Reloading .303 British : Effect of Primer Selection on Muzzle Velocity

This gave me the opportunity to check parallax, and it is definitely parallax free at that distance. I can detect a slight amount of parallax error at 100 yds, perhaps 1 MOA at most at the extreme edge of the view thru the eyepiece. 

I’m quite relieved to see this, worried the scope was nackered.

My Dad made that vice in High School, about 1947. He made the sand casting molds too and had a local foundry pour them. Wished he had stamped his name and date into the base. 

I’m beginning to suspect I’m “over cleaning” this barrel. The grooves are somewhat pitted, and perhaps it needs some carbon build up to smooth it out and settle the barrel vibrations down.  This might reduce bullet velocity variations too.   For years, my routine has been Hoppes 9, but I recently changed to C4 which is taking the bore down to bare steel every time. Looking back thru the target plots, groups opened up after the first time cleaning down to bare steel.  Although such a cleaning routine works on new match grade barrels, perhaps not so on old pitted service grade barrels. 

This cleaning is with just Hoppes, and I’ll see how it shoots next time out.