We’re well into our second week displaying and selling product during the National Rifle and Pistol Matches at Camp Perry, OH.  These prestigious matches have been labeled as “The World Series of the Shooting Sports” by many, pooling today’s top talent from our military, law enforcement, and civilian communities. This is our second year opening our Sinclair store for the “First Shot Ceremony”, which took place on Monday, July 13th. It’s been a real pleasure seeing all of our friends and many familiar faces from last year.

The first week of competition are the National Pistol Championships – with 681 shooters aiming for the title.  The National Champion is determined after shooting three stages:  .22 Caliber, Center fire, and .45 Caliber stages.  The high aggregate, or combined total of the three stages, is crowned the champion. After completing each of the three required stages, the final results are as follows:

These top three finishers are also recognized below for winning honors in their other prospective categories as well.  Some of the other category champions are as follows:

Congratulations to each of the 2009 National Pistol Champions.  Click here for a complete listing of the National Pistol Championship results.

This week (July 23-25th), the Small Bore 3-Position Rifle segment of the National Rifle and Pistol Championships begins.  Small Bore 3-Position Rifle course of fire is 20 shots, fired with .22 rifles, at 50 meters in each position (prone, standing, and kneeling).  Categories for “Metallic Sights” or “Any Sight” (metallic or telescopic sights allowed) are fired in a four-man team configuration, with team and individual honors being recognized.   Good luck to all who are competing this week…!!!

Fellow Shooters,

If you just read the previous post, we are already out of the Remington 7-1/2 small rifle primers that we received earlier this morning. They are already gone. We’ll let you know when we get some more.

Dear Fellow Shooters,

Just a product update from Sinclair International, Inc.  for our blog readers. We received a small shipment of Remington 7-1/2 small rifle primers in today. They are going fast so if you need small rifle primers or know someone who does – order now. Visit our website at sinclairintl.com to check availability or call 1-800-717-8211. Please limit yourself to 5,000 primers since many of your fellow shooters are without any primers at the present time. We’ll add another post when these primers are gone.

The Staff at Sinclair

Wow, summer is flying by fast! This week we opened up our commercial store for the NRA National Rifle & Pistol Championships at Camp Perry, Ohio. If you are looking for a relaxing one-day or overnight trip, the National Matches are a great place to visit – even for those not competing. Take a Saturday and visit the National Matches (check the NRA website for a complete shooting schedule). We’ll have our store open 7 days a week from now until August 15th (10am to 6pm). We’d love to have you stop by.

One of our reloading techs, Rod Green, will be at the Varmint Hunter Jamboree in Pierre, South Dakota at the end of the month (July 28-31). Rod will be on hand to answer questions, demonstrate some new products, and of course do a little shooting. He’ll be sharing a booth with Marc D’Aguanno of Brownell’s. If you are in the area, look them up and say hello.

Thanks to all of you that have been using our blog. Some real good comments have been posted. Any of you can post content to the blog; we review it, of course, for appropriateness. The blog is a good place to post info on matches, hunting trips, or information on a new product you want the other readers to know about. If you need a direct answer from Sinclair regarding availability (like primers) or you have a technical question about one of our products, it is quicker to use our contact e-mail address at support@sinclairintl.com. The blog is a little harder for our customer service people to access for direct questions. We appreciate your help.

We are starting to see some hopeful signs that the component manufacturers are beginning to catch up a bit (still no real definitive word on primers). A few bullets have been coming in, some brass has came in that we haven’t seen in awhile, and we’ve been getting a little powder too.

Let’s all hope that the craziness around components soon diminishes so we can enjoy more time shooting instead of hunting for product. See you at the range.

Good Shooting,

Bill Gravatt
President – Sinclair International, Inc.

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Folks, we’ve received another shipment of the Sellier & Bellot primers this morning. There are both Large and Small Rifle primers currently in stock. Call our 800 line @ 800-717-8211 or order from our website to get your primers before it’s too late.

These shipments have typically lasted about a week before inventory is exhausted. We’re requesting that customers, again, respect our one case (5000 primers) limit per purchase. Part numbers are #25-8000 for the Small Rifle primers, and #25-8100 for the Large Rifle primers.

There’s very little hope in sight from the other primer manufacturers at this point. We’ve received a handful of Remington and Winchester primers here and there. Federal and CCI have been nearly non-existent for 15 months now.

We realize how the primer supply has already changed some of our customers summer planning. Just the other day we heard one customer exclaim “If I choose to go on the prairie dog trip we have every July, I might not have enough primers for fall competition.” Hopefully, we can all get our hands on enough primers to get us through the demand surge we’re experiencing.

We’ll do our best to continue to update each of you as we receive more primer shipments.

Staff @ Sinclair

These have been one of the few primers that have been trickling in a little more regularly than the others.

The Hawkeye Borescope is an incredible piece of gear for shooters and gunsmiths. This precision instrument allows you to closely examine the inside of your rifle, shotgun, or handgun barrel with outstanding clarity and clear magnification.

We have represented Gradient Lens for years and have always been enthusiastic about the quality of their product, workmanship, and customer service. Their sales manager (Ken) regularly attends competitions with us and never fails to enlighten crowds by inviting them to look at their barrels with one of the “Hawkeye” borescopes. He’ll be at the NRA National Matches (Camp Perry, Ohio) for a few days (Aug 8-9th) examining shooter’s competition guns and entering them each in a raffle for a free Hawkeye Borescope.  Bring your gun to the Sinclair store (Building 1023C) and see Ken. The winner will be announced during the NRA Awards Ceremony on August 14th.

The Hawkeye Borescope comes in several models but the two most popular models have been the 17” Shooter’s Edition Kit and the 17” Shooter’s Edition “Plus” Kit. The standard kit includes a 17” borescope with a focusing eyepiece, a 90º mirror for looking directly into the lands and grooves, a light source for barrel illumination, and a custom fitted hard case for storage and transportation. The “Plus” kit adds a 90º eyepiece for even more comfortable viewing. With either kit, you can look directly forward into the bore or utilize the 90º mirror adapter to look sideways into the lands and grooves. The 90º mirror can be rotated in the barrel giving the user a 360º view of any particular point in the barrel.

You can use your Hawkeye Borescope to examine fouling, the smoothness of a new bore, the quality of the chamber, the effectiveness of your cleaning routine, the amount of wear in the throat, and the amount of heat cracking down the barrel. You can also use it to examine the interior of your bolt body, the inside of your dies, and other small places you just can’t see easily or clearly.

Hawkeye Borescopes are made in Rochester, New York by precision technicians really committed to making a quality piece of gear. Don’t overlook the quality of this product compared to lesser and cheaper products on the market. The first time you look through a Hawkeye, be prepared for an amazing view of your barrel. You might be surprised how much fouling is really in there and how many scratches, pits, or other types of wear are evident.

If you have ever thought about buying a borescope now is a great time to get one. Gradient Lens is offering a $100 rebate on their “Plus” kit and a $75 rebate on the standard kit. The rebate is only good thru October 31, 2009.

We wrote this article to see if we can open up some postings from some of the blog readers out there. If you would like to offer your two cents on how you go about developing a load, please feel free to post them on the blog for others to read. We are sure everyone will appreciate looking at other shooters approach to fine tuning a load.

Each handloader has different goals in mind for load development. Many shooters are trying to achieve the best accuracy they can regardless of velocity and the type of bullet they shoot. Other shooters, especially long-range shooters, may have a muzzle velocity number as a goal but more importantly a resulting terminal velocity which will determine the amount of wind drift they experience down range. These shooters are also concerned about bullet stabilization at long range. Usually benchrest, varmint, or prone long-range target shooters, will be highly aware of the external ballistics of their bullet with respect to what is happening down range. A silhouette shooter (IHMSA type) will demand accuracy but also be mindful of terminal energy at the target for knocking over the heavier ram silhouettes. Other handloaders, such as hunters, may be trying to reach a muzzle velocity or terminal velocity value for a particular type of hunting bullet so the bullet penetrates and expands properly on impact. Regardless, accuracy always remains a goal for most load development processes.

Regardless of the type of shooting you do, it is important to establish a goal for your load development. The goal may be pure accuracy, muzzle velocity, terminal velocity, or some combination of the above. If you are trying to develop an accurate load for 1000 yard shooting, it is not important how well the load groups at 100 yards but how well it groups at longer distances or how it bucks the wind. If you are a traditional benchrest shooter who shoots 100 yards and 200 yards, it is important to test your loads at 200 yards as well as 100 yards. You may find that one load will group better at 100 yards and another load groups at 200 yards. You might want to test various loads in windy conditions because one load may experience less wind drift than another.

When developing loads, we try to test basic loads in predominately calm weather and at temperatures close to the temperature range we will be using the final product in. If there is wind, try to shoot in a consistent crosswind if possible and by all means use flags if you have them. Watch changing light conditions as it can create vertical stringing that may mislead your interpretation of your groups. Change one variable at a time. If you want to try a different primer, then keep everything else the same. Same goes with bullet type, weights, seating depth, cases, powder type, charge, etc. It is much easier to see the results if you only change one thing. Start with 3 to 5 shot groups at shorter distances to see if a change you made looks positive or negative. Start with a quality bullet first, try a recommended powder out of your reloading manual, then experiment with different charges, different seating depths, primers, other powders, and lastly change the brass manufacturer or lot if you feel it will be beneficial.

Invest in a decent chronograph. It doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles, just the basics. A chronograph is an invaluable tool for use during load development. Knowing the muzzle velocity will allow you to predict wind drift down range, bullet drop, and terminal velocity. Standard deviation is a good indicator of consistent performance but not always a true indicator of a load’s ability to group well. The chronograph can also be used to identify performance changes when switching to a new lot of powder, primers, bullets, or even cases.

While developing a load, recordkeeping is extremely important. Keep good records on firearms, components, seating depths, weights, powder measure settings, weather conditions (especially temperature and humidity), velocities, etc. Buy a logbook or create your own, but keep track of the data. It will serve you better than your memory regarding components you have tried when you come back to that particular firearm a year later.

As we stated earlier, the purpose of this article was to get readers to post some of their thoughts on load development and share them with other viewers. We encourage you to post any specific things you do that helps you in load development.