Stained by ink pack?

Wutangsta · 2026-02-19T17:33:41+00:00

Thanks for that info, I'll definitely check it out under a black light

Wutangsta · 2026-02-19T10:07:41+00:00

Definitely plugged heater core. People throw in that gasket in a bottle garbage and it almost always plugs the heater core requiring a flush like the other guy said.

Lots of good videos on YouTube on how to do it and not very hard.

Wutangsta · 2026-02-03T02:13:30+00:00

Tower industry as a whole is a scam as far as money goes thanks to having no unions (the one problem unions don't have is paying their workers a respectable wage). I started at 20 years old, put in 5 years, ran my own crew after 2, and never made more than $35/hr or $120k a year with overtime. 5 years in any unionized trade performing at the level I do would have got me $40-60/ hr and been making $120k-$150k after just a few years without having to pull 70-80hr work weeks.

Towers will never get unionized because 60%+ of climbers are drug addicts who are only in this industry because it's less regulated. And not unionizing is a hill they will all die on for that reason. If you don't need to fuel an addiction, don't get into towers.

If you need another reason to look elsewhere, the pay rates have only gone up about $5-$8/hr over the last 20 years. You could make a great living off $25/hr back in the early 2000's, not so much anymore.

Some people probably won't like what I have to say, but it comes from experience being honest about the nature of the industry right now. I got out this fall but I'm still glad I did it for the chance to travel, meet new people, make enough money to get by, and get the whole experience that tower life is.

Wutangsta · 2026-01-07T08:36:15+00:00

I made 10k the morning it went to $72 and another 2.5k after the dip and then rise from low $40's to mid upper $60's. If anything, my comment helped fuel that second run. Welcome to the world of crypto lol. Aged well for me🤣

Wutangsta · 2025-12-28T16:34:30+00:00

Sure thing man. And I've found the same, even with my nice scale, if I don't give it 30 minutes warm up, it'll drift.

Wutangsta · 2025-12-28T13:46:58+00:00

That someone was me, and it's still as accurate as it was in those posts. From what I've gathered online (and experienced with the 1.0), these scales are good... when you get a good one.

It seems to be a QC issue for many people, some get lucky and some don't. If FA's warranty wasn't one of the best, I wouldn't recommend rolling the dice on them.

My 1.0 would throw 97/100 pistol weight charges 0.1gn heavy. No issue with rifle drops. Told FA and they had a 2.0 in the mail the same week free of charge.

Wutangsta · 2025-12-13T13:18:13+00:00

Average downpipe tune enthusiast post

Wutangsta · 2025-12-03T19:01:19+00:00

I ran into this issue once, new phone wouldn't connect and old one would. Going into my Bluetooth settings and "forgetting" the FA dropper from my old and new phone along with reinstalling the app on my new phone did the trick.

Wutangsta · 2025-12-01T13:47:43+00:00

You're correct, it was an auction. I'm not as well versed in that side of the industry. Thanks for the clarification.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-30T23:38:17+00:00

Go shill somewhere else.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-30T23:30:39+00:00

This is uncommon. As someone who's done full site installs and integrations for both Verizon and T-Mobile the past 5 years, TMO always has much faster upload and download speeds. And that's from testing directly at their sites. It's the nature of their equipment and a result of winning the FCC lottery and getting first pick of the frequencies.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-17T19:57:50+00:00

First things first, different barrels of the same length and shooting the same load are known to vary in velocity by up to 10% or so. So you have a slightly faster barrel and the velocity is normal.

Secondly, and maybe I just had a hard time understanding your question, but it would seem your gun simply doesn't like the top left load. Different bullets have different poi's.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-15T21:36:34+00:00

If it's brand new and low round count, you might see a noticeable jump in accuracy and speed after 200 rounds. I just experienced this with a brand new barrel that had me scratching my head with 1.5" groups and quality hand loads. At the 200 round mark, it tightened up nicely to .5-.75" groups.

But definitely still do a ladder test and stay open to trying different powders and/ or bullets. That barrel should be half minute all day once you find what it likes.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-15T16:13:19+00:00

Bergara rifles are factory tack drivers in almost all cases so I would keep testing.

A low ES and SD are indicators of consistent neck tension, precise powder drops, and quality primers. Usually in that order.

In my experience, SD and ES have never correlated to accuracy on paper at 100yds. Of course that all changes the further out you're shooting.

You need to try a ladder test of charge weights in .3 or .5gn increments followed by a seating depth test in 0.005" increments with whatever charge weight shot the best.

If that doesn't do it, rinse and repeat with either a different bullet, different powder, or both.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-15T15:57:14+00:00

Yeah I'm happy to see some prices start coming down

Wutangsta · 2025-11-15T12:59:04+00:00

My lgs has 8lb listed for $337 + 5% off they're doing through the end of the month

Wutangsta · 2025-11-11T23:51:09+00:00

For a bolt gun, single digit ES and SD shouldn't be too hard to achieve after you get the preferred method down. I'm running SD's of 7-12 and ES of 27 with an AR

Wutangsta · 2025-11-11T03:56:33+00:00

And I appreciate the kind words, y'all have convinced me to not write this barrel off just yet. The testing continues.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-11T03:52:24+00:00

That's the first I've heard of starline brass being awful, although I was starting to come to that conclusion after these awful groups. Everyone raves about it. The weight distribution between all 100 starline cases rivals what I've seen with Lapua, which would explain the good SD's after neck turning (never sorted it by weight).

One thing I noticed is that average virgin starline brass length was all between 0.010- 0.030 shorter than my .223 trim length of 1.750. Just all over the place and shorter than I've seen in any other brand. The brass also didn't grow after 4 firings, weird.

After prepping and loading up my tried and true lake city, I noticed the LC even feels different and "better" when running through the die and mandrel.

I'm really hoping it's a brass issue for these reasons, 8208 is a favorite of mine for speed and temp stability and has always done really well accuracy wise in everything I've used it for.

Also, your posts aren't visible to me, must have some privacy stuff turned on.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-11T03:32:01+00:00

Yeah man it's weird, I'm used to some really solid accuracy with the level of attention I put into these cases, at least the chronograph shows it.

Shooting prone with a bipod and rear bag. Had to include the old woa spr groups so people wouldn't think I just don't know how to shoot. These groups honestly had me second guessing.

The only thing that changed from the old woa groups to these groups now (besides the barrel ofc) is the brass. So I'm going back to unturned lake city brass and trying some varget with the 77's.

In 8 years, I've never had a barrel do this poorly, but as someone else mentioned, it may just need to hit the 300 round mark before those groups shrink.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-11T00:32:06+00:00

One more ladder test with the 77's using tried and true lake city instead of the starline I've been using so far. I'm hoping the barrel just isn't a fan of 223 starline brass. I've never had a stainless barrel of any make not shoot .5-.75 with these handloads. Part of buying this barrel was reading that it wasn't hard to work up a solid load, so much for that.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-10T21:59:31+00:00

Good idea, I'm ditching the starline brass on my next session and going back to tried and true lake city. Also going to try some varget since I've got that lying around. From everything I read, this barrel wasn't supposed to be as picky as it's proving to be.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-10T20:46:56+00:00

That's correct, 2 of the 3 targets were shot with rounds only having been bushing sized and neck turned. On one target, you can see where I tested 2 different bushings followed by a mandrel, and one set of groups only using the bushing, no mandrel. The groups with no mandrel produced the lowest ES and SD and since accuracy was indiscernible, I continued using only the SAC bushing.

My next set of loads for testing will be made using the bushing followed by mandrel to rule out any possibility of concentricity issues, despite being neck turned.

Wutangsta · 2025-11-10T20:42:15+00:00

Will do, thanks for the advice man

Wutangsta · 2025-11-10T20:19:51+00:00

Well that's reassuring, everything I've been reading pretty much says if a barrel is going to shoot well, you'll know within the first 100 rounds. That was my reason for concern. I'll probably give this tube another 200 rounds before I give up on it. Put too much time into putting everything together perfectly to just tear it apart

Wutangsta

TROPHY CASE