Considering an Acura MR Nitride rifle for this season - thoughts, experiences? UPDATE: Range report!

Re: Considering an Acura MR Nitride rifle for this season - thoughts, experiences? UPDATE: Acura MR ordered

Finally had a chance to hit the range today. Last week I had cleaned the rifle then mounted a scope.

This Acura MR was one of the dirtiest from the factory rifles I've experienced. I removed patch after patch of crud from the barrel. The mount had crud beneath it. I stripped the rifle down, cleaned everything including mount fasteners then reassembled. All the fasteners on the mount were loctited for security.

I opted for a Diamondback HP 2-8x32, which has great eye relief. Clear glass with 2 power on the low end, which I like. The adjustable parallax is probably unnecessary.

I started shooting some 240 grain Hornady XTP with the supplied sabots. These were with 80 grains by volume BH209. I used the 240 gr XTP for scope sighting purposes. Scope settled right in. The groups weren't the best, but I want rally planning to hunt this projectile.

I moved on to the 300 gr Hirnady .452 XTP Mag with MMP HHP 12 sabots. 100 grains of BH209 produced okay groups at 50 yards. Upping the charge to 105 grains produced a notably tighter grouping.

The lower left target was my last shot of the day.

Re: Considering an Acura MR Nitride rifle for this season - thoughts, experiences? UPDATE: Acura MR ordered

agree on the oil, mine was swimming in it. still haven't had a chance to shoot it between poor weather conditions and work. Might today before work if the wind isnt too bad.

Last night I cleaned up the Acura MR after the range session. I learned be careful when disassembling the firing pin assembly for cleaning because much like an AR detent pin, the tiny spring can launch itself. I was very, very lucky where it landed, because I was able to locate it quickly. I think I might look into buying a replacement pin, spring and o-ring just in case.

I think CVA has the entire firing pin assembly listed on their website. I would get the bushing shim kit at the same time.

Tannhauser said:

Last night I cleaned up the Acura MR after the range session. I learned be careful when disassembling the firing pin assembly for cleaning because much like an AR detent pin, the tiny spring can launch itself. I was very, very lucky where it landed, because I was able to locate it quickly. I think I might look into buying a replacement pin, spring and o-ring just in case.

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Buying a spare is a very good idea. Exactly what I did. Only cost $10. The slot in the bushing is kinda shallow so it's important to find a flat screw driver that fits well.

GM54-120 said:

I think CVA has the entire firing pin assembly listed on their website. I would get the bushing shim kit at the same time.

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Is this the bushing kit: http://www.cva.com/CVA-Store-View.php?id=504?

Tannhauser said:

GM54-120 said:

I think CVA has the entire firing pin assembly listed on their website. I would get the bushing shim kit at the same time.

Click to expand...

Is this the bushing kit: http://www.cva.com/CVA-Store-View.php?id=504?

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Yes. it will allow you to adjust head space on the bushing for a better primer fit. Done correctly it will help reduce blowby even though the description says it wont. CVA does not want you getting things too tight and creating a slam fire situation. Setup the shims to get about a .002-.003 crush on the longest primer you will use and it will be just fine.

If you set it up for the Win209 then all other primers will be safe but dirtier. The Win209s are the longest.

GM54-120 said:

Tannhauser said:

GM54-120 said:

I think CVA has the entire firing pin assembly listed on their website. I would get the bushing shim kit at the same time.

Click to expand...

Is this the bushing kit: http://www.cva.com/CVA-Store-View.php?id=504?

Click to expand...

Yes. it will allow you to adjust head space on the bushing for a better primer fit. Done correctly it will help reduce blowby even though the description says it wont. CVA does not want you getting things too tight and creating a slam fire situation. Setup the shims to get about a .002-.003 crush on the longest primer you will use and it will be just fine.

If you set it up for the Win209 then all other primers will be safe but dirtier. The Win209s are the longest.

Click to expand...

Gotcha. Now I understand what people have been talking about with shimming the CVA rifles. I only use CCI209M primers, so I'd set it up specifically for them.

Just remember if you set it up for the CCI 209M then a Win209 will crush to .005 or possibly more. So do NOT use them after making the adjustment UNLESS you re-head space. You will still be able to interchange with a Fed209A or the standard CCI 209. Those 3 are all close in OAL.

You might also need to re-adjust if you need a new plug later.

How was the black back when you shot it?

sawtoothscream said:

How was the black back when you shot it?

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Blow back was generally minimal. After about 10 shots I started to see dirty primers, but then after I used a drill bit to clear the flash channel the primers would be clean for a while then it would be a repeat.

Overall, the Acura MR with BH209 was far cleaner and easier than my sidelock with T7.

Looks like you are easily shooting "minute of deer." Curious, how you like the Diamondback HP 2-8x32? I have an original Diamondback 3-9, I'm very happy with the glass clarity but had to take it off my Knight because the eye relief meant I was getting smacked in my glasses pretty often. Glad they fixed that with the HP series.

Tannhauser said:

sawtoothscream said:

How was the black back when you shot it?

Click to expand...

Blow back was generally minimal. After about 10 shots I started to see dirty primers, but then after I used a drill bit to clear the flash channel the primers would be clean for a while then it would be a repeat.

Overall, the Acura MR with BH209 was far cleaner and easier than my sidelock with T7.

Click to expand...

I would certainly hope so...

SteveH said:

Looks like you are easily shooting "minute of deer." Curious, how you like the Diamondback HP 2-8x32? I have an original Diamondback 3-9, I'm very happy with the glass clarity but had to take it off my Knight because the eye relief meant I was getting smacked in my glasses pretty often. Glad they fixed that with the HP series.

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I really like them. I currently own 2 of them, one on a 12 gauge Mossberg slug gun barrel and the other is on my Acura MR. The main selling point for me was the combination of price, clarity and long eye relief. Advertised eye relief is something ling 4.5", and I've found that's a pretty accurate number in practice. I'm sure on both guns I'm getting over 4" of eye relief, which I want on a slug gun or ML. With some shopping you can find these scopes for around $200, and sometimes even less.

The glass in the HP is a step up in clarity from the regular Diamondback. I have a Diamondback 4-12, and it's a nice scope for the price range, but the HP glass is a little clearer. Plus the short eye relief on the regular Diamondback scope means it's relegated strictly to AR-15 rifles, where there's minimal recoil and the short eye relief is a benefit (I can shoot nose to charging handle without having to use some ungodly long cantilever mount to push the scope forward).

I also like having only 2x on the low end, since where I hunt most of my shooting is pretty close. Although in the rare event a deer cooperates and will show up in the far end of a field then I don't think having 8x instead of the usual 9x top end magnification is any real hindrance.

[double post]

cljohnson24 said:

Tannhauser said:

sawtoothscream said:

How was the black back when you shot it?

Click to expand...

Blow back was generally minimal. After about 10 shots I started to see dirty primers, but then after I used a drill bit to clear the flash channel the primers would be clean for a while then it would be a repeat.

Overall, the Acura MR with BH209 was far cleaner and easier than my sidelock with T7.

Click to expand...

I would certainly hope so...

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm damning it with faint praise in my post.

I had high expectations going in to the first range session, and the ease of use was really astounding. I just kept loading one after another, and the rifle kept going. The flash channel did need a little cleaning, but by comparison to the swabbing and patching between each shot of T7, the but of drill work every 4 or 5 shots is minimal.

Of course I need another range session to try out my load with a clean barrel each shot. I hunt with a clean barrel, so I need to verify the grouping on a clean barrel and regulate my scope POI for the clean barrel.

Something that ive found is that when you have a good primer seal, you also have less carbon filling you flash channel. My NULA has a near 100% primer seal and i can shoot it a crazy amount of times without cleaning the breach plug.

When a primer leaks even a little you get some carbon on the fired primer. Now imagine how much must be getting into the breach plug. Not all of that carbon is from the primer itself. When powder ignites it tries to find any escape route it can.

ok went to the range today

Did a rough boresight by removing the breech plug and aiming the barrel at a dot 15 yds away, centered the cross hairs and put them about 6" above it.

Started with 100grBH and the 300 gr XTP w/ harvester crush rib sabot- first shot went right in the bulls eye and the seconded pretty much the same hole :yeah:

Moved back to 100yds and opened up, think its was about 4 or 5" center to center after 3 shots. Decided to give 110gr of BH a try and did 3 more shots that went to 1.5" center to center.


Blow back wise, there is some but nothing even close to the optima. All of it was around the firepin pin bushing and not covering every inch of the frame, trigger etc... like the optima did. Probably order a back up firing pin and the shim kit soon.


Now few clean up question for you guys that use BH 209

I found this stuff to be kind of a pain to clean up, I used hoppes #9 and followed with dry patches until they came out pretty clean, did another wet and completely black. Few more dry until almost clean and another wet, black. Did this a bunch of time before it started looking better :huh?:

Whats your process for after range clean up, you guys using brushes or anything?

also, what do you use to clean the frame around the firing pin? got it cleaned up but think there is still some build up on it from the primers. firing pin clean up was simple enough and the plug is soaking in hoppes.

overall, pretty happy with the gun and scope combo.

I prefer Butchs bore shine. Start with two dry patches. Soak a patch with Butchs and swab. Let stand 15 min. Brush with bronze brush. Repeat with the butchs. Start dry patching pushing patches straight through. No back and forth. Use both sides of each patch. It always takes me quite a few patches. Careful with the butchs, kinda strong smell. Don't get your nose to close. You could use the same process with Hoppes. You can scrape the face of the receiver off with something like a pocket knife. I had this problem with my Redemption until I fixed the blow by.

Simply shim primer to get proper primer crush and leak is over