Well today I went to the range today and shot off my first handmade loads. It was a clam morning about 35* outside hardly any wind. First I shot the first these: Hornaday V-Max 50g bullets- 24g Benchmark Powder - Winchester primer - Remington once fired brass -OAL of ammo 2.250. The pic with the 4 shots on the left and 4 shots on the right of the target were with this ammo. I continued to shoot 20 rounds of this same ammo and had very similar target results. The second set of rounds I made were: Nostler 55g Bullets - 254g Benchmark Powder - CCI BR4 primers - Hornady once fired brass - OAL 2.250. The target with the shots below the bulls eye are with these rounds my first 2 shots were on the line and just about on target where I was aiming the other 2 kind of just ended up on the right. The other 16 shots were very similar to the first for with this ammo. I could not get my groups to average inside 2". My last set of shots were with factory ammo. Hornady V-May 55g Factory. It says 8 shots on the sticker but it was actually 7 shots in the target and one shot at a bowling pin 200 yards out. All targets were shot at 100 Yards. You can see I still have a lot of work to get my rounds to equal the factory rounds. Any suggestions on what I should do to start fine tuning my loads to bring them in to that factory range? My rifle is a 1-9 twist Savage 10 Preditor Hunter in .223.

Hopefully these pictures upload I am not really sure how to make them larger if I need to or even how to just post the pics to my message here. I will give it a try

OK sorry none of my pics worked. Once I find out how to post them I will have them up on this same page.

1st I`d suggest a scale to replace the dippers. if you don`t have one. They are quite accurate after you get them down, but there is a learning curve to useing them and powder charges can vary a few tenths grain easily.
The load will likely need a little tuning in reguard to OAL, primer, ect after a powder and charge wgt is decided on.

I have a digital scale that I use. I place the empty dipper on the scape and zero it out then I add the powder to the dipper. I am not sure if this is the most accurate way of doing it but all of my 24g loads were either exacty 24g or 24.2g according to the digital scale. Do you think a regular scale would make more of a difference in the accuracy than my method? Also could the .2 difference in my powder charge cause a difference of 1/2"-1" off on my groups? Thanks again for your help...Hopefully I will have some pics posted here soon to show you what I mean.

IMG]http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g118/dpsa98/3-7-09TheRange0041424x1068.jpg[/IMG]

These were my first 4 shots with the 55g Nostler- 25g Benchmark Powder. All the rest were similar shots with this load.

digger - looks like a good beginning! now the challenge is to fine-tune the ammo; play a little with the seating depth etc. make small, incremrntal changes and keep track of what works and what doesn't.

your powder and/or charge may also need a little tweaking.

it sounds like your quality control (weighing charges, measuring COAL, etc) will help. the dipper/scale combination is a good iea and will help you develop a method for uniform measurment.the more you can do to promote consistency between each round, the better!

That is the coolest range I could imagine,neat country.Next step is ten @24.5gr,and ten at 25gr,and so on all the way to 26.5gr with the 50gr bullet.
You can do the same with the 55gr bullets but only to 25.5 gr of powder.Somewhere there should be a sweet spot with both bullets.
Then like the other guys say you can experiment with seating depth.
So how was it firing your first loads???Congratulations on your start.
Mick

Hey Mick
It was nerve racking. I was afraid to pull the trigger but each one of them fired just fine without a hitch. I think its going to be really windy tomorrow so I might not get to shoot but I think I will use the free time to work us some new loads with different specs. as suggested. I was thinking of moving the OAL to 2.260-2.265?

take your best shooting groups OAL, and add .005 to that.. and then to that, and then that .. and go shoot those three.

make them ever so slightly LONGER

Haha....yeah I know the feeling digger0040.I flinched bad on my first reloaded shot.Didn`t take long to get over it though.It was windy here today also...wanted to shoot bad but instead I FL sized some once fired Remington .223 brass.

Try the increase in charge weights by .5grs and go ahead and let them out to 2.260".That 24gr was just a start load.They should tighten up in one of the increments.

Then you can always change the OAL in small increments longer for sure as the other posters have noted.At some point they will become too long for the magazine as you have already found out.

If you decide to seat deeper start all over with 24gr.Your rifle may indeed like the short OAL of 2.230" like the factory stuff.The rifle will tell you.

You can afford to do it at around $6 a box now.Ain`t that nice?

Digger, no troubles from your wife this time. Today I bought a lottery ticket and won 50 bucks off of it, but remember I didn't tell my wife. What she don't know won't hurt her, unless she digs thru my wallet then I got some explaining to do.

52gr serria match bullets I have several savages in 223 and 22-250 that all shoot vey well with that bullet with out hardly any load development. One is a savage tac 223 that well shoot under .375 inch groups One 1.5 inch for 5 shots at 300. wacks P dogs very well.

Digger,

Brings back memories of my first 38 Spl. loads made with a Lee Loader. Does not take long to build the confidence factor in - the rifle's not gonna blow up!

Everyone else has been gracious with thier Tips - here are mine.

1. Try to keep sand out of the Coffee - Always Good, no sand in the coffee.....

BTW - nice range and the bench is obviously sturdy; Ugh, stable.

2. Sure, tweak the loads, I consider a .5 grain increment for a .223 Rem. a touch on the large side but that's my opinion.

3. I use a Bipod, too but for certain field applications, not on cement benches. While you may hear some howls form others; my suggestion would be to save the Bipod for hunting and get either some sandbags, a Front Rest & Rear Bag or suitable Bench rig for evaluating loads.

In my expereince a hard bench surface with a Bipod may, could be, perhaps is (you get the drift - I'm not 100% sure) bouncing the rifle about a bit. Your loads may be perfect just the way they are but IMHO the Bipod could be the culprit.

It certainly appears you are organized & disciplined in your shooting which probably extends to your attention to detail at the reloading bench as well.

Obviously off to a good start.....welcome to the joys of Reloading!