All went well. Everything went boom and there were absolutely no excessive pressure signs.

Accuracy varied. Only H4350 and H414 seemed to show promise for sub MOA loads.

Few things. Would like to hear comments. Gun is a M700 in 30-06.

- Every load tried shot into 2"

- The charge made a surprising effect on accuracy. The starting load of H4350 was the biggest group. 1/2 off max was the smallest.

- Both H414 and H4350 showed best accuracy at 1/2-1 grain off of max.

- Varget was the worst performer in my gun.

- I can still beat these loads, at least now, with its favorite factory ammo. I can now match factory ammo with my preferred hunting bullet though.

- I see 1-2 more range trips before I have it dialed in.

With every load grouping under two inches, you are obviously doing things correctly, including the shooting. There are legions of rifles which won't do that well for their owners, and still "make meat" very reliably.

It's not uncommon to have the best accuracy with the near-maximum loads, and my own M700 in .30-06 does much the same as yours. With its favored hunting loads (Nosler partitions, usually 200 @ 2700) it reliably groups five rounds right around the one-inch area from 100 yards. That is ample accuracy for anything I ever want to hunt with that rifle.

Now that you know how neat it is to load your own and see decent results, you are in deep doodoo......we gotcha now!

Now get yourself a Stoney Point gauge and calipers and play around with the seating depth of the bullets to really fine tune it. Different primer brands also have an effect. Not surprised you got good results with H4350. It was one of my favorites. In the 308 size cases and down the Varget works better. In the larger case it leaves you too much empty space.

Metalman29

Curious what bullet were you using with your loads?

quote:

Originally posted by Jay Johnson:
Metalman29

Curious what bullet were you using with your loads?

Jay, you took the words right out of my mouth. Jay

Bren Mk1 is right. Reloading is addictive because we think we can always do it better than the factory. I like it because I know exactly what I have in the case and can vary it to get the results I want, which allows me to do more shooting along the way. Also, living in the wide open spaces of Nevada requires that one reload. We shoot so much here, a boy would go broke buying that pre-made stuff.

I was shooting 180 grain partitions. My general all-around bullet.

As an aside, I was very surprised everything shot fairly well. I was expecting some powders to show much larger groups.

None of the starting loads were very good. The groups then tightened near max, then tended to open very slightly at book max.

This gun does shoot most things fairly well with a few exceptions. I can only get 4" groups with Hornady 165 grain BTSP factory.

Made me wonder if best accuracy is more dependant on the bullet the rifle likes. Factory ballistic tips in this rifle will halve the group size of anything else I have ever shot in it.

Unless you have a moose in your future I'd recommend switching down to the 165gr Partition (if you insist on partitions.)

180gr are overkill, both on most deer and your shoulder.
You'll probably find that it's easier to get an '06 to group real well withm165's and somewhat more pleasant to shoot.

and if you take that advice or not I recommend trying
some RL22 to drive whatever bullet you choose..

AllanD

Close to maximum often gives best performance.