Diamondback DB15CCB Rifle Journal

[superbeau]

@Chris - Haha! The thought definitely crossed my mind while dousing my rifle with lighter fluid that I should be careful about it catching any heat or random rays of sun :-) My girlfriend absolutely thought I was nuts.

@SavsPaw - I love the idea of upgrading my trigger, but I'm having a hard time justifying the cost on this, my "budget" rifle. To spend $200 on an upgrade for a $600 gun seems extreme. Don't get me wrong, though... on my long-range prairie dog gun the trigger job was worth every penny! If I could find a good trigger for $100ish, I might take a closer look.

@Turtle2113 - I'm glad you like this thread and got some benefit from it! Thanks for the suggestions on those Facebook pages, too; I signed up for a couple of them. As for issues with the DB15CCB, apart from that one issue I had with reloaded brass, I haven't had a single issue with my rifle. That said, I have not tried any foreign or steel ammo, but I know others have had good luck using it with their DBs.

[superbeau]

I recently had somebody ask me about how I clean my DB15CCB. It was an interesting question. I thought to myself, "I clean it like I clean all of my high-performance rifles." Then again, this is my first AR-style rifle, so maybe that's not the best approach. Hmm....

I know some folks buy an AR for its durability and to "ride it hard and put it away wet", as they say. I also know there's a pretty typical routine that many folks follow about overall maintenance of these weapons, which I believe stems from the military manuals, and I think those are great. The part that I wanted to highlight today relates to just the business end of these rifles - the barrel.

Ever since I have owned long-range rifles and spent summers poppin' prairie dogs on the plains, I've always followed a fairly specific cleaning regimen for the barrels. This comes mostly from my dad, who instilled this in me, to ensure that our guns not only lasted a long time and looked good, but so they shot good for the life of the barrel. For prairie dogs, we would shoot up to 20 rounds per sitting, checking the barrel temp every couple rounds to make sure it wasn't overheating - it you can't touch it, let it rest. At the end of a sit, we would take that gun to a cleaning bench. First, we'd send one or two "wet" patches down the barrel, soaked with Butch's Bore Shine, to loosen things up. After it sat for about 30 seconds, we'd start sending dry patches down, one after the other. To conserve patches, we'd send a patch down, turn that one inside-out, and then send it down again. This would continue until the patches came out clean or mostly clean. Then, at the end of each day, we would wet the barrel, use a brush to scrub it out, hit it with another wet patch, and then send dry patches until they showed up clean on the other end.

Diamondback DB15CCB Rifle Journal

And that's it! I know this is super obvious to most shooters, but I thought it might be helpful to any folks who are new to shooting. Does everybody agree with this approach, generally speaking? Again, I'm just focused on the barrel for right now, since this whole thread is geared for "cheap accuracy and reliability."

My dad and I just retired a Remington 700 VSSF 22-250 barrel that fired more rounds over the last 15 years than I can honestly count, and it was a tack driver all the way to the end. I'm hoping that I'll be able to say the same for my DB15CCB in the years to come, if I take good care of 'er

[superbeau]

I was out at the range shooting pistols last weekend, but couldn't help myself, and threw the DB15CCB in the truck as well. Here's a fun slow-motion clip of a V-max 223 bullet from my DB connecting with a plastic ketchup bottle filled with H2O at about 25 yards

[Chris]

Shooting is way more fun when things explode! Well, all except for the gun, that is... 

[superbeau]

Funny turn of events here:

I just finished cleaning up and polishing my sear surfaces (see reply #27) and was planning on installing one of those trigger adjustment screws to remove the take-up in my mil-spec trigger. Then, as luck would have it, my dad won a Timney 3-lb drop-in trigger in a raffle last night. Since he doesn't own an AR, I was the fortunate recipient of this prize



As I've mentioned before, I had not planned on spending $200+ on a drop-in trigger and felt like I could get 80% of the way there with a few of the cheaper fixes mentioned throughout this thread. But hey... if you get a free Timney... you have to go with it! I installed it with the excitement of a kid on Christmas Eve and it feels amazing. I can't wait to get out to the range and try it for real.

*** UPDATE - 08/18/2017 ***
Wow - this trigger is amazing! That pretty much sums it up. I still don't know if I would have paid $225 for it, at least not for this rifle, but it is pretty sweet. That said, I was looking forward to testing out the trigger adjustment screw; they seem really slick and I bet they'd work wonders on the basic trigger since the take-up is so long. If anybody tries one of those screws out, please let me know how it works.

[Chris]

That's just awesome! Dad's can be so great, especially when they win stuff they don't need! LOL. You'll be way better of with the Timney that the adjustment screw which simply reduces travel to break, or sear/hook overlap. Also reduces safety to break unless you're sure the sear/hook angles are correct for the shorter travel distance. I have a Wilson Combat single stage TTU, and, like the Timney and some others, triggers these days can't get any better. It's a great time to be a shooter.   

[superbeau]

Well, after having a rough day at the range recently, I wanted to go out tonight just before dark to verify that everything was working right. Although it's a short shooting window, I love the last hour before dark because there's usually no wind, and that was exactly the case tonight. I had cleaned my barrel well after the last outing because it was shooting all over the paper, which is not typical. Tonight though, the results were more as I've come to expect from my DB15CCB shooting American Eagle Tipped Varmint 223 50-grain at 100 yards.



I thought this was interesting to share because you can see that my first shot was 2.5" high but dead-on left/right. Then my second and third shots were... as the monkey that went pee in the cash register... right on the money. I wonder if the first shot is due to A) cold bore, B) clean bore, or C) all of the above? I'll try to isolate that sometime and see if I can figure it out for sure.

So that got me thinking - what changed from the last time I shot (terrible groups at all distances) to today (almost touching)? Here's the list that I came up with off the top of my head, but it's all speculation since I didn't do any sort of process of elimination to figure it out. Interesting list to consider, though:

• No wind this time; some wind last time but not enough to cause shotgun pattern
• Last time I shot some Winchester bullets with Lubalox coating
• It was 82F last time and 75F this time
• I fed one round at a time into the chamber this outing; last time I fed through the magazine

If I can narrow this list down, I will let y'all know! In the name of science, of course

*** UPDATE - 08/22/2017 ***
I was doing a little research on this issue and came across a research report from the US Air Force Academy on the affect of coated bullets on accuracy. Based on the report, the summary is "The different coating and bullet combinations produced changes in friction ranging from reductions in friction of 15% to increases in friction of 19%. Given the time and expense of coating bullets, the reduction in friction is not cost effective for most applications." If the Lubalox coating is creating varying levels of friction = velocities = POI, then it is at least plausible that shooting those Winchester bullets during my previous range trip could have caused my accuracy issues. Then, after cleaning the barrel, this issue would have been removed and accuracy restored, as was seen on my more recent range visit. Anyways, no math behind this, but an interesting theory nonetheless.

*** UPDATE - 08/25/2017 ***
I had another beautiful, calm night at the range for some shooting. I only used AE Tipped Varmint ammo this time around and my DB15CCB shot great, even out at 300-400 yards. There was no wind and the was about 70F, so I think I can safely narrow my issues list down to 1) Lubalox coating from Winchester ammo, or 2) something with feeding from a magazine versus putting one round at a time into the chamber. I'm out of those Lubalox bullets, so next time I'll try shooting specifically from the magazine and make sure it works as it should. Today I fed one round at a time, so I wasn't able to eliminate that variable yet. More to come next time!

[superbeau]

Over the last few range sessions, I've been trying to figure out the most efficient and stable way to shoot at longer distances. I have a nice metal, swiveling table that my dad and I fabricated a long time ago, and that has always been our go-to for the range (and prairie dogs!) but it felt like it was starting to get a little unstable. You'd never notice it within 200 yards, but when you get to 400 yards, any movement seems like an earthquake through the 16x scope. Through some trial and error, we found the back of my dad's pickup truck to be the exact right height and - if it's not windy - the bed provides a stable spot to shoot from the prone position. We rolled out an old yoga mat that I found in my closet (not mine, I swear) and it's much more comfortable than I would have guessed. Anyways, from there the next question was around the front support of the rifle. We have a really nice rest that we use for prairie doggin' but the AR-style rifle doesn't fit well into it. Sandbags and shot bags are fine, but they can be a pain to move around. I decided that a bipod might do the trick, so I ordered a relatively inexpensive one from Amazon for $19 delivered. There were almost 2500 reviews and the product carried a 4.5-star rating, so I figured it would be at least decent.



The bipod comes with a picattiny adapter, which looks like a normal sling post, and the bipod then clamps onto that. It was super easy to mount up and looks solid. You can release the legs and they pop out, but then you can adjust them anywhere from 6-9" depending on the rifle, the shooter, and the range. Everything worked as it was supposed to and I had good luck with it when I tested it at the range last weekend. I'm not sure if it'll replace my shooting sticks for hunting purposes, but for the range, it might just be the winner.

One last, fun note on using the truck bed for shooting prone. The range at our hunt club is basically a long, flat road between a fence and a sunflower field, with a big dirt burm and a backstop at one end. We have the distances marked every 100 yards and you can drive the truck out and back along the dirt road. It was awesome because I could shoot three shots, stay in prone, my dad drove to the next stake, pop off three more, and so on from distances of 100 to 600 yards. I haven't pushed past 400 yards with this rifle yet, but maybe some day :-)

[superbeau]

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, so I decided to break out the DB15CCB and see how she's shooting, after spending a few months in the case.



I started at 100 yards and put the first two shots in the same hole. Then I went back to 200 yards and had about a 2" group in moderate winds. So I'd say she's still good to go These groups were shot with the American Eagle Tipped Varmint ammo, as I reviewed in an earlier thread. I still want to do a head-to-head contest between the budget AE ammo and Remington's much more expensive AccuTip ammo, so stay tuned for that, if I can ever catch a calm day for a good bench test.



Always love some slow-mo video of the big bang!

[superbeau]

Bad news, everybody. American Eagle has discontinued their "Tipped Varmint" loads and started to produce a new version with a hollow-point instead of the v-max. I am very disappointed, since this was my go-to load for the DB15CCB I'm going to start looking for a replacement load and will keep everybody posted if I have any luck. I've been reading good things about the Ultramax .223 Remington, Nosler Ballistic Tip, 50 Grain ammo and I found some on Sportsman's Warehouse for $18 per box of 50.



Fingers crossed!

[odeTOmaybe2]

Bad news, everybody. American Eagle has discontinued their "Tipped Varmint" loads and started to produce a new version with a hollow-point instead of the v-max. I am very disappointed, since this was my go-to load for the DB15CCB I'm going to start looking for a replacement load and will keep everybody posted if I have any luck. I've been reading good things about the Ultramax .223 Remington, Nosler Ballistic Tip, 50 Grain ammo and I found some on Sportsman's Warehouse for $18 per box of 50.



Fingers crossed!

I couldn't get the Ultramax to group very well.  About 2" at 100 yards.  I had good luck with the Freedom Munitions V-Max 55g.  I believe they are currently out of stock (and going through some financial problems).  The best round I have found is the Hornady 55g V-max.  It runs about $22 for a box of 50.  It's worth the extra few dollars in my opinion.

[superbeau]

I had a chance to hit the range over the weekend to test some replacement ammo for my beloved AE223 Tipped Varmint loads. The contestants were 1) UltraMax 223 V-max 50 grain, 2) Hornady's American Gunner JHP 55 grain, and 3) Remington's AccuTip 50 grain. Here's where they ended up at 100 and 200 yards:





I was really surprised - and this is the second time - that the Remington stuff was shooting so poorly. That was always the best stuff, just slightly better than the American Eagle version, but it was three times the cost so I just stuck with AE. Now it's spraying all over the place. The only variable that changed was that I added the Limbsaver Sharpshooter X-ring "barrel tuner" about 2" back from the end of the barrel. Admittedly, I did not do any scientific work in the placement of this device and I've read that a little movement in either direction can have a noticeable impact on shot locations. Anyways, maybe this positioning just happens to be better for the Ultramax than the others. I guess I'd rather be lucky than good, again since the Ultramax is a lot cheaper to buy than the Remington.

Now that I know the Ultramax shoots well for my rig, and when the weather warms up a bit, I'll spend some time playing with the location of the Limbsaver piece to see if I can find a sweet spot. I also read that you can add small rubber o-rings to the barrel, adding or subtracting them until you find the right combination. I may leave the big Limbsaver piece where it's at and then try adding o-rings in front of it, seeing which number of o-rings yields the best results. More to come on that in the next round, though. For now, it's off to the woods to control the coyote population!

[superbeau]

I couldn't get the Ultramax to group very well.  About 2" at 100 yards.  I had good luck with the Freedom Munitions V-Max 55g.  I believe they are currently out of stock (and going through some financial problems).  The best round I have found is the Hornady 55g V-max.  It runs about $22 for a box of 50.  It's worth the extra few dollars in my opinion.

That's good to know, @odeTOmaybe2, because I just went to the Ultramax website and found some bad news:



Back to the drawing board...

[superbeau]

Man... it's tough to find 50gr ballistic tip rounds out there anymore. I thought there were a bunch, but the pickin's seem slim now. I put in an order for some Fiocchi Extrema 223 50gr V-Max ammo to see what it does in my DB15CCB. It seems to be highly recommended by folks online. I found it for $20 per 50 but shipping is $10, so if my sample works, then I may have to order bulk and stockpile a bit. I'm sick of having to change loads

www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/fiocchi-extrema-223-remington-v-max-50-grain-50-rounds?a=938945

I will report back on how it does at the range, next time I can get out there.

[odeTOmaybe2]

That's good to know, @odeTOmaybe2, because I just went to the Ultramax website and found some bad news:


Back to the drawing board...

Man you are having some bad luck.. every round that is working well for you gets discontinued!