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Litz

Do not take this in anyway knocking Mr. Litz, or anyone else here. This is a general observation.

It always amuses me when the theoretical/overly technical guys rediscover things that were in plain sight all along. This particular observation noted above was readily observable at any bench rest match since the 50s, but isn't unique to just that particular sport. In general I find that the "accuracy sports" bench rest/long range/high power/service rifle/etc. tend to fall prey to the preoccupation with inconsequential increments. This phenomenon last until their equipment is stressed, and even a bit beyond. There first time a guy sits and watched his friends shoot prairie dogs, because his zero headspace chambered rifle is tied up, it might sink in, but usually that is the excuse phase. Well if the cleaning brush bristle hadn't fallen off and locked up the bolt it would have been fine. After a few times of this he might decide to give it a few though of headspace clearance. This phase is the "my gun runs 100%.....60% of the time" they don't want to acknowledge the times it has failed, and most action shooting sports don't have alibi rounds, or excessive time to allow for these failures. Case in point, a Oklahoma startup AR company wanted to offer an AR for 3-gun that was very accurate, and needed no lube, nickel Boron this, Ion Bond that. I told them the barrel profile that would be light, and yet stiff enough to be accurate and not wonder with heat too much. They shopped around and found a very respected barrel maker. This maker had many high power/service rifle/ and Palma wins with their barrels! Great! I talked with them at length on the profile, chamber and the fact they had to be loose enough to run anything, dirty or clean. They said they completely understood, and their barrels always work after a full day match. First batch came out and everyone was having a hell of a time keeping them running, failure to extract, failure to go into battery...etc. Company got the rifles back and asked me to look at them. Every last one of them draged in a Sinclair go gauge. Called the barrel guy up and reiterated that they need to be loose enough to run anything, like 2-3 thoug headspace, throated for 77d etc. He said they are fine, obviously the guys weren't cleaning them properly. I pointed out that these rifles would fire up to 60 rounds per stage and shoot 4-6 stages a day at a 3 day match. He outright refused to ream them looser, because everyone knows zero headspace is the most accurate.
Old saying in the action shooting sports, (and that includes PRS/Steel Safari/and field course long range) if all your gear runs you will finish in the top 25%
This is pretty much exactly what Bryan was getting at. I simplify even more...mastery of the basics.

WRT to your barrel example, Crane uses a "tactical" chamber on their MK13s. They learned long ago that match chambers will, not if, but will cause a malfunction that can render a rifle inop. Being in a hide or on top of some hill in AFG is not the place you wanna be when you have an unremovable stuck case. Who brings cleaning rods on a recon or an overwatch? The Army learned this with the M2010 too. It's one reason the M2010 got such a bad rap when it first came out. Malfunction after malfunction all because of match chambers. Not as many shitty or wrong parts like the MSR but stuck cases are the worst, especially when the case head gets pulled off.
 
Who brings cleaning rods on a Recon???
Why most all LRRPs/SOF/ Fleet Force Recon in Viet Nam, assembled and tapped to the handguard, although it wasn't a "match chamber" problem. 😁
 
We had cleaning kits (minimal) but not rods unless someone had a multi piece one stashed somewhere. We did have them on our gun trucks, because they're trucks. Come to think of it, I don't think they issue any broken shell extractors except for machineguns
 
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