I shot for group at 335 yards earlier today, using the standard 57.5 grain charge of H4350 behind 165 grain Sierra Gamekings in my Remington 700 30-06. The bolt lugs are lapped, the action glass bedded, and the barrel free floated.

I've settled on Winchester brass cases for the above mentioned load, and CCI 200 primers with an OAL of 3.345".

I did have on hand, however, two shots of the same recipe except with Remington cases. I also have about a half dozen Winchester nickel cased loads with the 57.5 grain charge, but with CCI BR (not the 200) primers.

I shot five shots consisting of two of the Winchester brass cased loads (CCI 200 primers), the two Remington cased loads with that same primer, and one shot with the nickel cased Winchester load with the CCI BR primer.

The group size for all five shots, fired prone from sandbags, was 2.25 inches--about 2/3 MOA at that range.

Now, Hotcore, flatter me and tell me I'm lying!

Dan

Better I shot a 1.75 in at 400 using wc844 with a 80 gr serria blitz out of my 243. I have varmit weigth 30-06 that I shoot with 180 gr serria match kings that does in the low twos at 300. My 223 with 52 gr serria matchs shoots into 1.5 at 300. I shot a 3 shot group with my 700 remington 300 winmag the went into .75 with 180 gr serria match kings. My buddy has a 338 ruger mkII that well put 250 rem factory under 3in ant 300 yards. Other then that nice shooting keep it up.

Thanks for the reply PD shooter...

The point I wanted to make was that with a properly developed and balanced load, brass case variations (Winchester, Remington, etc.) won't harm the group as much as is often assumed to be the case.

Of course if I matched the brass this group would presumably be tighter. I had previously shot the Remington and Winchester cased loads into a group at 225 yards, and the entire mis-matched group was a neat 1/2 MOA.
At 335 yards, the two Remington cased shots were about 1" apart, and the Winchester cased shots were about that same distance from each other. The Remington cased loads hit just a bit higher at this range than the Winchester cased loads did, probably due to the increased pressure induced by thicker case walls. (The Remington cases weighed about 10 grains more than the Winchesters. The single Winchester nickel cased round hit high and right and widened the group to a 2 1/4" spread.

I like the .243 also. My best group on paper with my Rem 788 is three shots, 1 3/4" at 450 yards. That was using a 70 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip and 42 grains of Varget with CCI BR primers.

Take care,

Dan

dan -

Great shooting, especially with mismatched components!! STOP experimenting. You're exploding all those reloading Commandments Or, is that 57.5 4350/165 load just such a perfect fit that it will work with anything?

You know, come to think of it, I'm currently using that load with Fed. Gold Medal Match brass in two different 06's (although one rifle seems to prefer F210M's, H4350 and Speer Flat Base bullets, while the other one likes WLR primers, AA or IMR 4350 and R-P Core-Lokts), but, checking my load notes, it really didn't seem to matter that much what case, primer or bullet I was using, it just worked. Maybe we have found the universal load. Eureka!!

From reading your posts, it's obvious you're a pretty experienced guy in the ways of rifles. I got into a little debate over in the gunsmithing forum about lapping lugs. I don't mean to drag that thread over here, but, I noticed you mentioned that your 700 has lapped lugs. Rob mentioned in the other thread that, unless your action is re-machined/trued, lapping the lugs was a waste of time. Other guys noted a possibility of increasing headspace, which I find hard to believe (I can't imagine lapping ten thousandths without an appendage falling off).

I've been hand-lapping the lugs on my 700's for quite a while, and have never had any problems with headspace, since the dies have been adjusted to just touch the shoulder anyway, and two of the rifles have showed definite accuracy increases. Coincidentally, those two had almost NO bearing on the second lug, prior to my fooling around with them. Maybe I'm just wasting my time doing all the stuff I do to my rifles, but, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the lapping issue.

Thanx,

R-WEST

Ditto! (Rush rules! )

My 700 had the same problem--no bearing on one of the lugs at all. The poor girl apparently lived the last 30 years (class of 1972) that way.

I took a permanent marker and marked the rear faces of the lugs, chambered a case, and noticed the problem.

I had some scope ring lapping compound on hand, and I smeared a touch on the lug which was bearing (after measuring its thickness). I put the bolt back in on an empty case, with the lug that wasn't touching still marked, and worked it open and closed about a dozen times. I removed the bolt and noticed that bearing marks were beginning to appear. After a dozen or two additional cycles, the lug was bearing about 80 to 90 percent. I figured that was good enough. I removed the lapping compound and cleaned everything up, and rechecked the bearing of both lugs, and all was well. I remeasured the lug I had lapped, and it was only .002" thinner.

Accuracy improved remarkably from that point forward.

I imagine in cases where the amount of error on the lugs was extreme, there may be some problems with headspacing issues after taking, say, ten to fifteen thousandths or so off of one side, but I see no reason not to give a little lapping compound a try before taking the rifle off to the smith.

Gunsmiths perform valuable services to us shooters, and when you need one, well... you need one. There are those who see any gunsmithing work personally performed as foolish at best and heresy at worst. But the few debacles I've gotten myself into via "kitchen table gunsmithing" have been good learning experiences, and at last count have cost me far less than the money I've saved from my successes. Of course as Dirty Harry once said "A man's got to know his limitations..."

Thanks for the post,

Dan

The only case sorting and prep I do is by manufacture and to trim when needed. I tryed all the other stuff but for the kind of shooting I do I did not find a cost to time benifit from it nor group size. May be the bench rest crowd gets the last bit of group size out of it but any rifle the well shoot .5 works very well for p dogs and and big game rifle that shoots under 1 in at 100 is great for big game. Then I have shot a lot of game with 1.5 rifles and I dought that the game could tell. But it is sure fun when you have one that really shoots don't get me wrong I like a very accurate rifle as much as the next guy.

green 788, I don't know how it would do at 335 yards, but my 7mm Rem. Mag. Ruger No. 1B shoots several loads into 1" or slightly less @ 200 yards........

I have a bunch of 7mm magnum cases mismatched from when I started reloading 20 years ago and didn't know any better. I shoot them with a medium load, neck-sized, with benchrest primers, nice bullets, and do not think ( for this gun at least ) it is creating a problem. A bigger problem is barrel heating; the first two shots land within 1/2" of each other, the third opens it up to 3/4" ( down and to the right ), and any more than that are worse.

When I got a 6mm-284 built I also got 200 unprimed cases from one manufacturing lot. It is more accurate but also has varmint-weight barrel, better bedding, and lapped lugs.

Tom