Arkansans excelling in FLW event

With Arkansans dominating the top five, the leaderboard Tuesday after the first round of the FLW Pro Circuit Championship at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., looked like Bassmaster Top 150 leaderboards in the early 1990s.

John Cox of DeBary, Fla., led the event with 18 bass weighing 66 pounds, 5 ounces, but after that it was an all-Arkansas lineup led by a familiar name. Spencer Shuffield of Hot Springs was in second place with 19 bass weighing 61-2. Shuffield, the son of Bassmaster legend Ron Shuffield, has been prominent in all of FLW’s incarnations over the past decade.

In third place was Joey Cifuentes of Clinton with 18 bass weighing 60-6. Dylan Hays of Hot Springs was in fifth place with 18 bass weighing 49-13. It reminds us very much of daily Bassmaster leaderboards featuring Ron Shuffield, George Cochran, Larry Nixon and Mark Davis at or near the top. We haven’t seen that in many years, and we are glad to see it again.

HEAT AND VELOCITY

We recently commented about a possible correlation between barrel heat and the loss of velocity in rifles.

I noticed the same thing while watching an online review of Federal Premium ammunition on the Alaskan Ballistics YouTube channel.

The ammo was 25-06 cartridges featuring 115-grain Nosler Partition bullets. The muzzle velocity on the box was 3,030 feet per second. The first shot in the test, registered on a Caldwell Ballistics chronograph identical to the one I use, clocked at 3,033 fps. The second shot, about 10 seconds later, registered 2,990 fps. The third shot, about seven seconds later, registered 2,976 fps. The fourth shot, six seconds later, registered 2,923 fps. That averages about 25 fps per shot. The fifth shot, nearly 20 seconds later, registered 2,974 fps.

The reviewer faulted perceived inconsistencies in Federal’s powder charges. However, I experienced the same phenomenon recently shooting my own 6.5x55 Swedish reloads. I weigh every powder charge. They are exact, and I sort all of my bullets and charge them by lots. Inconsistent powder charge is most definitely never a factor in my tests. Had the reviewer pulled the bullets and weighed the powder charges from his cartridges, I bet it wouldn’t have been a factor in his test either.

BULLET TECHNOLOGY

With all of the modern bullet designs available to biggame hunters, the Nosler Partition is still the gold standard despite entering production in 1961.

For thin-skinned game like whitetailed deer, mule deer and pronghorn antelope, the venerable old Remington Core-Lokt is still at the head of its class, too. Neither the Core-Lokt nor the Partition have great ballistic coefficients for gilt-edge long-range accuracy. Swift’s Scirocco and and Hornady’s ELD-X lead that category. However, the Core-Lokt and the Partition still do perfectly what they were designed to do, which is to put deer, elk and moose down decisively within 200 yards, the range at which the overwhelming majority of game is taken in North America.

I reload with almost every bullet under the sun, but for deer hunting the Core-Lokt is my choice for several chamberings, with Speer running a close second. From unmodified

REMINGTON SHORTAGES

Since Remington declared bankruptcy earlier in the summer, Remington bullets have been extremely scarce for reloading.

Remington brass and primers are still easily attainable, but Core-Lokt bullets and Core-Lokt Bonded bullets are increasingly hard to find, and expensive when you do find them. Several popular Core-Lokts, like the 140- and 150-grain 7mm bullets and the 140-gr. in .264 cal., are out of production. The 30-cal. varieties are rare, too. Only the .224 and .243 Core-Lokts are plentiful.

One veteran hunting and gunning writer recently told me that he believes Remington is getting out of the ammunition business. Because he reviews ammo for various magazines, he is on the preferred list for most ammo companies, but he said that Remington tells him the products he requests are unavailable.

Multiple lawsuits have hurt Remington, but probably its biggest blow was attempting to corner the AR-15 market at the end of the Obama administration. Remington acquired several of the most popular AR-15 brands. When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the bottom fell out of the AR-15 market.