Nailed down some loads this weekend for 3 rifles.

The first was easy. A .223 Browning A-Bolt Medallion with BOSS and a POS Burris 6-24 Signature that I just got back from target knob installation. The POS part we'll get into later...



My previous load was too hot. 52 grain Sierra MK with W-748. Dropped it down a bit and tuned the BOSS as well as possible. It still wasn't as good as I had hoped, so I left the BOSS setting the same and did a little charge weight tuning.




Settled on the 27.8 grain load at .4"

The previous day with the load that wasn't this good, I shot steel plates with a spotter out to 700 yards making hits even with the Burris scope.

Next was the .264 Win Mag.





I had a good load with WC-872 and the 130 grain Scirocco...




...and was happy with the velocity. That is till woods got 3200 fps with his 6.5 Rem Mag with the same bullet!

I did some testing with US-869 and got 100 fps better velocities so I tried to find accuracy. I shot an Audette Ladder and it was pretty pitiful in the "finding the node" department. Nothing really pointed to being able to find accuracy; no multiple consecutive shots "grouping". I tried to tune one of the higher velocity loads with seating depth but could just barely get under MOA.

At the same time, I shot a seating depth test with the WC-872 bumped up by .5 grains...





The last shot blew the group. The barrel was hot and I was fighting heat wave mirage coming up into the scope otherwise one hell of a good group at 200 yards with a hunting bullet

The other thing noticed was that velocity was higher with about the same load I first developed. The barrel has about 100 rounds through it now and I'm guessing it's breaking in. Has anyone experienced this; increasing velocity as a barrel breaks in with the same load?

The load that was around 3175 through the newer barrel now reached 3225-3277 fps yesterday. Next will be nailing down drop data which is fun once you have a good load

And finally, the "Internet Group" rifle. A Winchester Model 70 Classic Sharpshooter in .300 WM. Shot an Audette last week to find a node with RL-25, 208 grain A-Max.






About 5 consecutive shots "grouped". The center of the charge range was 74.2 grains so I loaded some at .010" off of the rifling and took my press to the range to do a seating depth test.

At .040" off the lands a .585" group was fired at 200 yards.



I had 5 rounds left, seated them down and shot steel for first round hits at 440, 560, 650, 700, 760 yards.

The thing really is a long range laser long range laser





About the POS scope.
My gunsmith has invented a "Jig" on which to do precision scope mounting. The rifle is taken out of the stock and fit to the Jig. It is precisely leveled and the scope is mounted level to the intersection of the center of the bore. This is important to eliminated the effect of cant.

While the rifle is in the Jig, the scope is sighted across a parking lot to a vertical board which is marked precisely from -0- in MOA and MILS. They are set to the actual distance from where you are and are perfect. I would venture to guess that very few people have gone to this extreme to perfect this activity or have a device like this

You would be amazed at how many scopes don't work as advertised. Whether it be the clicks that are supposed to be .25 MOA or reticles marked in MIL or MOA supposedly.

The scope in question firstly has very little travel. Secondly, when you dial in MOA from -0- (both the scope on -0- and the crosshair on -0- on the board) what you dial doesn't match actual travel on the board. This is a major problem if you want to be able to actually hit something!

Dialing 7 MOA on the scope puts the actual travel on the board at 7.5 MOA or worse.

Leupold scopes work!

quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:
...A .223 Browning A-Bolt Medallion with BOSS and a POS Burris 6-24 Signature ...the scope is sighted across a parking lot to a vertical board which is marked precisely from -0- in MOA and MILS. ...

You going Deer Hunting with CarpetMan?

What keeps the board from Warping?

It's laminated with melamine I think.

I want woods to upgrade his scope mounting procedure by marking his board accurately in MOA and MIL. He already has the mounting thingy. He needs to fix his target thingy now.

On second thought, maybe not. He then might realize that his commie-made scopes aren't as good as he thought!


BTW, everytime I shoot my .223 I try to imagine shooting deer with it. Amazing....

Hey rc, wish I got to shoot as much as you do!

re: the 130 gr Scirrocco II, it may be that bullet wants to come out of 26" barrels like yours or mine at 3175 to 3225 fps. I have noticed similar trends in other bullets like the 200 gr 30 caliber Accubond that if I hit within a certain speed range then it is consistant and accurate in several rifles, but accuracy suffers out of that range. Probably until you until you pass the inaccuracy zone and drop back into or go forward into another node. I suspect with the 200 gr Accubone it picks back up at 3050+ fps but you would need a RUM to get there.

Anyway my point is that it is not going to do you any good to have all that extra case capacity on the 264 win mag and be able to gain a very slight velocity advantage over my 6.5 rem mag because it will carry you right out of the node, so no need to even try!

Seems like the only trend I have noticed with new barrels is that the max load is higher when you first start shooting them in. Now this may go hand in hand with an increasing velocity with the same load on broken in barrels as opposed to new barrels.

For instance this was a load I worked up to with my 280AI when the barrel was fairly new



In order to keep in that same velocity range after the barrel hit over 150 shots I had to lower that to 60.5 gr of powder to get the same velocity. Now there are a lot of other variables most notably many will say it is the RL powders, at least those who have limited experience with it and an axe to grind (not mentioning any names HC!).

So IMO velocites will creep up with barrel age and level out after a certain number of rounds like the velocity will creep up with a dirtier barrel. Maybe all the microscopic pores have filled and the bore forms a tighter seal around the bullet (to a very small degree) so pressure goes up.

re: the 300 win mag, the Audette clearly indicates an accuracy grouping at shots 5 thru 9 but that is a direct result of the velocity plateau of those shots (2882, 2924, 2872, 2904, 2883 BTW you need to get an RCBS 1500 powder thrower and scale and those velocities would probably be more progressive ). Now perhaps that is a perfectly viable plateau but I would worry about whether your rickety old fashioned past it's prime outdated balance beam scale needs it's knifed edges cleaned!

Nice group woods. I can see why your .280 AI is your "go to" rifle! Must be the RL powder.

I had the same thought about the barrel and what velocity the Scirocco may "like". As you see, it likes 3250 in my barrel.

What about the scope? You need to make a thingy to check its functioning

About the .300 velocities:
My club is right by the airport and the radar interferes with the chrono as well as electronic hearing protection. Those velocities are what I read but not accurate. My chargemaster 750 is fine. I use the beam as a comparator

quote:

Accubone

Are you talking about the famous porn star?

quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:

quote:

Accubone

Are you talking about the famous porn star?

quote:

Originally posted by woods:
...In order to keep in that same velocity range after the barrel hit over 150 shots I had to lower that to 60.5 gr of powder to get the same velocity. Now there are a lot of other variables most notably many will say it is the RL powders, at least those who have limited experience with it and an axe to grind (not mentioning any names HC!)....

Yes indeed, getting to "constantly" re-tune the Load due to using "RL-Powders" is one of the many benefits.