.5-inch .243 AI, figuring twice as much powder would be enough to push a 95 TMK or 108 ELD-M to the point where the hassle of hot-rodding and fire-forming would be worthwhile.

What Walter achieved instead was a combination of birdshot—in the form of unburned H4350 kernels—and 108-grain ELD-Ms exiting the 12.5-inch barrel at around 2,730 fps. The 108 ELD-M, with its high BC, carried enough ass to expand out to around 600 yards. The H4350 kernels, on the other hand, lost velocity quickly and contributed little to terminal performance. Unfortunately, those secondary projectiles came at the cost of velocity consistency, with ES values in the 70s, and generated more heat than Walter liked.

From there, Walter looked back at the Creedmoors, having owned and shot a slew of short 6.5s ranging from 12.5 to 14.5, 16, and 18 inches, all of which left Walter wanting more ballistically while recoiling a bit more than he preferred.

Offering the same BCs as the 6.5s with 125 fps more velocity and less recoil, Walter turned his attention to the 25 Creedmoor and started messing around with a slew of barrel lengths and bullet combinations. Walter experimented with cases ranging from Alpha to Peterson to necked-down .277 Fury brass. Across the board, the performance was substantial, with standard-brass .25 Creedmoor offering the same performance gains over standard 6.5 Creedmoor that hybrid-brass variants promised, but with none of the downsides of increased chamber wear or the headaches of wildcatting.

Working backward from an expansion window of 550 to 600 yards, Walter started lopping off barrel length and eventually settled on 12.5 inches. With factory ammo—either the 134 ELD-M or the 128 ELD-X—a 12.5-inch barrel produces between 2,400 and 2,450 fps, depending on what Hornady is cooking with. For handloads, Walter zeroed in on the 110 ELD-X from Hornady and the 107 HBC from Hammer Bullets for those interested in a copper option. With Varget, both are doing around 2,800 fps from the 12.5-inch barrel with a trued G7 BC of .234.

“Well, that’s fabulous, Walter. What if we don’t have a ballistic calculator wired into our cerebral cortex? Can you put that in layman’s terms?”

Allow Walter to provide a few ballistic points of reference.

Since one of the goals of the Sobchak Scout Rifle is to supplant the traditional Scout Rifle, let’s start with the tried-and-true 308. A 168 SMK has a G7 BC of .227 according to AB Quantum and leaves a 24-inch barrel at 2,650 fps. Walter’s 12.5-inch 25 Creedmoor Scout Rifle launches a 110 ELD-X 150 fps faster with a slightly higher BC. The result is a rifle that’s roughly 0.5 mil flatter at 500 yards, with a first-round hit probability of 64% on a 12-inch target compared to 51%, while maintaining 1,800 fps another 150 yards farther downrange—all with substantially less recoil.

“Yeah, but Walter, everyone knows 308 is yesterday’s news. What about a 6.5 Creedmoor? What does the Sobchak Scout Rifle get me compared to an industry-standard 20-inch 6.5 Creedmoor?”

Well, Walter’s 20-inch factory Tikka pushes 140 ELD-Ms at 2,520 fps. At 500 yards, factory 25 Creedmoor 134 ELD-Ms require a 3.5-mil elevation hold, a 0.34-mil full-value 5 mph wind hold, and retain 1,848 fps. The 20-inch Tikka shooting factory 140s requires a 3.4-mil elevation hold, a 0.36-mil full-value 5 mph wind hold, and retains 1,871 fps.

Under the best of circumstances, those differences amount to a 0.1-mil elevation advantage for the 6.5 Creedmoor, a slight wind-hold advantage for the 25 Creedmoor Sobchak Scout Rifle, and a 23 fps retained-velocity advantage for the 6.5. In practical terms, all of those differences fall well within the margin of error of the weapon systems, while the 25 Creedmoor does it with a barrel that’s 7.5 inches shorter.

“Walter, ever heard of Rokslide? Guys on there who cut their toothbrushes in half and argue about toe socks are killing everything in North America with 6mms and swear by the 6 Creedmoor. How does the Sobchak Scout Rifle compare to that?”

Well, Walter’s 1:7 twist, 18 inch Noveske barrel he developed for the Q Fix launches Federal Gold Medal Match 105 Hybrids at 2,757 fps. Here’s a drop chart comparing that 18-inch 6 Creedmoor to the 12.5-inch Sobchak Scout Rifle shooting 110 ELD-Xs at 2,800 fps. For those with impaired vision, they’re damn near identical, with a slight edge going to the Sobchak Scout Rifle.

“Heineken? Fuck that shit. Pabst. Blue Ribbon. The guys at the gun shop say I’m nothing but a bathhouse faggot if I hunt with anything less than a 300 PRC. They say I need the knockdown power and a heavy bullet to buck the wind.”

Well, Dude, load up a 135 Berger with either RL16, StaBALL 6.5, or H4350, and with a moderate load a bowler can get 2,520 fps out of the 12.5-inch Sobchak Scout barrel. Let’s compare that to a 22-inch 300 PRC shooting 212 ELD-Xs, the cartridge of choice for the homophobes at the local gun shop. At 500 yards, the Sobchak Scout Rifle with 135 Bergers has a 0.30-mil wind hold in a full-value 5 mph wind. The 300 PRC requires 0.23 mils—a difference that’s smaller than the resolution of your scope’s windage turret. At 1,000 yards, the Sobchak Scout Rifle holds 0.67 mils while the 300 PRC holds 0.49 mils, again a difference that’s within the practical resolution of most mil-based reticles with 0.2-mil sub-tensions. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, homophobes.

Optimal performance from a short barrel is a balancing act between bore diameter, ballistic coefficient, and recoil. A larger bore can push a given bullet weight faster, but usually at the expense of ballistic coefficient. If all Walter cared about was speed, a 12 inch 308 launching a 110-grain Barnes would be running at least 100 fps faster than a 110 ELD-X in 25 Creedmoor. Unfortunately, the Barnes has a substantially lower BC, resulting in a shorter expansion window above 1,800 fps and significantly more wind drift. Jump up to magnum like 6.5 PRC or 6 UM and bowler is forced to run a slower powder that won’t burn completely.

Everything is a compromise, and from all the experimenting and tinkering Walter has done, this is about as good as it gets. With factory ammunition, a bowler can hold his own against a much longer 6.5 Creedmoor. By dropping bullet weight and switching to a faster powder, a bowler can exceed the ballistic performance of an 18-inch 6 Creedmoor shooting factory Federal Gold Medal Match 105s, with the 110 ELD-X and Varget.

Walter’s rifle, as pictured, wears a 12.5-inch Helix 6 Precision 1:7 twist barrel, a Tikka T3x action, a RokStok stock, UM rings, an NX8 2-12, and a Scythe Ti suppressor, weighing 8 pounds, 4 ounces. To fully appreciate what Walter is blathering about, a bowler needs to shoot one side by side with other rifles. Certainly, some of Walter’s curse words, ballistic math, and cartridge philosophy will rub a few keyboard ninjas the wrong way. Those same people were calling Walter a heretic three years ago when he zeroed in on the 6 ARC and high-pressure cases.

History will be kind to the short 25 caliber. Ballistically, it is unmatched, and with the widespread adoption of high-pressure cases, the advantages and capabilities outlined here will only increase. The 1:7 twist rate provides today’s longest, heaviest bullets with ample stability while leaving room for tomorrow’s even heavier projectiles. 99% of hunters would be best suited to limit themselves to 600 yards, despite their 300 PRC and laser ranging binoculars providing a shooting solutions at distances past that. Within these confines, the short 25 Creedmoors offers the highest hit percentages and furthest engagement range of any short action rounds all while offering the bowler a good factory options and the ability to shoot copper ammunition that has a decent BC.

The first batch of Helix 6 Precision 25 Creedmoor Scout barrels for the Tikka T3x is now available on our site. We’re offering two lengths: 12.5 and 14.5 inches. For bowlers who are happy to Form 1 their action and want the shortest, lightest package possible, Walter would choose the 12.5. If you live in a state where SBRs aren’t legal to own or hunt with, Walter recommends the 14.5 and pinning and welding a suppressor mount. The 14.5 should pick up roughly another 50 fps over the 12.5. The 12.5-inch barrel weighs 24 ounces, while the 14.5-inch version weighs 28 ounces. Accuracy has been exceptional, with everything from factory ammunition to handloads printing five-shot groups well under an inch. Walter plans on offering these barrels for the Q Fix and additional pre-fit platforms in the future.

Both the 12.5-inch and 14.5-inch barrels are $1,000. The Dude ABIDES!

If Walter had to have one rifle cartridge for bowling, aka hunting, training, and competition, it would be the 25 Creedmoor. The 25 CM is a damn near perfect combination of velocity, ballistic coefficient, recoil, barrel life, and projectile options. Mark Walter’s words: history will be kind to the 25 Creedmoor, and lots more factory options will come to market in the next few years. High-pressure cases will only magnify the performance of this caliber. Here’s a breakdown of why it’s special.

With one caliber, a bowler can have three distinctive rifles with different capabilities. With a longer barrel, say 22–26 inches, a bowler can get heavy bullets in the mid-130s going 2,950 FPS with handloads and 2,850 FPS with factory ammo, matching the performance of the 6.5 PRC. This configuration is perfect for NRL, PRS, and long-range bowling. With an 18–20-inch barrel, a bowler has a great general-purpose rifle, matching the performance of a 24-inch 6.5 Creedmoor with factory 140s. With a suppressor, this rifle will match the same OAL as a 24-inch barrel. With a short barrel, aka a 12.5–14.5-inch barrel, a bowler has the ideal North American hunting rifle. With factory ammo, the 130-class bullets will be in the mid- to high-2400s, giving bowlers an expansion window out to 600 yards and external ballistics that will make legacy hunting rifles like .300 Win. Mags and short-barreled magnums blush. With handloads and standard brass, Walter is pushing the 107 Hammer HBC, with a confirmed G7 BC of .235 (.257 advertised), to 2,775 FPS with Varget, delivering a trajectory that’s within 0.1 mil of an 18-inch 6 Creedmoor shooting factory 105 Federal Gold Medal Match or .3 mils flatter than 6.5 Creedmoor shooting a 143 ELD-X at 2,600 FPS at 750 yards. THATS OUT OF A 12.5 inch barrel that weighs 24 ounces!!!

If barrel life wasn’t a thing, Walter didn’t hunt in places that require shooting monolithic bullets, and Walter wasn’t concerned with shooting a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches, Walter would focus on the 6 Creedmoor. And if Walter’s aunt had nuts, she would be his uncle! Walter does want to shoot the shortest barrel possible. Overbore calibers will always have to use slower burning powders and are thus more barrel length dependent. Walter does want to be able to shoot a class or train up for a hunting trip without the fear of burning out a barrel. Walter does hunt in places that require mono bullets and the 25 cal copper options across the board have higher BC’s and increased frontal diameter will always help with deformation.

Sizing down 6.5 +Peak or wildcatting 2.77 Fury brass to .25 caliber will give bowlers another few hundred feet per second of velocity and continue to outpace the performance of the other Creedmoors. Although Federal is claiming a 300 FPS performance increase over standard 6.5, it appears that early production ammo is around 200 FPS faster than standard brass. This is consistent with Walter’s experiences with hybrid brass. The 25 Creedmoor offers bowlers 50–75% of this performance, assuming a 100–150 FPS increase, with none of the downsides of high pressure ammo. It’s not some soon-to-be-released tech—it’s available right now. The 12.5 and 14.5 1/7 Twist Tikka Prefits that Walter is making with Helix 6 Precision are in production now and will be for sale in a few weeks.

The Dude Abides!

Share

Recently, Walter has been thinking a lot about his time spent with the Colonel, Jeff Cooper, when Walter was the grounds keeper at Gunsite back in the 80s. Walter and Cooper connected over their admiration of history, 1911s, and their diminished love for California. Walters spent 3 years in Arizona working at Gunsite until he caught the Colonel cheating at poker and challenged him to a duel with a 22-caliber break-barrel pellet gun. Walter won and later had to remove the pellet from Cooper’s sternum with needle-nose pliers. Out of shame for cheating and losing the duel, Cooper sent Walter packing, but that’s a story for another day. Today, we are talking about the Scout Rifle.

Walter asks Bowlers to think of the Scout rifle as a capability, not a recipe, and apply modern technology and ballistics. At its core, the Scout Rifle is a do-all rifle that’s capable of hunting and engaging man-sized targets out to 500 yards, is easy to feed magazines, weighs less than 3.5 kg, or 7.7 pounds; is less than 1 meter long, or 39 inches; and has an optic that allows for rapid engagement up close and to moderate distances.

Walter has spent a lot of time behind a short .308 experimenting with light bolt-action guns. He’s owned a Ruger Gunsite Scout since its release and has taken a cow elk at 762 yards with hybrid ammo, hunted a kudu at past 500 yards in South Africa, and has shot thousands of rounds at the flat range, dialing in necked-up 277 Fury brass and testing various factory offerings. Based on data from testing twist rates and accuracy out of a half dozen 16-inch Noveske barrels ranging from a 1/12 twist down to a 1/5, here’s some data for today’s conversation: Federal Gold Medal Match 168 Grain 2434 FPS, FGMM 175 2421 FPS, Hornady 178 ELDX 2429 FPS, and Hornady 168 Amax 2451 FPS. All of the guns tested printed the 168 A-Max the best, and it’s also the fastest, so Walter is going to use that as the benchmark for a scout rifle. Based on an expansion window of 1800 FPS, the 168 A-Max has an effective range of 375 yards.

With Walter’s experience with scout rifles in mind and as a student of modern ballistics, he put together two scout rifles, both based off of Tikka actions. Why Tikka? Well, they can be had at any box store, are super accurate and reliable, and are the only production rifles with consistent enough headspacing to take prefit barrels, but Walter will get into that later. Hybrid ammo will certainly change things, but for the sake of today’s conversation, Walter is going to show two options: a 12.5-inch .243 AI and a 12.5-inch 25 cm from Helix Six Precision. The 243 AI runs off handloads with Lapua brass, Stabal 6.5, and 95 TMK, doing 2830 FPS. The 25 CM will take a lot more than the factory, but for today’s discussion it’s 128 ELDX doing 2440 FPS. As for stocks, Walter is using a Rokstok and heavily modified Factor Tikka Hunter stock updated for modern shooting. If 1-8s and 2-12s with turrets that dial, mill-based Christmas tree reticles, and illumination that makes the 1-2 magnification work like a red dot, Cooper sure as shit would have ditched the long eye relief pistol scopes in favor of the capabilities of 1-8s and 2-12s. If lightweight titanium suppressors that save hearing and cut recoil had been around in Cooper’s day, he would have been a kid in a candy shop at a silencer shop kiosk. Both rifles are short-running, titanium cans: an Airlock 6.5 and a Scythe TI from SilencerCo. With a Woodstock, a 2-12 Nightforce, and a Scythe TI, the 243 AI weighs in at 9 pounds (without ammo). With a Rokstock, PLXC 1-8, an Airlock 6.5, and a 12.5-inch, 7-twist, 25 cm barrel from Helix 6 Precision, the 25 weighs 7 pounds 9 ounces.

Well, that’s great, Walter. They are small and light, but what do they do ballistically? With factory ammo and handloads, the Helix-barreled 25 cm Scout shot everything under 1 inch and did so consistently. 6 inches with 5 rounds of factory 128 ELD doing an average of 2440 FPS and an SD of 10. Using the same 1800 FPS threshold, the 128 ELDX maintains the velocity needed for reliable expansion at 535 yards, or 165 yards further than the 308 Scout Rifle with 168 A-Maxs. The 12.5 243 AI, dubbed the 243 Jenkins, is fast as hell but with a lot more unburnt powder and groups of 2-1 MOA. With 95 TMKs, the 243 Jenkins maintains 1800 fps to 600 yards.

AB Wez shows a 51% chance for the 128 ELDX hitting a 10-inch target at 500 yards and a 48% chance with the 95 TMK doing the same on the same target compared to a 34% chance with the 168 Amax on the 10-inch target at 500; also, the 168 Amax is below the 1800 FPS threshold by 250 FPS. Out of curiosity, Walter changed the calculator to a 175 SMK and cranked the velocity to 2900 FPS in order to get a hit percentage that matched the Sobchak Scout rifle with 128 ELDX factory ammo. Based on the accuracy and ease of use of the shooting factory, it prefers the 12.5-inch Helix-barreled 25 cm.

“Well, that’s fucking interesting, Walter, but what does that all mean, man...?”

Well, Donny, that means a 12.5” 25 Creed with factory ammo, a suppressor, and a modern optic meets Cooper’s weight requirements and measures in under Cooper’s length requirements, with 30% less recoil, another 165 yards of terminal range, and much higher hit percentages at range, with far better wind holds. HOT DAMN.

Walter is partnering with Helix 6 Precision to make these 12.5” Sobchak Scout barrels. They will be for sale next month. So form 1 that tikka that’s gathering dust in your safe and find a cash machine!

Share

“What kind of glass do you want on this board?” the surfboard glasser at China Beach asked, holding up the blank in his hand and inspecting the freshly shaped 5’5 fish, loosely based on a Mctavish.

“Ughhh, probably two sheets of 4 ounces on the deck and rails, and one sheet of 4 ounces on the bottom,” Walter said awkwardly, shifting his weight from his left leg to his right leg.

“This bitch is heavy. What kind of blank is this? It feels like it’s made of wood... or shit, even concrete...” The only glasser this side of Guam inquired, gripping the rails in both hands and looking at the single to double concave on the board’s bottom. “ Shit, this doesn’t look bad; if it weren’t so fucking heavy, I bet it would be a lot of fun...”

“Ohh yeah... it’s not light. I like it that way; better for cutting through the chop at the bar at Tonle Srepok,” Walter responded, feeling a swell of pride from the kind words about his board and hoping the only glasser in Vietnam wouldn’t push it. “ Anyways, how fast can you get it done? I’ll pay for a rush fee... I’m heading home on the 10th and need the board ready by then.”

“I could probably get that done; it’s going to cost you...”

Walter was in no position to negotiate and agreed to pay the glasser in full upfront and a Tiger skull Euro Mount as a tip. Unbeknownst to the glasser, and much to the chagrin of Walter’s armory staff sergeant, an M79 grenade launcher and three dozen rounds of 40 mm HE were hidden in the blank. On three tours up the Delta, Walter fell in love with the thumper, and while other privates left Vietnam with little more than chlamydia and a weed habit, Walter knew he had to bring back an M79 and a little food for it.

In the subsequent six decades since Walter's return from the Orient, the M79 has graced the wall above Walter's dining room table during his periods as a bachelor and has come down on a few occasions to one-up the neighbor's fireworks display on the Union's Birthday and disperse a few local homeless camps with a round or two of HE. It is Walter's most cherished possession and will certainly be passed down to his nephews once the sands of time in Walter's hourglass run out. It also inspired the Sobchak Security LLC Old Hickory reverse comb cheek riser for the Q fix.

Like with the M79's stock, the Old Hickory is hand-shaped from black walnut and replaces the factory cheek riser of the Q fix. More so than just churching up the FIX with a touch of heritage and class, the reverse comb of the Old Hickory lets a bowler get on the sights faster and not get bucked off when firing a light rifle with a lot of ass behind it. They are live on the site now for $75.

Share

6 Creedmoor is a damn near perfect balance of velocity, ballistic coefficient, bullet selection and recoil. Out of an 18 inch barrel, it’s capable of killing any game animal in North America out to 600 yards. On top of being an emerging game hunting round, 6 Creedmoor is an established competition round thanks to its ability to buck wind with its unique combination of velocity and ballistic coefficient all while being soft enough shooting to allow watching trace and impacts. Out of a lightweight rifle like the Q Fix, 6 Creedmoor really shines. The rifle pictured here weighs 9 pounds and change. This combination is Walter’s favorite configuration of the Fix to date.

Here’s Walter blasting some 109 ELDM’s at 741 yards on A Zone Steel 5.9 inches by 11.

With the 1/7 twist, bowlers can stabilize the heaviest of modern 6mm bullets like the 116 Sierra TMK.

Here are some groups Walter Shot with Factory Federal 105 GMM and some handholds Walter threw together with h4350 and 109 ELDM’s. The 109’s are Walter’s hunting loads and maintain 1800 FPS to 700 yards.

With flat trajectories and light recoil, bowlers can watch their impacts and have some forgiveness with distance calls.

If Walter could have one fix barrel, for hunting and long range shooting, it would be this 18 inch 1/7 twist barrel. All the Barrel you need, none you dont. They will be Available on Noveske’s site here at 10 am PST for $800. Supplies are limited. The Dude Abides.

Before Walter was into bowling, Walter had a career on the semi-pro micro tractor pull circuit. He lived in a van and traveled around to various Elk’s Lodges burning nitro fuel and racing with other fixed-income veterans for coin collections and pink slips to their Fourth Gen Vettes. After being humbled by his first few pulls, Walter found his groove and evolved into a competitor in the nuanced world of micro tractor pulls; learning the methods of tire prep, engine tuning, and chassis modification. Eventually, after winning a ZR1 off a reigning champ in Cleveland, Ohio, he soured on the rampant culture of wife swapping and constant pay-to-win nature of nitro engine rebuilding and took up bowling.

Last weekend, Walter attended his first rifle match of his bowling career, the Arbuckle Hunter Match, and once again was back in the trenches, learning from the pros and being humbled just like with his first regional MicroTractor Pulling contest. The PRSuit Match, is put on by a very good shooter named Dan, and is a hybrid between an NRL Hunter type and a PRS style with unknown targets and unknown ranges in various positions and conditions. Walter shot a fix with a 22-inch factory barrel in 6.5 Creed with a Nightforce scope, Tango 4000 laser and a highly modified MDT bipod with r3d legs.

Here are some takeaways and key lessons learned.

With two shots per target, a bowler must really trust their firing solution and adapt their wind calls accordingly. Have you ever watched one of those YouTube videos like the 1 moa challenge or Erik Cortina’s blackjack challenge and screamed at your screen when you see people missing in the same spot? Well, Walter sure has and unfortunately made this mistake in front of a few ROs. Sometimes Walter couldn’t see his splash; other times he overadjusted or didn’t adjust enough. This is where experience comes in, and regardless of how much tummy time a bowler has ripping shots down range, you can always have more. 90% of Walter’s errors were software-related, but he had some firmware and hardware issues that he will adjust for next time.

Relying on the Fire4000 as my primary ranging and shooting solution was fast for some things but ended up hurting me on 4 stages. The tricky bastards that set up the stages placed small targets in openings in trees on further ridges, and the LRF with a wider beam divergence would hit trees on the closer ridge and give me a false range. I missed 4 targets on 4 different stages with bad dope hitting low and not seeing my impacts. The conventional wisdom in this instance is right. Walter over-thought it because he loves using his image-stabilized sigs to glass. Next time, he will run a laser bino off a bag, write down the dope on a QB sleeve, and go to town.

Walter’s Fix with a 22-inch factory Bartlein barrel shot lights out, and with a good break, shooting 140s, the recoil was minimal. The only thing Walter would consider shooting is a 24-26 inch, 25 cm, shooting the 135 Berger.

Walter’s heavily modded MDT bipod with R3D legs and some weight-saving bits excelled, and despite his revulsion at the price tag, he thinks it’s really the only bipod worth having. Otherwise skip a bipod altogether and get a light tripod. It weighs in at 22 ounces and was Walters’ primary system for shooting, with a tripod for rear support. For those interested in getting a similar setup, Walter recommends getting a Gen 3 single pull and the R3d legs or buying a used Gen 2 on the cheap and ripping the legs off.

Walter’s tripod, a weary, worn-out thing from Amazon, left something to be desired. There is a reason why competitive people love the inverted-leg tripod, and if a bowler is serious about saving time and being effective, this is almost a must-have. Walter would get something like this if you’re serious about competing and shooting fast with a tripod and don’t care about hauling it into the woods with you.

Walter believes that going to a match like this is an infinitely better use of money than going to a class and that every single bowler will learn something that will improve the ability as a shooter. Some dipshit that rose to fame after having a small role in the Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure movie once said, “The unexamined bowling game isn’t worth playing.” That stuck with Walter. Nothing leads a bowler to examine their game like a timer going off in their ear and score at the end of the stage.

Walter ended up getting second in Production, or as he likes to call it, the second tallest midget, and placing 40th out of 95. Most notably however, in front of Walter’s childhood friend and winner of the team’s division, Ryell Massood, Walter shit the bed and pitched a goose egg. That stung. Walter has already signed up for a DMR match and will be practicing and encouraging bowlers on the fence to do the same.

Walter headed out to Northern Idaho over the weekend to sit down with Ryan and Jake from Shoot 2 Hunt to talk fast 6mm’s, hybrid brass and irrelevance of energy on target. Listen to it on Spotify here and on Apple Podcasts here.

For those unfamiliar with Shoot 2 Hunt, their podcast is worth taking a deep dive on. Their 6 UM is super interesting as a hunting round and has been well proven as a big game capable set up.

As of spring 2026, the best combination of velocity and ballistic coefficient in a true small action is the 25 Creedmoor. For years, the quarter bore has been the wonder child of the competition world and is currently holding its own in PRS and NRL hunter, giving shooters 2800 FPS with similar BCs to heavy 6.5s at a reduction of about 11% recoil. Out of shorter barrels, say 19 inches, this gives bowlers the ability to tap into the ballistic performance of a 24-inch 6.5 Creedmoor with 140-class bullets, with a shorter and lighter package. Walter took things a step further and necked some Sig 277 Fury brass and loaded up some 135 Berger hybrids, and he is very pleased with the results and feels the combo offers bowlers unmatched external ballistics out of a true short action.

At the heart of Walter's 25 Fury build is a Tikka T3X with a 19-inch, 1/7 twist preferred barrel in a Rokstok. The idea for this rifle is a general-purpose build that is light enough and compact enough that Walter could pack it into the mountains for an elk hunt yet has enough barrel for extended shot strings and would be perfect for bringing it to the desert and ringing steel out to 1500 yards. Walter ordered a Rokstok last year and is very happy with how it works; the reverse comb really does help with tracking impacts and reducing felt recoil. With an emphasis on quick shots, Walter pulled a Horus 4-20 with a Tremor 5 reticle out of the parts bin and threw it in some Seekins rings with a diving board. The whole setup weighs in at 9 and a half pounds with a mag and a Silencerco Scythe TI. Also Do your fucking homework, deadbeats.

To break the barrel in, Walter loaded up some 135s with a modest charge of H4350 and was ringing a zone steel at 741 with relative ease. From there, Walter dug deep into the reloading cabinet and pulled out some weight-sorted 277 brass and went to town annealing, sizing down, trimming, and repeating before ending up with enough fabled 25 Fury rounds to get Walter into some trouble. Walter has had the best luck with the Sig Fury Brass and the sized-down Creedmoors and H4350. Sure, a bowler could pick up some velocity with RL26 or a ball powder like Staball 6.5, but based on case geometry, the smaller Creedmoors are already running 90% case fill with H4350 at max book pressure. Reducing the case capacity slightly (Sig Fury cases have less H₂O capacity than standard brass) and increasing the charge a few grains with H4350 gets bullets going 150-300 FPS faster than standard brass, without hurting accuracy. Not all projectiles like getting curb-stomped by 75-80k PSI. Walter has found that Berger Hybrids, with their smaller bearing surface when compared to a Hornady ELDM, for example, really do well with the Sig Brass.

Well, that’s fucking interesting, man, but what does a 19-inch barrel and 25 Furys get you, Walter? Well dude, it gets you going 2870 for starters with really good dispersion and damn near 200 FPS faster than factory ammo or identical external ballistics to Walter’s 22-inch 6.5 PRC shooting 147s. At 1250 yards, they are within .08 of a mil of each other, all while being 3 inches shorter and out of a true short action, meaning that this could be shot out of a gas gun and implemented in a lot more platforms, all while having less recoil than the PRC. Color Walter impressed. The future, truly, is now.

As bullet design catches up with peoples demands for performance, we will undoubtedly see the performance of the current batch of 25s eclipsed. Walter is very excited to hear that Sierra is bringing out some 116 grain 6mm’s for example. Thats great, but give Walter a 140 class 25 that needs a 1/6.5 twist. Barrel manufactures need to move beyond the fear of faster twists and embrace the 1/6.5 or 6 twist. With these twist rates, high pressure brass and higher ballistic coefficient bullets, the magnums will be like a small block chevy getting eaten alive on the 1/4 mile by Walter’s boosted AWD Honda Element running 63 pounds of boost. If you will it, It is no dream.

The ancient Chinaman proverb goes, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This holds true for deadbeats stealing the Dude’s car, getting caught, and subsequently getting the windows of their neighbor’s brand new Corvette smashed in, and it holds true for hybrid ammo giving a size up in case of performance but at the cost of increased wear and tear and recoil.

Walter’s journey with messing around with hybrid case technology dates back two years, to when he picked up a few hundred pieces of 277 furry brass from Garand Thumbs Ranch and resized it to 308, 8.6 Blackout, 6.5 Creedmoor, 25 Creedmoor, 6 Creedmoor, and 22 Creedmoor. Through trial and error, Walter has focused his attention on the smaller Creedmoors.

Extensive testing has been done by the Army on the effects of recoil on shooters’ performance. For those interested, check out “The Effects of Recoil on Shooter Performance” by the Army Research Laboratory. It should be no surprise to any bowler that increasing recoil results in an increase in group dispersion. Anecdotally, this is confirmed by competitive shooters shooting faster, lighter projectiles outperforming other competitors shooting slower, higher BC projectiles.

High-pressure technology takes rounds that are borderline, say short .308s with heavy projectiles, and makes them unmanageable. Turning up the pressure on 8.6 Blackout Supers with heavy projectiles makes a flexible, capable weapon system and makes it something very destructive but handles like Walter’s Miata with a 145MM turbo’d LS7.

The reality is that the capabilities that high-pressure/hybrid brass will offer already exist in magnum or short-action magnum capabilities. A litany of magnum and short-action magnums get thirty-caliber bullets going in the high 2800 FPS. Some rotund, bearded hunters from Northern Idaho are getting heavy 6 mm bullets going 3500 FPS out of short-action magnums. Battle rifles, for decades have had the capablity to rip 175-grain projectiles at 2300 out of heinously short .308s. What is new is the ability to achieve these velocities with these bullets out of shorter, lighter platforms and thus only amplify the issues outlined by researchers and competitors for decades.

Recently, Walter has heard that certain DOD groups are interested in “replacing” 300 Blackout with high-pressure 338 Arc. This sounds good in theory until you try to shoot a 7-pound AR blasting a 180-grain Barnes at 2400 FPS the same way you shoot a 110 or 120 Barnes at 2400 FPS. There is no way in hell that even a very competent bowler can shoot a short, light AR just as well with a 220% increase in felt recoil. If that were the case, all Tier 1 units would be carrying around Scar 17 CQC’s and would ditch their Glock 19s for Glock 20s. If the capability exists today and people don’t use it, then they sure as shit won’t use it when you reduce the weapon system by 20 percent and increase the recoil.

If the goal of high pressure is to extend the lethality of hunters and soldiers out of smaller weapons, Walter believes, the solution will be shooting very heavy caliber projectiles at moderate velocities. Out of a large-frame gas gun or 16 inch short action, imagine a 120-130 grain 6mm projectile with a G7 BC in the .350-.380s at moderate velocities, say 2700-2900 FPS, or a 100-110 grain 224 cal. projectile with a similarly high BC at a similar velocity out of an AR15. These will extend transonic ranges far beyond what people are capable of hitting stuff with all while keeping recoil down, allowing for fast follow-up shots and being a nightmare for body armor.

That’s all for Walter’s ballistic ramblings for today.

Recently, Walter was reading a Reddit post and came across a groundbreaking discussion of the Q Fix. A few posters chimed in: It’s too expensive. Kevin is a dick. You can build a rifle for less that’s better! It’s not accurate. Admittedly, these people had never owned a Fix, and no, they had never hunted an animal, but they had watched the Brass Facts video and followed a few people on Instagram that supposedly had owned one. Walter, impressed by the account’s other posts identifying him as a Navy SEAL, a legal expert, and a financial expert, felt compelled to reevaluate his own affinity for the Q Fix and decided to look back at his own experiences with his Fixes and compare them to his rifles that these experts suggest are better, hands down.

First, Walter threw his lightest weight R700 clone on the scale to see where it weighs in at. For the detail-oriented bowlers, it’s an Aero Solus action, a 16-inch 1/7 twist 22 Creedmoor by Preferred Barrels, an XLR 4.0 Magnesium chassis with a carbon stock, a SWFA Gen 2 3-15 in a Seekins mount with a diving board, and a Silencerco Scythe TI with a TI direct thread mount. With a sling and MDT mag, it weighed in at 10 pounds 4 ounces. Walter’s 18-inch 6.5 Creedmoor with a 2.5-15 Maven in a Reptilia mount and an Airlock Industries suppressor weighs 9 pounds 6 ounces, or 14 ounces less than the R700 clone. Lop 2 inches off the Walter’s 18-inch barrel, and you’d have a rifle that was an entire pound lighter.

Then Walter pulled up his credit card statement and did an audit of how much he spent on the two rifles. Walt’s 22 creed costs something like this: $1100 for a barrel, $1300 for an XLR 4.0 magnesium chassis, $200 for a trigger, and $1000 for the action, or $3600 in total. All of these prices are conservative, and if you went with something like a Hunt 26 with a folder, you’re looking at $1600; a Coup De Gras action, $1200; and a nice Timney or Geissele Super 700 trigger, you’re looking at $400, making the price of a lightweight, folding hunting rifle go up to $4300. Looking online, Walter saw fixes for anywhere between 2500 for a used one on GunBroker to 3400 on Midway for a new one. From a price perspective, the argument that you can get better for far less is at best misleading and at worst complete horse shit.

Standing in his shop perplexed, halfway towards listing his fixes on GunBroker, Walter turned his attention to the trigger. With the exception of a Gieselle or however the fuck you spell that kraut’s name, a trigger on an R700 clone, none of the fancy R700 triggers are drop-safe, and therefore the advisable way to carry an R700 clone is in Israeli ready, i.e., nothing in the chamber. The Fix, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up to be drop safe. The trigger on the fix does not feel like a Trigger Tech Diamond, Walter won’t argue that, but Walter employs anyone that shot an animal last year to recount how the break felt on the kill shot. Can you describe it in detail, just like the ZPGMF (Zero Pussy Getting Motherfuckers) on the forums and YouTube videos? The fix is a killing shit rifle, and for that the trigger is great; it’s light, consistent, and drop-safe. Not a single clickbait YouTube video or forum post by someone that has never owned a Fix acknowledges this point.

The topic of accuracy of the fix is often criticized, and as you can guess, Walter has a few things to say about it. First of all, the barrels Walter makes for the Fix with Noveske shoot lights out. Although heavy and too long to carry in the woods, Walter’s factory 22-inch 6.5 Bartlein barrel is the most accurate 6.5 Creed barrel he’s ever owned. Comparing an 8-pound Fix to a 12-pound R700 clone is not apples to apples. With identical mechanical accuracy, a heavier rifle will group better and be easier to shoot at range. This is why PRS guns weigh 20 lbs. In the age of modern precision ammo and modern machining, rifles are pretty much all accurate, and both the rifles pictured above are far more accurate than Walter’s ability to call wind at range.

The Fix can change its barrel in 5 minutes with a T25 and a spanner wrench anywhere. An R700 clone, on the other hand, needs a barrel vise, a bench, and a torque wrench as well as a few Allen wrenches for removing the action. Once again, clickbait YouTubers and forum ninjas never acknowledge this point.

Before the goldbrickers come out of the woodwork and call Walter a shill, Walter would like to point out that he bought this rifle and scope mount used on Tacswap with his cold hard cash. While the conversation above focuses on the full-size Fix, these differences only widen, in terms of weight and performance, with the Mini Fix. To the haters, Walter would also like to remind them that his Cialis is about to kick in, so keep sucking; he’s about to cum. To open-minded bowlers, the Fix is a very unique rifle with a set of features that’s truly unmatched. It’s his favorite rifle he owns.

Walter was reading his morning paper a few weeks, whilst sipping on a cup of Folgers, and came across an article about a recent happenings in Portland Oregon, involving a disgruntled veteran shooting multiple privately owned traffic lights throughout the city. Murky photos in the article depicted a man exiting a Subaru sedan and shooting a red light and speed camera. Disgusting This aggression will not stand,” Walter said as he took another slosh of hot instant coffee.

Walter has a deep appreciation for fellow citizens that engage in voluntary beautification projects such as the one documented in said article, but he has some thoughts that should not be interpreted as advice or encouragement but merely food for thought.

Walter is not a practicing lawyer, despite having successfully defended himself twice in use of force cases whilst dressed up as Thomas Jefferson, so this topic is purely academic, but here are some observations that bowlers might find useful. The most severe of Chase Grijalva’s charges are firearms related: unlawful use of a firearm and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. If the goal is to obstruct the front lenses of cameras to the point where they can’t be used to violate people’s civil liberties, a 9mm handgun would not be Walter’s preferred tool. For the sake of conversation, Walter imagines that a .22 caliber or larger pellet gun could accomplish said objective all while not violating any firearms rules. While many municipalities have rules about any projectile-firing objects, air rifles are not federally regulated and will result in much less severe charges. Since they are not firearms, use of a moderator would drastically reduce the signature to the point where passersby would be none the wiser. The weapons charges could be further circumvented by using a non-FDA-approved IR or near IR laser in place of a physical projectile to obstruct the camera’s sensor.

The most effective urban beautification volunteers are the ones that escape the attention of administrators and corporate overlords that seem hell bent on turning our cities into some gray, banal, cut rate imitation of an Orwell novel. Although admirable in attitude, Mr. Grijalva failed to take some basic steps that could have helped extend the scope of his beautification activities.

In the age of cameras on every doorbell and at most street corners, the best way to avoid the ire of the surveillance state is to not stand out and be lost in the noise. Based on the videos, it appears that Mr Grijalva partook in his public beautification ruintines late at night, making it far easier to track his movements electronically and zero in on a suspect. It makes the most sense to Walter to focus on the trailing end of peak traffic, so either at, say, 9:30 am or 6:30 in the afternoon. Lots of traffic will still be around but there will also not be too much traffic where the urban beautifier won’t get stuck in gridlock.

By simply extending the radius of a beautifier’s proximity to the cameras, they would drastically increase the amount of data that the surveillance state would have to sort through in order to find patterns. At a bare minimum, Walter would, for the sake of conversation, offset at least 100 yards from the physical location of the traffic cameras, and ideally 200 yards. In a typical city grid, this would put them a block off a main road and on a side street. By staying off the main roads and on parallel or intersecting streets without traffic lights and cameras, a beautifier would require investigators to go house to house and request Ring camera footage from every house on the block. Without a warrant, the surveillance state would require the goodwill of citizens to fork over their footage, creating at best a very spotty patchwork of data.

Arguably most importantly, Walter imagines that selecting a very common vehicle, such as a small work van like a Ford Transit Connect, and shooting from the rear seat at stop lights or stop signs from a cracked window on a side street parallel to the busy intersection or from a tributary to the main road 1 block from the traffic camera, while a driver sits in the front seat as if making routine deliveries or work calls, would further help contribute to a pattern that would baffle philistines confused by such a beautification campaign.

Now this is just food for thought, a mere caffeine-fueled conversation amongst friends, and is completely hypothetical. Walter does not condone the beautification of privately owned surveillance infrastructure. That’s for you to decide. Walter would like to take this opportunity to point out that a preorder is now up for the Give Piece A Chance Shirt and ASS, Cash, or Brass—no one shoots for free—shirts are now live on the site and will run for a week.

Share

Breathing heavily, Walter made his way down the dried-out riverbed, peering through the tube of a PVS14. Pausing under a bank, he pulled out his phone and checked ONX Hunt for the pin—a small two-lane bridge—that the Dude had sent him five minutes earlier. He grabbed a pack from the back of the Dude’s car and ran out into the night. It was still 250 yards ahead, and Walter had to be there in five minutes. Grabbing the PTT attached to an earpiece, he whispered, “250 yards out.”

Crouching under the bank at the top of the bridge, Walter waited as he heard the Dude’s car approach, squeaky idler pulley and all, towards the bridge.

“Dude, throw the ringer out of the passenger-side window into the riverbed. Confirm if understood.”

“Yah yah, Walter, I’ll make sure the ringer lands in the riverbed, not on the bridge,” a distant and annoyed voice replied.

“Thank you, Dude. Godspeed.”

With a thud, the ringer landed on the sandy riverbed, about 5 yards from where Walter was perched. That was the hard part, Walter thought to himself—now comes the easy part. From his back, Walter pulled a short 300 blackout PDW, racked the charging handle, made sure the red dot was on, and popped on his Peltors. In the distance, the Dude’s car droned off and was shortly replaced by the chorus of two-stroke dirt bikes.

“They must have been watching from the ridge—fucking amateurs.”

Within a minute, the bikes were on top of the bridge, and flashlights were searching the riverbed for the suitcase. With the heightened hearing of the Peltors, Walter counted the distinct melody of three bikes circling around on the bridge.

“Alright, Dude, it’s about to get loud,” Walter whispered into the mic. “I need you here in one and a half minutes.” Confident that the kidnappers wouldn’t hear his voice over the din of their two-strokes.

As the flashlights settled on the ringer lying on its side on the sandy riverbed, a thick German accent cut through the noise of the idling bikes. “I see it. I think I can get the bike down and grab it.”

“Why don’t you just walk down there and grab it?”

“Nein, it will be fine.”

Crouching low on the uphill side of the riverbank under the bridge, Walter grabbed a flashbang from a belt-mounted pouch, pulled the pin, and held it in his left hand while waiting.

“One mike,” Walter whispered into the PTT.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Walter, don’t shoot anyone!”

As the bagman rolled his bike down the bank and into the riverbed, Walter alley-ooped the banger under the handrail and onto the middle of the bridge. Switching the PDW to fire, Walter took aim at the transmission of the bike and started firing. The 8-inch 300 blackout belched flames and echoed out from under the bridge as the flashbang went off. Just as Walter expected—unconditioned to the sound of live fire and explosions—the two riders on top of the bridge gunned it and left their fearless leader in the riverbed to fend for himself. He too tried to flee, but a half-dozen Barnes 120s into the transmission of his bike left it locked in neutral and leaking oil like grease from the bottom of a day-old In-N-Out bag.

In an instant, Walter was on him, slamming him with his extended left hand hard into the shoulder blades and sending him flying off the bike to the ground. Stunned and bleeding from some spall of the disintegrating transmission, Walter had his rifle slung and all his weight on his knee in the crux of the Kraut’s neck, between his shoulders and helmet. Fishing flex cuffs from a belt-mounted pouch, Walter cuffed the rider’s wrists. As the anti-Semite writhed and screamed, Walter lifted the helmet off the ground with his foot and ripped an 18-inch section of gaffer tape from a small roll hanging from his belt, wrapping it around the helmet and goggles.

“The beer is in the glass, I repeat, the beer is in the glass!” Walter said as he stood the Kraut up and started walking him up the bank and to the road. “I need you here now! Now!”

The Dude’s ‘73 Ford Torino screeched to a stop, headlights out at the end of the bridge, as Walter and the Kraut scrambled over the shoulder onto the road. The Dude watched in shock as Walter marched past, grinning ear to ear, leading his prize by the muzzle of his 300 blackout PDW. Popping open the trunk, Walter shoved the screaming and bleeding perp into it.

“Move over, Dude, I’m driving,” Walter announced, giving one final scan in the direction where the two other Krauts had fled before sliding into the bench seat and taking the wheel.

Kevin and Ethan from Q solved the problem of the ideal PDW some 15 years ago with the 300 blackout short AR-15. Despite the reality that supersonic 300 blackout is really where the PDW shines, most bowlers with short 300 Blackouts almost exclusively shoot subs, due to economics and the sheer fun of clanging steel quietly. For a decade, SOF forces have used 300 blackout supers as their go-to round for CQB weapons.

The implementation and acceptance of hybrid brass will only accelerate the move away from 5.56 and towards 300 blackout for practical use at ranges inside of 300 yards for a few reasons. The most efficient transfer of the chemical potential energy of gunpowder into the kinetic energy of a projectile out of a small barrel, all while maintaining reasonable pressure levels, will always favor increasing bore diameter. Barrel life is a function of dissipating heat into a barrel, with a specific heat of 416 being a constant and the chief variables being the amount of heat behind the bullet and the amount of surface area where that heat is being transferred. Hot 300 blackout will have better barrel life and more efficient velocities out of a short barrel than a hot 556.

Here's a video of Garand Thumb engaging a target at 650 yards with a Sig Rattler and 120 hot loads.

Out of Walter’s 7.94 Noveske barrel, the 120 HOTLOAD is doing around 2200 FPS. With an expansion window of 1400 FPS for the Barnes 120, this extends Walter’s PDW performance window to 400 yards. For comparison, a 10.5 556 assaulters rifle shooting 77 TMKs at 2450 has an expansion window of 1900 FPS, extending the performance distance to around 250 yards. That’s a 60% increase in range with a 2.5-inch shorter barrel.

Walter is a firm believer in the idea that despite the ballistics and performance of 6 ARC, a 300 Blackout rifle is the most practical and functional rifle that a bowler can have. Here are some size and weight comparisons to popular 9mm PDW options a TP9 and a Mp5SD. For the sake of conversation, here are two ideas for potential 300 blackout PDWS. The first is a 7.94 Noveske Diplomat with a Law Folder. It weighs in at 8 pounds 12 ounces with a light, laser, K suppressor, and a full mag. This is a known quantity and a very handy package. The other 300 blackout PDW is an A3 bullpup chassis running off of a milspec AR15 lower with an 8.5-inch 1/8 twist 300 blackout Jakl upper. With a can, modlite, an Eotech, and a full 20-round mag, it weighs damn near 10 pounds and has an overall length of 18 inches without the can and 22 inches with it. Yes, that’s right, it’s shorter than a P90.

Walter is surprised how much he likes the bastard child A3 bullpup AR. The jackal upper runs everything, and the gas system is easy to adjust. It’s not quite an AK, but that’s not what a PDW is supposed to be, damn it! The trigger, an AR-15 trigger with a linkage, is the best bullpup Walter has messed with. It’s shockingly compact and surprisingly easy to run. For references, it’s the same length as an 8-inch AR with a law folder. Does that really matter? Well, if concealment matters to you, the bullpup is clearly better. With that said, Walter would rather shoot and carry an AR because of his familiarity with the platform and the weight savings. If it weighed 8 pounds with an optic, it would be a no-brainer.

To Walter, the whole damn point of a bullpup is compact overall length. Walter is shocked that more bowlers and firearm manufacturers haven’t explored the 300 blackout PDW bullpup. This is a good start, but Walter hopes someone takes it further.

Regardless of the flavor, Walter believes that every bowler should have a short 300 blackout PDW. Ideally something with a 6-8 inch barrel with a 1/5 twist. With the right ammo, the lethality window is truly impressive and far beyond the ranges that most bowlers would ever need, even in a Red Dawn scenario. If you will it, it is no dream!

Performance, Lightweight, and Cheap. Pick two. These are the confines of modern nerddom that apply to pretty much all technical gear: cars, backpacking gear, and of course, our beloved pastime of bowling.

For the last few years, Walter’s energy has been focused on living in a world with less compromise, and he hasn’t been concerned with the cheap part of the equation. He’s spent more time shooting the Q Fix than any other platform and loves them dearly. New Barrels from Noveske are in the pipeline, 6 Creed barrels are coming as soon as the reamers arrive in Grants Pass, and 6 ARC is coming soon after that. Lots of bowlers eager to extend their range beyond the trash pile mag dump have been asking Walter for recommendations. Walter thought it would be good to revisit the concept of the Budget Bowler in 2026. There are cheaper ways to get hits, but the setups discussed here are a great baseline for a bowler looking for delayed gratification and distant hits.

The budget bowler should be accurate, reliable, and robust— all with an eye toward making it as reasonably priced as possible so that bowlers can spend their time burning ammo through the barrels. The caliber should be something relatively easy to find ammo for, ballistically capable of hitting steel targets past 1,000 yards and shooting animals around 600 yards.

The scope needs sufficient glass clarity to identify and shoot targets in transitional lighting conditions, track reliably, and most importantly, hold zero. If a bowler can’t trust their budget scope to hold zero— bouncing around in the backseat or taking a spill on a stalk— then it has no business on your rifle.

This fall, Walter bought a Tikka in 6.5 Creedmoor and dusted off his 6.5 PRC Bergara, setting them up as similarly as possible. The Tikka has a 20-inch barrel, and the Bergara has a 24-inch barrel. On the flat range, both rifles are tack drivers, printing 10-round groups at around an inch.

For ammo, Walter loaded 130 TMKs in both 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5 PRC. Out of the Tikka, they chronoed and verified at 2,775 FPS. Out of the Bergara, with 4 inches more barrel length, the 130s reached around 3,070 FPS. Accuracy and velocity were nearly identical.

Walter wanted to try two different options from SWFA and see which he preferred. On the Tikka, he used the 10x with the simple mil reticle, and on the Bergara, he went with the 3-15x with the Christmas Tree mil reticle. Both are on the lighter side of scope weight and are the most affordable options. They are made in the same factory as more high-end scopes like Nightforce but have stripped-down features, no marketing budget, and dated looks— yet they just plain work.

Before anyone mentions ARKEN— please spare us. They don’t hold zero and are little more than range toys that are heavily promoted by gun tubers for a fat paycheck. No one makes money selling SWFA, so you don’t hear much about them, but they are great.

(All of these rifles and scopes were purchased with Walter’s cold, hard cash. If you have a rifle without your homework, you a looser and a fool, head to the webstore and get yours here. )

Cheap rifles often have shitty stocks, and corners can be cut, but there’s no avoiding this. Walter prefers having a vertical grip, a place to mount a tripod, an adjustable comb, and a way to raise the butt pad above the bore.

Walter’s favorite budget stock is the KRG Bravo or Echo. The Echo is a slimmer version of the Bravo, available only for the Tikka T3x and compatible with factory mags. The KRG accessories are interchangeable between both the Bravo and Echo. Walter recommends getting the adjustable butt pad so a bowler can raise it to clear the bore, a short Arca rail for mounting a tripod close to the magwell, and a small piece of 1913 rail as far forward as possible for use with a bipod. It’s not light, but the ergonomics are excellent, and it’s budget-friendly.

Last weekend, Walter and MEM Projects met in the deserts of southeastern Oregon to do some bowling at just under 600 yards on a reduced C zone target. Walter and Mike shot from various positions with both setups. Hits were made, and brass was lost in the sagebrush. Both rifles were a joy to shoot, and Walter would be happy to take either anywhere.

The consensus build for the ideal budget bowler would be: the Tikka action, with the Bergara trigger, the SWFA 3-15 scope with the Christmas Tree reticle, and the 6.5 PRC chamber. Both Walter and Mike were able to hit the target more consistently with the 130 TMKs going 3,070 FPS, despite the added heat and recoil, and they shared an almost identical cone of fire.

As far as Walter can tell, the additional 300 FPS of velocity helps smooth out environmental differences when shooting across canyons and accounts for a 2.6 milliradian hold at 572 yards, compared to a 3.5 milliradian hold. Changes in wind and other environmental factors seemed less impactful. Today, this level of performance is available through a magnum bolt face in a short action with the 6.5 PRC, but tomorrow it may be available with hybrid brass. Sure, a bowler will pay for it in barrel life, but honestly, who cares? The only people complaining about barrel life are those who have never shot out a barrel in their life. In the world of unknown distances, moving animals after initial ranging, and electro-optical failures, a flatter trajectory means more hits.

Either of these rifles is a great option and costs about the same. Does a bowler want to stick with a R700 clone ecosystem or go with a Tikka? The Tikka offers the ability to change calibers with the same action up to 28 Nosler, while the Bergara allows use of R700 rings, stocks, and triggers. With a good barrel vice and a torch, a bowler can swap the factory Tikka barrel with another factory barrel or a pre-fit in calibers like 6 Creedmoor. A Bergara, however, needs to be sent to a gunsmith for barrel replacement.

If you want performance with a reasonable weight and cost, one of these setups will run around $2,000 plus a suppressor of your choice. With a rifle like this is the cheapest combination of parts that Walter would feel very comfortable assuring that the misses were because of pilot error, not equipment. “If you will it, it is no dream!”

Each year, Walter schedules his annual hip replacement, so that he can avoid Shot Show. Instead, the more able-bodied member of Sobchak Security LLC, @demolitiondonny, heads off to Las Vegas and the seemingly endless halls of the convention center, where, as far as Walter can tell, companies attempt to all sell the same shit, but with slightly different markings. From his reclining bed, fueled by an IV of Miller Highlife, Red Dawn plays on repeat in the background. As he floats in and out of a pain induced daze, Walter sends Donny a string of barely cohesive text messages.

“Did you see Nuntfancy? Tell him he owes me another run at Operation Red Skies. Tell him that once my hip is better, I’m going to go down there and let him and Tactical Doodle ride around in the sidecar of my Honda.”

"Are all those juiced-up Navy Seals really 5'4? If you see them, tell them I can't wait to hear them go on another podcast to tell the same story about going to Mexico and taking some jungle drugs, in between doing ad reads for boner gum and hucking coffee that tastes like motor oil from my f350."

“Give Kyle Rightenhouse a wet willy for me...”

In all reality, each year, Shot Show seems to showcase another take on a 2011 that will never be drop safe, another copy for AR180 packaged with a semi-monolithic rail system that doesn’t require a buffer tube, another take on a modular handgun with a fire control unit, another slight, incremental improvement on the AR15, a small tweak of the Remington 700 bolt action, and yet another space age bullpup with a trigger like the one sponge in a Frat House kitchen and that double feeds harder than Riley Reid.

“Oh great, another optics company reached into the parts bin and pulled out a scope with a zoom range, turret configuration, and reticle options that seemingly is always just one variable away from what we all really want, all at a price that’s perfectly situated to not compete with a decade-old scope they already have in their line.”

“Just wait until next year; you’ll be able to get it in, ‘skid mark on my dirty undies tan.’” Walter can’t wait...

Small arms development has reached an asymptote of performance that’s truly impressive. Most bolt guns over 600 are more accurate than full custom rifles from decades ago. AR15’s from quality places like Noveske are both mind boggling accurate and reliable. However, year to year, things don’t look that different. With few exceptions, materials haven’t really changed in decades, designs are derivative of decades old designs and most innovation happens at the speed of the next military solicitation. The next big leaps in small arms will come with the widespread adoption and implementation of high-pressure brass. This will require different manufacturing techniques and space-age materials. All of this will require substantial investments and have teething pains. It’s most likely years away and will likely be a rolling change, not an overnight one.

There are exceptions to Walter’s statements, but true innovation requires lots of material and financial investment that most companies are not willing to do. Shell Shock is changing things with their casings. Walter will talk about advances in ammo tech soon, in another post. Silencer technology is growing by leaps and bounds thanks to 3rd printers and new materials and the change in tax stamps. Q is investing in the development of new calibers and weapons platforms like the Fix and Boombox. The Fix is a sizable advancement in the bolt gun, and don’t let some model train autist that compares it to the Ruger American tells you otherwise; listen to Ian McCollum. That man knows a thing or two about guns. By and large, weapons systems are very similar to where they were a decade ago. Look up a video of Garand Thumb from a decade ago, and with the exception of his 11.5 556 gas gun having a key mod rail, it’s functionally and visually largely identical to what we have today.

One area of very rapid innovation is electro optics like thermals and laser rangefinders. Comparing the tech that’s coming out this year to what it was like a decade ago is astounding. The stuff a bowler can buy for 5 grand now would embarrass military tech that cost 5x as much as it did 10 years ago. A 600 LRF from Arken, the latest greatest from Iray/Nocpix, the tech is getting truly insane at a price that even Walter can afford on his fixed income. An unfortunate reality is that what you buy today will be out of date in three years but will be functional for at least five. Buy the ticket, take the ride!

If a bowler doesn’t have one of these systems, buy the latest greatest. Otherwise invest in upgrading what you already have. Buy a new bolt and barrel for your AR. Buy a new barrel for your bolt gun. Remember, there are no shortcuts to making good barrels. Defy the desire to buy the latest wizbang pistol and shoot the Glock you already have. Buy a box of ammo for your 6.5 Creedmoor and put some energy into learning how to maximize that rifle’s performance. Invest in the future of hybrid brass, but be prepared to go through components faster. This isn’t the advice that most bowlers, always looking for the next thing to buy, want to hear, but it’s the truth.

For the people ecstatic about the prospects of buying a 6000 MSRP 1-10 scope, Walter has a few words of advice: First, with a paper towel, dude wipe, sock, or the sleeve of your shirt, wipe the remaining British Ranger Regiment semen off of your chin. Second, remove your earpod from your ear that pipes groupthink from YouTube into your brain. Third, remember that all 1-10s are a basket of compromises akin to a Subaru Baja: they are bad cars and shitty trucks. Optically they are garbage. At low magnifications, a red dot will always be better. At 10 power, they are neutered and can’t do the things Walter wants, like dial elevation with a zero- stop turret and adjust parallax. At $1200, a Vudu 1-10 is an, albeit, tempting option, but at 6000 MSRP, it’s laughable.

Let Walter provide you with an alternative: 10x magnification is a great do-it-all scope. There’s a reason that for decades sniper rifles used 10x scopes. Optic manufacturers have these figured out, and at 19.7 ounces, SWFA sells a great scope with a zero stop, adjustable parallax, and a Mil Christmas tree reticle. These scopes trace their lineage back to Tasco 10x scopes used by the US military. They are made in the same Japanese factory as most of the high-end scopes like Vortex, Nightforce, and Eeotech. They are rated up to 50 BMG and have been proven very reliable by shooters for decades. Most serious bowlers always run a red dot in conjunction with their 1-10. Hell, even the official Redcoat optic package includes a 12 o’clock-mounted red dot, so why not skip that altogether? With a red capable scope mount like a Reptilia or Zero Gravity, and either an RMR or a Holosun, and scope caps, a bowler’s total optic package weighs in at less than a 1-10 Razor and a mount. This set up also allows the bowler to run two different zeros, a 100 yard zero on the 10x and a max point blank zero on the red dot. The fanatic members of Heaven’s Gate, AKA Rokslide forum members, have extensively drop tested SWFA, and they pass with flying colors. Best of all, these scopes cost around $350-375 depending on what reticle you go with. Fully equipped as pictured above, a bowler will cost a substantial fraction of the cost of a Redcoat Vortex, a Razor, or whatever bullshit is launched at the Shot Show.

This setup is incredibly versatile on a gas gun or lightweight bolt gun like a Fix or Minifix; however, Walter has been shooting it on a precision rifle for the last few months in a different configuration and has had great results. With all the money and weight Walter saved with the SWFA 10X, Walter went out and bought a Fire4000 and a diving board mount and slapped it on Walter’s 25 Creedmoor Tikka. As pictured, this optics setup weighs x ounces and costs less than the Nightforce NX8 2.5-20. With built-in Applied Ballistics, decent Japanese glass, turrets that track, and a scope that holds zero in any situation, Walter has been able to engage targets out to 1600 yards. In a situation where seconds count, this optics setup will run circles around any cool guy scope. Range, hold in the reticle, and let it rip, or if you have the time, dial and engage.

“Yah, but Walter, it looks like the pellet gun scope I used to sneak into Mrs. Bashum’s garden and shoot starlings off the feeders with. Also, what’s up with those turrets?”

There is no getting around the fact that this scope is an ugly duckling, but as bowlers we must come to terms with the very nature of our motivations. Are we trying to get strikes and gutters, or are we trying to impress some neckbeard we will never meet and if we ever do, certainly not get along with, by posting photos of our gun on Instagram or Reddit?

Walter has been meaning to do this write-up for almost a year now, but each time he thinks he has it figured out, Walter learns another tidbit about hot rodding 277 furry brass. “The more you learn, the less you know” really does apply to reloading...

Walter’s journey to jamming more powder and bullets into brass originally destined for machine guns began on a rainy late winter day in 2024, when he picked up a few hundred pieces of once-fired demo brass off the ground from Garand Thumbs’ ranch. The muddy rounds made their way back to Walter’s reloading station, where they sat dormant for a few months before he looked over at a 308 and realized how easily they would convert to 308. At the time, Walter was deep in the depths of the initial testing for the NAS3 cases for 300 blackout, so he had a bunch of lightweight 30 cal projectiles, and the first batch of converted 277-308 brass seasoned Walter’s 308 Ruger to the tune of solid coppers doing over 3k fps with a bunch of Varget and a light crunch. These shot surprisingly well, but at the time, Walter was focused on extending supersonic ranges and giving the 308 legs in hunting scenarios at further ranges. Walter ordered up a slew of high BC, 30 cal bullets and eventually settled on the 212 ELDX, seated them out as far as would fit in an ACIS mag, and loaded them up with as much Varget as would fit. For the next few months, Walter shot hundreds of rounds of this concoction, testing its range out to a mile, and eventually shot a cow elk at 760 yards with it in Colorado. For bowlers interested in dipping their feet into hot rodding, 277 Furry Brass and 308 are great starts. From Walter’s experience, it’s as easy as bumping the shoulder back a few thousandths and hitting it once with a full-length-size die. Bowlers won’t even have to trim in most instances. Use NATO primers, and start with Varget. This is the easy button.

From there things get a lot more complicated; bowlers, at minimum, will need an annealer, a case trimmer, and in some instances a setup to ream out the necks or neck turn. Walter has spent hundreds of hours fucking around with this process and for a while was hesitant to talk about it out of fear that some deadbeats, aka the same deadbeats that copied Walter’s 300 Blackout loadings verbatim and now cut checks to influencers to promote said loadings, will copy Walter’s work here and sell it. Fuck them; the bowlers should know and be maximizing their performance, and there’s no time like winter to buy some 277 furry brass from American Reloading and start tinkering.

Here are some lessons learned in no specific order:

In general, bowlers can expect to see around a 10% increase in velocity compared to standard brass with a given projectile. With 185’ CX from Hornady in converted Sig Fury brass, Walter saw around a 200 FPS advantage compared to Alpha brass in 8.6 Blackout. With a 105 Berger, Walter saw a 300 FPS jump from standard brass in 6 Creedmoor.

Full-length sizing Dice are your friend. Experiment with bumping the shoulder to the point where the cases chamber. To the uninitiated, this means tightening the sizing die down.

All Sig Fury brass is not created equal. After really struggling to get a batch of ammo to shoot consistently, Walter started weighing his brass and found 24% variations in brass weight. This undoubtedly impacts internal volume to the point where it’s not even worth burning the components. With this in mind, the first thing Walter does when he opens a batch of seconds from American Reloading is weight sort by 1 grain. Walter sorts the brass, keeping them for conversion to different calibers, and chucks the extreme outliers.

Lube is not necessarily our friend when it comes to resizing. Excessive case lube will foul a bowler’s dies and fuck up shoulders. Walter’s recipe to size 277 Furry Brass down to the Creedmoors skips lube and annealing on the first pass. When Walter does use lube, after the initial resizing, Walter likes the Hornady One Shot case lube.

Annealing is vital to extending brass life. Once a bowler weathers the storm and emerges on the other side of case conversion with a handful of pieces of brass in that chamber, a bowler must honor these pieces by extending their life as long as possible. With the stainless casehead, bowlers don’t have to worry about blowing out primer pockets. Converted Sig Furry brass dies because of cracked case necks, and the best way to extend the inevitable is to anneal after every firing.

Whatever your process ends up being, be consistent. The number one thing a bowler can do to make great shooting ammo is be consistent with their case prep. Bowlers should do their case conversions in lots of 50. Do everything exactly the same.

The seconds Sig Furry brass from American Reloading is cheap. A bowler is going to lose brass in the conversion process, and lots of it won’t be the right weight for a desired caliber. If a bowler wants 100 pieces of 6 creed brass, plan on starting with 400 pieces of brass. Some shoulders will crumble, and some pieces won’t be the right weight. Not all those other 300 pieces will end up in the trash; most will be perfect for converting to another caliber, but do not buy 100 pieces of brass assuming you’ll have 100 pieces for bowling.

Unlike the NAS3 technology brass that increases velocities largely by increasing internal volume, converted 277 brass increases velocity by holding more pressure. The case capacity, i.e., the amount of water that fits in a piece of brass, is less than standard brass. Reloading manuals are not going to have load data for 70-80K psi hot loads. Different powders work best for hotload applications. Walter recommends using Quickload to get a baseline. The name of the game is starting low and working up to a load. With thousands of rounds of hotloads under his belt, Walter has yet to blow up a piece of brass or lock up an action with Sig Fury Brass. It can handle more than a bowler is going to throw at it unless you load 308 with H110.

Hot Rodding Sig Furry Brass works best with extruded powders in cartridges that don’t have full case capacity at Sammi Loadings; otherwise, use ball powders. Take for example 22 Creedmoor and 6 Creedmoor; with H4350, these loadings are not at 100% case fill at max loadings due to the fact that they are necked down 6.5 Creedmoor and therefore have increased case capacity compared to their parent cartridge and work great by simply adding more H4350. 6.5 Creedmoor, on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to be very efficient and work well with H4350, and performance falls apart when you add a few extra grains of H4350 and push send. Walter has yet to really crack the code on 6.5 Creedmoor with the Sig Brass but believes the right direction is ball powders like Staball 6.5 or RL26.

Walter likes to step down calibers when resizing. Hypothetically, if Walter wants to get a 22 Creedmoor case, Walter will start by going to 6.5 Creedmoor with a full-length sizing die, trim to length, and then anneal. Then 25 Creedmoor with a full-length sizing die, trim, and anneal; then 6 Creedmoor with a full-length sizing die, trim, and anneal; and then finally 22 Creedmoor with a full-length sizing die, trim, and anneal. If this sounds like a pain in the ass, it certainly is, but by stepping down and trimming a bowler, you are removing neck material to the point where neck trimming isn’t necessary and avoiding the donut at the base of the ogive that interferes with chambering.

The only real signs of pressure a bowler will see are on the primers. Pull back when you see crazy cratering. A little is fine.

From Walter’s experience, Walter has had the best results in terms of velocity gain and accuracy with 8.6 Blackout Supers, 308, and 6 Creedmoor. If Walter had unlimited time and barrels, he would experiment with 308 parent cartridges like 243, 7-08, and 260 Remington. These should be far easier to convert to than the Creedmoors because you’re not bumping the shoulder back. Also, Walter would blow these out to a 40-degree shoulder. Damn, those would be smoking fast.

With hunting season over, NLR hunter months away, and extended periods of darkness on the horizon, now is a great time to buy some 277 Brass from American Reloading and start tinkering. The performance gains are substantial if bowlers are willing to tinker. This write-up will get bowlers heading in the right direction. If you will it, it is no dream!

Cold weather has descended onto the mountains Malibu. Snow dots the tops of peaks, waves have returned to Leo Carrillo, Gas Chambers and of course Zeros, and Walter is longing to escape the winter and head to South East Asia. Down there, a mere helicopters ride from areas where Walter spent nights on watch, a fixed income goes a long way.

Pictured above is Walter jumping a rented Jeep JK in Java Indonesia in the winter of 2014. To help grease the gears of travel and give Walter some pocket money, Walter is running a 25% sale on everything in stock on the website with the code nothingisfucked and free shipping over $50. Pick up a shirt, some ranging gear, some homework, or even a coffee mug to show people that you mean business while enjoying your morning dose of caffeine. The Dude Abides!

If Walter could have one rifle for hunting and general bowling, it would be a 12.5 inch 300 blackout Mini Fix with a 1/5 twist. Despite Walter’s proclivity for long range bowling, the reality is the vast majority of hunting west of the Mississippi, let alone east of it, happens within 300 yards.

With hybrid brass, such as the 120 Grain HotLoads that Walter will soon be selling, you have external ballistics that match 6.5 Grendel. They are effective on game out to 400 yards and capable of hitting reduced c zone steel out past 900 yards consistently. With subsonic ammo like the 188 Discreet Selous expanders, Walter would hunt any animal in North America up to and Including elk out to 200 yards. With bulk 220 grain subs, shooting out past 200 yards on small targets is so fun that it will make you smile like a middle school boy egging cars. Combine the ballistic performance with the smallest, lightest and ergonomic bolt action rifle made and you have something that truly needs to be experienced to fully appreciate.

Walter ringing the reduced c zone at 650 yards with 120 Hotloads.

Walter shooting the same pig twice at 270 yards with the 188 Discreet filmed through the Hybrid H75R.

Here are some configurations that Walter likes to set up. If Walter is moving fast and will be shooting supers only and will only be taking a few shots and isnt concerned with being TV quite, Walter runs a Silencer CO omega 9k. It’s about as small as suppressors get and it takes the bite off the hotloads. When Walter doesnt know if he will be running subs and supers and wants to be as light weight as possible, Walter prefers running direct thread and the weight of the Silencer Co Scythe TI. Another great option is the OG Trash panda. As far as optics, Walter really likes having a scope with good turrets, especially when shooting the subs. The mk5hd 2-10 with the new reticle really shines in an application like this. For night time bowling, the Iray/ Nocpix Hybrid H75R is incredibly impressive and capable. Laser range finders really shine with subs and in Walter’s experience, double if not triple the effective range. The Hybrid 75R has one built in and during the day, Walter has been really impressed with running the Fire 4000 for both subs and supers. Walter likes running either the 11 inch handguard or the factory 7 inch. A bowler can save a little weight with the 7 inch or gain the ability to run a bipod out further on the handguard with the 11 INCH.

For the last year, Walter has tested various prototype Noveske 300 blackout barrels on hunting trips from South Africa, to Oklahoma and the Rocky Mountains of the American west. With supers, he shot a large Fallow Deer at 386 yards, it went 50 yards. With subs, he shot a slew of pigs at ranges out to 271 yards, dropping them in their tracks with the right placement. In the Rockies, with the 188 Discreet Selous, Walter shot a cow elk at 120 yards. She went 25 yards and the wound track looked like it was from a magnum rifle. Not once did he feel underguned.

A fallow deer taken at 380 yards with one shot.

A cow elk’s heart after being shot at 120 yards with the Discreet 188.

An option for every occasion.

In Walter’s opinion, 12.5 inch supersonic 300 blackout outperforms the same barrel lengths in all other small frame calibers on game inside of 400 yards. The 1/5 barrel twist ensures rapid bullet expansion down to velocities well below that of 1/7 twist barrels. Rifle selection, like anything is game of compromises, and this barrel is the ideal blend of velocity, length, weight and size that will allow bowlers to have truly a 95% solution for hunting needs in the smallest and lightest package available. If Walter had to leave tomorrow on a backpack hunt in the Rockies for Mule Deer, bear in the Cascades, Pigs in Texas or even an elk in the woods of Washington, Walter would feel very confident grabbing his Minifix with the 12.5 Noveske barrel. 100 of them are now available on Noveske’s Site. If you will it, it is no dream!