As I write this letter, I am up at our commercial row location at Camp Perry, Ohio. The NRA National Matches are finishing up this week with NRA High Power and Long-Range being the last two disciplines. The Civilian Marksmanship Program matches were held last week. As always, it is great to see shooters greeting each other from across the country as they renew friendships made at the National Matches. I know I have made some great friends over the years as I have attended and shot the matches. For over 100 years the National Matches have been fired on the shores of Lake Erie drawing shooters from all over the country and around the world. The National Matches celebrated their 100th Anniversary in 2007 and hopefully the matches will be going on for years to come. One of the things I really enjoy about Camp Perry is to observe all the families that attend and seeing the young kids excited about going to the Small Arms Firing School or one of the Junior Shooting Camps. It is typical of many shooting ranges (large and small) across the country where the camaraderie and sportsmanship of the shooting sports is on display. It’s a shame the rest of the country doesn’t see what a great time everyone is having.

Not one hundred years, but we are on the way – at Sinclair International we celebrated our 25th Anniversary last month in July. We have grown from a small, mainly benchrest based business to a company supplying reloading and shooting products to shooters of all disciplines around the world. Our product mix and customer base may have grown since 1984 but we take the same approach to serving customers as we did back then – take care of the customer to the fullest of our abilities and help them enjoy the shooting sports. We can’t thank our customers enough for helping us grow over the years and showing the loyalty they have for the company. Also, I have to say a big thanks to the employees that have been part of Sinclair over the years, for without them the success wouldn’t have been possible. Thanks!

There have been some small positive signs from component manufacturers recently. We have begun to see small shipments of primers from Remington and Winchester along with some badly needed bullets arriving from Hornady, Berger, and Sierra. Let’s hope this trend continues. Brass availability of 223 Rem and 308 Win is still an issue with some of the manufacturers.

We have our fall catalog coming out in mid-September that will have quite a few new items that we are excited about having. Continue to check out our website at www.sinclairintl.com for the latest updates throughout the year. We look forward to hearing from you and hope we can continue to help you with your shooting and reloading.

Good Shooting,

Bill Gravatt

President – Sinclair International, Inc.

The USA F-Class F/TR team returned from the F-Class World Championships in Bisley, England with the gold medal. Team USA F-Class F/TR posted the top score in the International Team Match event against teams from Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, Germany, and Spain. Team Sinclair members, Paul Phillips and Jeff Rorer, were on the USA F/TR Gold Medal team.

The British F-Class Open Team won the gold medal in the F-Class Open World Championship. Team USA Open came in second place. South Africa (the defending World Champion) finished third this year. Congratulations to all three of these teams.

Jeff Rorer (Team Sinclair) was also successful at the F/TR World Championship as an individual shooter taking fourth place overall and earning a bronze medal. Paul Phillips (Team Sinclair) placed 11th and Brad Sauve (Team Sinclair) placed 15th. Though the top two positions in individual F/TR competition was taken by the British, nine of the top fifteen shooters in the individual event were from Team USA. Paul also earned a Silver Medal in the Wimbledon 600 Yard Individual F/TR Match held as part of the Imperial Matches.

The Bisley experience is a little different from most matches held in the USA. At Bisley, shooters adjourn to a fine mid-day meal at one of the many clubhouses on the Bisley campus. Weather conditions at Bisley this year were typical for that venue with strong winds gusting to 20+ mph and almost daily rain showers. At one point during the team events, rain poured down so hard that some participants were seen using their shooting mats to shelter themselves. As rain is a frequent occurrence, the US shooters learned that the British do not stop shooting any match unless targets are no longer visible. Despite the spots of rain, the Bisley range officials ran a fine match with few issues and the target markers did an excellent job.

Update written by Team Sinclair

Jeff Rorer at Bisley with his F/TR Team Gold Medal and his F/TR Individual Bronze Medal

Paul Phillips at Bisley with his F/TR Team Gold Medal and his Wimbledon 600 Yard Individual F/TR Silver Medal

Note from Bill Gravatt, President – Sinclair International, Inc.

Congratulations to all of the shooters participating in the F-Class World Championships in Bisley this year. Special congratulations go out to the entire USA Gold Medal F-Class F/TR Rifle Team and the British Gold Medal F-Class Open Rifle Team. We especially want to recognize the Team Sinclair members who shot so well – Brad Sauve, Paul Phillips, and Jeff Rorer. We are proud of you guys!

The team members of Team Sinclair F-Class F/TR will be shooting in the upcoming U.S. Nationals in October along with Derek Rodgers who wasn’t able to make the trip to Great Britain. Good luck guys at Camp Butner!

When the word VARMINT pops up in hunting circles names like prairie dog, woodchuck, gopher, and coyote come to mind. Sometimes the daughter’s new boyfriend may be mentioned in the same breath. As the discussion turns to the Varmint Hunter’s Association (VHA), we think about the quarterly magazine and the annual Varmint Hunter’s Jamboree.

Every summer, for the past 15 years a cloud of dust rises in Pierre, South Dakota as shooters arrive from all over the country for a week of shooting and camaraderie. This year proved to be no different with more than 500 folks in attendance! I saw many familiar faces from years past along with lots of new people, especially youth shooters. I might add that these youngsters put quite a few of us so called ‘Hot Shots’ in our places this past week. This is what the VHA is all about. It is much more than trying to bust 18 balloons or becoming “Mr. Coyote”. The VHA is truly a family affair that revolves around passing the torch from one generation to the next, in hopes of keeping our shooting heritage alive and strong.

With the exception of scattered storms on Wednesday and high winds on Friday, the shootout went very well. Temperatures were cooler than normal and the competition was fierce in all classes. Even with the shaky economy and reloading component shortage, there were a record number of shooters in attendance!

Thanks to all of you who came by and saw Sinclair and Brownells on “Varmint Vendor Row”. The usual cast of characters was present along with some new faces this year. Jim Kelbly of Kelbly’s, Inc. was on hand as well as Don Lahr from Precision Bullets, LLC and A.J.Goddard who presented his new line of custom actions.

We all have to take our hats off once again to Gordy Gritters for performing admirably as range master and give special thanks to all the kids on the balloon and target crew who do such a fantastic job. Also, without the endless hours of work from the VHA Staff, none of this would be possible!

The 600 yard I.B.S. State Finals and Jamboree Banquet on Friday marked the conclusion of a great week of shooting, seeing old friends, and making new ones! As the cloud of dust leaves Pierre, South Dakota for the 15th time, I am proud to be a Life Member of such a wonderful organization and am already looking forward to next year.

Thanks to All !

Rod Green

Technical Staff – Sinclair International

Life Member #107 VHA.

Keeping good records on our shooting hobby is an important practice that all of us should do a better job of. We produce all kinds of logbooks for recordkeeping at Sinclair International, but we constantly have to remind ourselves to keep up with our own recordkeeping. It is important for insurance reasons, inheritance protection, reloading, and sight management. What lies below is just a snapshot of a few observed practices that many do in the area of recordkeeping.

Firearms

First, it is extremely important to keep accurate records on your firearms themselves. Record model #’s, serial #’s, who you purchased it from, when you purchased it, how much you paid for it, original equipment notes, changes or repairs you have made to the firearm, and your best opinion on the current value of your firearm. This last item is important for some insurance policies and to protect the person who inherits the firearm from you. Go through your list each year or at least every two years and update the current value. We have seen several cases where a trusting widow or other non-gun owner family member gets swindled by a family friend with respect to the true value of a particular firearm. We met a lady a couple of years ago that had a gun shop take her deceased husband’s collection of pristine pre-64 Winchester Model 70’s off her hands for $300 to $400 apiece. Good recordkeeping with current values would have protected this lady and produced a little more retirement funds for her. Make sure the trusted members of your family know where you keep this log. Now some of you may not want to have your significant other see how much you have spent on your firearms so you’ll have to decide how important this part of keeping records is to you.

Use a Logbook for recording load data for each of your firearms.

Sight Management

Many shooters swap scopes, use more than one load in their firearm (various bullets, target loads vs. hunting loads, long and short range loads, etc.), change open sights to scopes, or swap barrels on and off (mainly competition shooters). If you keep good records on your sight/scope settings you can save an incredible amount of time when you go back to something you had previously zeroed and dialed in. Sinclair International makes a pocket sized Sight Record Book that is great to utilize for recording your sight or scope settings for different guns, loads, and yardages. Make sure you keep recordings of scope/sight settings if you visit a range that sits at a different altitude than you normally shoot at. At long-range you will see serious changes in your elevation adjustments. If you have adjustable front sights, make sure you accurately record those settings as well as your rear sight settings. You have to be disciplined at this practice for this to pay off. If you are a competitive shooter, record your sight settings on the line or as soon as you exit the firing point. Recording your sight settings should be a priority before you case your firearm.

Reloading Data

Keeping good reloading data will be hugely beneficial to you. Get an inexpensive Reloading Logbook and keep track of the brass you use, lot numbers if you have it, how many times you have loaded it, trimmed it and fired it. Keep your brass segregated with proper load labels and containers. The following is just some of the items you should keep track of.

Powder type, lot #, powder charge, and powder measure setting
Bullet brand, type, weight, and lot #
Brass Manufacturer and lot # (if available)
Primer manufacturer, type, and lot #
Case trim length
Overall length of loaded rounds (seating depth)
Chronograph data
Number of times case has been loaded, trimmed, and fired.

Shooting Diary and Other Data

Keeping a diary or shooting logbook of some sort is nice to have to keep track of shooting conditions such as weather, light conditions, and range aspects. I keep names of people I meet at shooting competitions, the range, or in hunting camps. You may want to keep notes of what you did at the range or on a hunt.

Another important piece of information to keep track of is the number of rounds fired through your firearms. You can use this to remind you when to adjust your seating depth due to throat erosion or replace the barrel. Record this in a log like our Sinclair Rounds Fired Logbook or in either of our Reloading Log Books.

The Sinclair Rounds Fired Logbook provides an easy method to keep track of cumulative rounds.
 

Conclusion

This article wasn’t meant to answer everything with respect to the specific recordkeeping you need for your particular shooting discipline. It was meant to get you thinking and remind you of the importance of good recordkeeping. As always, feel free to let others know what methods work for you. With more shooters having home computers, a lot of shooters build elaborate Excel Worksheets to keep track of a variety of data. If you keep your records on a computer make sure you get in a good habit of backing that data up on a regular basis.

Here is a question that comes in frequently from customers to the Sinclair International Technical Center:

I have the right size jag and patch! Why doesn’t it fit down the bore?

What most people are taught is to center punch the patch and run it down the bore of a dirty rifle .This can sometimes result in a bent or stuck cleaning rod in your rifle because of the bore being restricted from the powder fouling (carbon) and copper left in the bore. Some shooters try to remedy this by utilizing a smaller patch; this is not the best solution because the patch may not make full contact with the inside of the barrel. This is especially true if you use the same size patch to dry out your bore. An alternate solution is to use two different size patches – a smaller one for wetting the bore down at the start and then a larger patch for pushing out debris loosened by your brush and to dry the bore. This would mean spending extra money on more patches! While we would appreciate that from a business concern, you really need not spend the money for extra patch sizes.

When the patch is too tight, stab the patch slightly off center

The solution to the problem is quite simple. Using the correct size patch, position your jag so the point is positioned about ½ to ¾ of the distance from the center of the patch out towards any of the outside corners or on a round patch towards any edge. By positioning the patch in this manner, the patch doesn’t overlap as much on the jag and it goes through the bore snugly, but not so tight that all the solvent is squeezed off the patch as it enters the bore. The purpose of the first couple of wet patches is to thoroughly wet the bore with solvent and push out any easily loosened debris. Then the cleaning solution along with the mechanical action of the wet brush that will follow will loosen the hard stuff. Don’t worry about the jag making contact with your bore because even though the whole jag is not covered with patch there will be enough of the patch around the jag to center the jag and hold it off the rifling. Even if it did contact it would not cause any harm because the brass jag is much softer material than the barrel steel. As you clean the barrel, alternating between brushing and patching to remove the loosened material you should start moving the jag back towards the center of the patch in a few steps until you are back in the center of the patch. With the jag back in the center of the patch, the patch will be making uniform contact with the bore as it follows the rifling. As we wet patch after brushing we look for either a blue stripe (copper) or a black stripe (carbon/powder) on the patch. If we see either we know the barrel isn’t completely clean and we clean some more. If there is just a faint bluish hue to the patch it is probably the solvent just pulling some copper out of the jag.

We included our patch selection chart below that may help you with selecting the right size patch to begin with.

This is just our look at a regular question that we get on our tech line. Cleaning is one of those subjects that there are more opinions on than there are grains of sand on a beach. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this subject on the Sinclair International blog with your fellow shooters!

Phil Hoham

Sinclair Technical Staff