I had a Howa that would not shoot 100 grain bullets, especially Noslers or Barnes. The pressure got too high and would blow out the primers about the second shot. I worked with different loads and never wend outside the perameters indicated in the book. I finally sold it. Now I've got another .243 for the kids. It's a Rossi. What do I need to do to build a deer load for it?

All rifles are individuals. Many of them, regardless of caliber, will not accept as heavy loads as the firearm used by a particular loading manual would accept. By the same token, such a rifle may achieve somewhat higher velocities than the test firearm with the same charge of powder. Variables such as bullet hardness and seating depth can also have an influence on pressure and velocity. Are you sure you weren't engaging the lands? The Barnes bullets especially are famous for spiking pressures if seated out to the lands.

Here's a real world example of an individual rifle performing differntly from the "average": I have a .270 Winchester that exhibits pressure signs with 130 grain bullets and any charge of H-4831 greater than 58.5 grains. For many years, shooters and reference material have routinely regarded 60 grains of this powder as a reasonable working load -- and yielding around 3050-3100 fps. My gun with 58.5 grains yields 3200 fps. So, unless you chronographed those loads in the Howa you got rid of, you really have no idea what kind of performance you were getting. Making assumptions about the performance of handloads without a chronograph is a crapshoot. Likewise, expecting your rifle to perform essentially like the rifle used in one or another reloading manual is unreasonable.

What is your barrels twist? The 6mm Rem when it 1st came out was known as a poor choice for heavy bullets due to the twist. Some claim that was Winchesters edge with the 243, it worked with 100 gr bullets and made a better varmit/deer cartridge.
I believe the std for the .243/6mm today is 1/10

You don't need a 100-grain bullet when the 85-grain Barnes TSX is available.

I agree with all three posters. Likely your pressures were too high because your bullets were driven into the lands. That's certainly consistent with what you experienced. That will drive pressures through the roof.

But a too slow twist with heavier (longer) bullets is a problem too and TSXs just rock.

LWD

Thanks for your replies.
I was always careful to start my seating depths at least .05 away from the lands.
I would have thought that a slower twist might not stabelize the longer bullet, but I wouldn't think that it would increase preasure.

Back when I was working up loads the Barnes Tripple Shock had yet to come out. I'll see what I can do with them.
Thanks.

.05 IMO is to close to start I start all mine at .025 off and TSX at .040+

When the 6mm Rem had the slow twist, it was called a .244 Rem. As the 6mm Rem, it had a 1/9 twist.
First off, load books are guidelines not absolutes. You could have had a chamber that was nearing the minimums of the saami limits and so pressure showed up a little quicker. Also some of the bullet companies differ on what diameter a given sized bullet should be. This is why, when you change components, you should drop back on you powder charge a bit and work back up. And then some brass is heavier than others, and so forth. So you see, you could of had a tight chamber, fat bullets, thick brass, etc,etc. A prudent reloader takes that into consideration and starts low and works up.
With your current rifle, start out with a middle load. Load up three and put them in a baggie with a scrap of paper giving the powder charge. Load three more with a .5 greater powder charge and do the baggie and paper thing again. Keep doing this until you have a collection of loads that reach to about 75-80% of max and go shoot them. Have a couple of extra batches of sighters loaded up in the middle load to sight the rifle with.
Shoot from a good solid bench with a good solid rest or sand bags. Hopefully on a calm day. Use a different bullseye for each group. I use the .22 targets with several bulls on each sheet. And keep careful records. As you shoot the 75% and 80% loads, watch your primers and feel your bolt lift. See how they look and feel.
If everything seems fine, load up some more groups of three starting at say 65% and going closer to max.
If you get to max without any overt signs of pressure, and really a slightly flattened primer or a cratered firing pin strike isn't too much to worry about, somewhere along the way you should have shot a group of three that clustered very close together. Take that as your sweet spot and load five rounds at .5 below, five rounds .2 below, five rounds at the sweet spot, five rounds .2 above and five rounds .5 above and shoot them. And further refine your accuracy load.
Throughout all of this, you should be setting you cartridges at the suggested book COL. Once you have your accuracy load, you can try tinkering around with your bullet jump to see if you can improve it. Its been my experience that bullet jump may or may not improve a good load but it ain't gonna make a one holer out of a dog. There ain't no magic tricks to reloading, its all pretty straightforward.
One of the tricks we used before every kid on the block had a Chrony, if you are using say Remington brass buy some factory ammo with a like weight bullet and fire it in your rifle. Measure the fired brass acrost the web and keep a record of high, low, and median. If you don't have a Chrony, use the upper factory measurements + say .005 as a pressure limit in your reloading.

quote:

Originally posted by Hunt-ducks:
.05 IMO is to close to start I start all mine at .025 off and TSX at .040+

.05 is to close?! Then .025 or .04 isn't?

B.Martins