Greetings all,

I acquired a Remington 700 in 30-06 early last year and have been messing around with load development with it since. Accuracy is excellent; I'm easily able to get groups of any bullet to less than 1" at 100y. The one thing I've noticed is that I'm never able to get to within the vicinity of what expected velocities are for any bullet weight, even with the rifle's 24" barrel. I'll elaborate.

Using a few different powders and a 180gr. PSP, I'm only able to achieve around 2600-2620fps. Expected velocity with those bullets is 2700fps. Fine, 80-100fps isn't terrible, and no animal will ever notice. 165's are only able to get to 2700-2750 with max loads, and expected velocity with those is in the 2850-2900fps range. Again, fine, but the gap is widening a little bit. 150's and two different powders will only make it to 2800fps when I should be getting 2900 or even 3000 in some cases.

I'm not going to chase velocity with this rifle - safety first and all that - but nothing I do will get the speed up to what's normally expected with a 30-06. I'm getting 308 velocities while burning about 7-10 grains more powder. This leads me to believe this rifle just shoots "slow" compared to others. It's the only time I've experienced this while handloading. Bit of a head scratcher. I've tried both medium burn rate powders and some slower (think 4350) powders with pretty much the same results. Anyone else experience this?

I have the same issue with a 270 Weatherby. I've tried several powder bullet combinations and it's about 100-150fps slow compared to the load data. I've killed a number of deer with it and they didn't notice the difference. It will group most bullets/ powders within an inch at 100yds. I stopped worrying about the velocity years ago.

I had several Steyer rifles, all brand new, all same model.

Tested with Norma 150 grain factory ammo, they were all 270 Winchester.

I was amazed at the velocity difference.

Over 150 fps????!

Between the slowest and the fastest.

Not something about which I care, worry, or test for. Waste of time.

I have a rifle with a 26" barrel and my bro has the same chambering cut with the same reamer and his is 24". The barrels are from different custom barrel makers but I need to push mine a bit hard to equal what velocity he gets from his 24".
So much for 26" barrels are always faster than 24" barrels!

I've said it before and will say it again, "barrels/rifles are like women, all are totally different and they like uniquely different things".

Zeke

I had one, I sold a .470 NE double to a member of AR to buy a much “nicer” double, also .470 NE. With exact same handloads the “nice” rifle was almost 200 FPS slower. I sold it and bought one like I had in the first place, velocity with same loads was back up where it should’ve been. More accurate, too.

Not surprising since most mfg's inflate velocities for ammo. It could be a matter of bore condition. Slick compared to rough.

quote:

Originally posted by Clayman:
Greetings all,

I acquired a Remington 700 in 30-06 early last year and have been messing around with load development with it since. Accuracy is excellent; I'm easily able to get groups of any bullet to less than 1" at 100y. The one thing I've noticed is that I'm never able to get to within the vicinity of what expected velocities are for any bullet weight, even with the rifle's 24" barrel. I'll elaborate.

Using a few different powders and a 180gr. PSP, I'm only able to achieve around 2600-2620fps. Expected velocity with those bullets is 2700fps. Fine, 80-100fps isn't terrible, and no animal will ever notice. 165's are only able to get to 2700-2750 with max loads, and expected velocity with those is in the 2850-2900fps range. Again, fine, but the gap is widening a little bit. 150's and two different powders will only make it to 2800fps when I should be getting 2900 or even 3000 in some cases.

I'm not going to chase velocity with this rifle - safety first and all that - but nothing I do will get the speed up to what's normally expected with a 30-06. I'm getting 308 velocities while burning about 7-10 grains more powder. This leads me to believe this rifle just shoots "slow" compared to others. It's the only time I've experienced this while handloading. Bit of a head scratcher. I've tried both medium burn rate powders and some slower (think 4350) powders with pretty much the same results. Anyone else experience this?

My .308 is slow and getting slower. I can get close to published velocities (this is a 26" barrel though, and published velocities are out of 22 or 24" barrels) but my powder charges are significantly higher than published. No pressure signs though, even after several reloads (it's the only rifle I own where I can neck-size only indefinitely).

In this particular case, the barrel is considered "shot out". The bullet currently only touches the rifling after leaving the case completely and travelling another 3-4mm.

My assumption is that some of the powder gasses are passing the bullet before it obturates.

All good replies, fellas, and thanks for the feedback. Like I mentioned in my first post, this doesn't concern me enough to take any kind of experimental measures. I'm not going to get bent out of shape over that much velocity, though it'd be nice to have it back!

I did buy the rifle used and while I've cleaned and inspected the bore thoroughly, I've never stuck a bore scope down it to see the condition of the actual chamber, leade, and rifling. The latter is probably fine, as the rifle is still very accurate.

To Peter's comment above, I suppose it's possible there's some gas blow by as things get started, but that's just a guess.

My 03 Springfield was pathetically slow. A new bbl woke it right up. Too many rounds over too many years.

I am with dpcd. Nothing I have ever shot was worried about the bullet speed for that given rifle!

I have a Win 264 mag with a 24" barrel.
After throating to seat a 120 out to 3.5"'
it will now hit 3250 fps. The same as my 6.5x284 with that barrel length.
That rifle has shot so much game, I don't worry about how slow it is. It's still a "lucky" rifle.

According to BOOK most of my rifles are slow.

My 27 inch 338-06 never sees the velocities that some 338-06 owners get.

Out of much shorter barrels

I had a 308 Norma Mag that would only push 180 gr bullets a little over 2900 fps rather than the claimed 3100 fps. Getting that first chronograph just about ruined that rifle for me. Good thing nobody told the moose and elk.That old rifle killed a truck load of them and most with one shot.

Yep, there are "fast" and "slow" barrels -- but the size of the chamber, which is in effect the pressure vessel -- also plays a role. Obviously, a larger chamber in the same caliber allows more room for expansion of the gas and therefore lower pressures and velocities. The same is true of freebore, which effectively increases the size of the pressure vessel.

However, within reason neither the chamber nor freebore seems to influence velocities as much as the "slickness" (for lack of a better word) of the barrel itself.

Remember, however, that lacking any way to accurately measure pressures some "slow" barrels may just be producing low pressures (a combination of chamber, freebore, and barrel conditions). If so, then that same barrel may produce higher velocities when pressures are brought up to whatever standard.

Most don't know, many don't care...Mine must be close as they all shoot about the sames, none are slow these days best I can figure, its all in the barrel, some powder don't measure up to snuff, and called a slow barrel I spect!!

Just for S&Gs I decided I'd download my .375 H&H to .375 Flanged velocities - 300 gr bullet at 2400 fps.

I had 1 lb of StaBALL 6.5 sitting around, and Hodgdon said about 72 grains would get me there with a 24" barrel.

Well... my M70 factory barrel demanded 75.5 gr. before it would deliver 2400 fps. Fine with me as it fills the case better than 72 gr....

My late Dad's 1966 vintage, 30-06, Winchester Model 70, is very slow. I need to add 2.0 grs of powder to get book speeds.

A buddy has a Sako and a Hart Custom, both in 300 Winmag.

Using a 180gr Barnes TTSX, the Sako tops out at about 2,950fps when sticky bolt lift starts, and the exact same load in the Hart is pushing over 3,100fps.

The "books" are that outfits rifle or universal action, their barrel, their test equipment and the components they have on hand at he time. They're good for safe data, usually but I've never expected any of my rifles or loads to match theirs, slower or faster. My chrono is to see what my loads are doing in my rifles, not to confirm their data.

I have a friend that believes he has special chambers; he claims he is able to add 3 grains over maximum for his loads. I told him I could fix his problem with some Remington 30/06 cases that have case heads that are .260 thick. The same cases have a short powder column.

F. Guffey

quote:

Originally posted by F. Guffey:
I have a friend that believes he has special chambers; he claims he is able to add 3 grains over maximum for his loads. I told him I could fix his problem with some Remington 30/06 cases that have case heads that are .260 thick. The same cases have a short powder column.

F. Guffey

There are few here who claim much higher velocities.

Because of their special chambers

quote:

There are few here who claim much higher velocities.

I do not have a lot of interest in how fast the bullet gets there, I do not want to walk very far to determine how close they are to the center of the target. This same friend built 4 beautiful/magnificent rifles from 03 and 03A3 rifles. The accuracy went haywire (in his opinion) in one of the rifles. All had the same chamber; He made the reamer. He called me for help after he took the rifle to smiths from here to Monahans.

He called me, he wanted to know what was wrong with this one rifle, I told him I did not know. He wanted to know where I would start when checking the rifle. I told him I would use a few fired cases to make tools and then get started. He wanted to know why I needed his fired cases. I told him I wanted to know the distance from the neck of the chamber to the beginning of the rifling, so he got on the Internet to find out how to measure the distance from the end of the neck to the rifling. He found all kind of help with smiths with wood dowels, he called to give me all of the details, he wanted me to make sense of his findings. I told him to get back on the Internet for answers. He called again that afternoon to inform me of his decision, he was coming over with the rifle, I told him I was not interested unless I had fired cases from his rifle.

I drilled out the primer pocket of 5 of his case and then sized the neck, after sizing the neck I seated the longest 270 bullet I had. I removed the bolt and then chambered the modified cases. After chambering the cases I took a small dowel and shoved the bullet out of his cases, the bullets came out of his cases before the bullet contacted the rifling and then skidded down the bore until it got to the rifling.

Big problem, the bullet traveled over .300" before it contacted the rifling, He asked me "How could that happen?" He cut the chamber, he made the reamer, and he built the rifles. I suggest someone got infatuated with Weatherby, I suggested someone took a throating reamer and extended the free bore for the purpose of adding space for powder.

I suggested he purchase another barrel; he broke the reamer meaning he could not chamber the rifle with the same chamber that was similar to a 270 Gibbs.

We loaded 80 rounds to determine if the rife liked anything. It was accurate with one load.

Time past, a lot of time and then one day he told me he was coming to get the rifle. I told him how difficult that was going to be because the last time I saw that rifle was at the firing range meaning he took it home with him or he left it at the range. I did offer to help him look for the rifle at his house.

F. Guffey