There is a shooting competition with my local gun club in a couple months. I have been working on developing a load for my Tikka .243. Who ever can shoot the tightest groups will receive cash rewards at 100, 200, and 300 yards. Does any one have any suggestions of loads that have worked for them? Too the person who comes up with the most accurate load that I end up using, if I win the competition, I will pay out a reward of $25. Remember that is Canadian dollars to all you Yanks. Just a way of showing my appreciation for your input.

p.s. I fully support Bush in his efforts in Iraq, it makes me mad what the Canadian government has done up here in the north.

Wyat,

36.5 grains of Varget and a 85 gr Sierra HPBT.

42 grains of Varget and a 70 grain Nosler Ballistic tip or a 70 grain sierra HPBT match. 40-42 seems to work pretty good all in that range. Nosler calls for 42 with the ballistic tip. I find a little under that works well for me.

75 grain V max with 38.5 grains of Varget.

Is your Tikka a Contenental? If so where did you get it? I would like to get one as I have heard very good things about them.

Mark

PS I am mighty choked up with what my Government is doing as well and with the way the protestors are behaving about it.

[ 04-04-2003, 07:53: Message edited by: markus ]

Years ago I shot Hunter Class benchrest with a Sako L579 in .243 Win with the factory heavy barrel. I used 42.4 gr of H380 with the 70 grain Sierra HPBT benchrest bullet in W-W cases with the CCI BR2 primer. This load will hold a quarter minute in good conditions in that rifle.

jim dodd

Unfortently it is not a Continental! I have also looked for them up here in Canada. I have not seen one yet. I purchased my Master Synthetic at Wholesale Sports. I dont think they carry the Continetal yet. They are nice guns, accurate out of the box.

I'll play. Start with a 70 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. Load it over 42 grains of IMR 4320 or 41 grains of any 4895. Torch it with any standard force primer, but CCI benchrest would be the most certain.

(Appreciate your support of what the U.S. is doing. You'll have plenty of time to help with the occupation over the next decade, and also pitch in with the serial wars to follow. Thanks for the willingness to help!)

Wyat,

A friend and myself were looking for a varmint rifle for him in Wholesale sports in Calgary. The sales guy we spoke to was a Tikka fan who told us he could get a Continental brought in for us if we would like and thought it would cost about the same amount as a 700VLS. However since we drove up from southern BC and wanted to look at what we were buying we passed on the offer.

So to make a long story short I believe you could get Wholesale sports to bring you in a Contental but it would take a while to show up.

Mark

With respect to having an accurate rifle, there is more to getting the right one than simply getting a good load and puking out a tight group.

The suggestion I have is concerning brass. There are a couple of things you can do to get things dialed in just right.

Step 1
If you have a hundred once fired cases, verify that they are all trimmed to a consistent length, deburr the flash holes, and inspect to make sure they are all in excellent shape. A little trick I like to do after tapering the inside of the neck is to take an exacto knife blade and run it around the inside of the rim guiding it with my fingers. The purpose is to remove any little bitty burrs or rings that the tapering tool left on the inside. If you do all 100 cases you will be amazed at the amount of additional tiny little burrs which you will break loose. Those burrs will gouge the bullet as you are seating it in the brass and cause problems.
Oh yes, make sure all the brass is the same brand and preferrably from the same lot. Some brands ae better than others and it takes experience to find out which preps well and which does not. I like Winchester brass in 243 caliber.

Step 2 (Preferred but optional)
Neck turn the brass to make the necks a consistent thickness in order to give the same neck tension to all the brass.

Step 3
Weigh the empty (but prepped) brass and sort it from lightest to heaviest. I write the weight on the side of each case with a felt marker so it can be wiped off later. Make sure and weigh them as accurately as possible. I do mine to the nearest 1/10 of a grain.
You will find that there will be about half the brass which is in a clump (weight wise) with the rest being heavier or lighter. Try to sort several groups of 10 pieces which weigh the same to within 1/10 or 2/10 of a grain. When I do 1000 pieces it is normal to see 50 pieces which weigh the same within 1/10 of a grain.
At this point you should have around 50 or 60 pieces of well prepped brass which is very consistent and sorted into 5 or 6 groups of 10.

Step 4
Load up all the cases with exactly the same load, being extra careful to individually weigh the powder. What you are trying to do here is keep everything as equal as possible. Not necessarily doing the most accurate load yet, that will come after you have some good brass.
In addition load up about 20 of the reject cases with the same load. They will be useful to warm up the barrel.
Personally, I prefer Reloader 19 for 243 brass testing because it seems to have excellent burning and often has less than 10fps velocity spread for 10 or 20 shots by the end of the load development process. I also try to use Sierra Matchking bullets because they have an excellent reputation for consistency.

Step 5
Go to the range when you have several hours to devote to the process. Take your chronograph as the specific reason for doing all this is to further sort the brass using the chronograph. Also take your felt marker.
Set up the Chronograph and fire 4 or 5 shots (using the reject loaded ammo) thru the barrel in 1 minute incriments to warm the barrel.
Feel with your hand on the barrel up close to the receiver. Remember how warm that feels cause you want to fire your (presumably) 60 shots in about 2 minute incriments but not allowing the barrel to get any warmer than it is now. After you fire each shot write the velocity on the case with the magic marker. When you are all done, clean up and head for the house. If you have to take a break for some reason, simply fire a couple of (barrel warming) shots to get things back up and running.
After you get home, set the 60 cases on the table in your rows of 10 and sort each group of 10 from lowest to highest velocity.
While looking at the result you will see a couple of things, presuming you have done well to this point. One or two of the groups will have a very low extreme spread amongst the 10, perhaps as low as 5 fps. Others will be much higher, perhaps 40 or 50 fps spread. If all the groups have a lot of velocity spread, perhaps you need to look at other aspects of the reloading process as having problems. Things like primers can make a lot of difference.
Put them in order and put each group of 10 cases in a container in order from lowest to highest velocity. If you have 60 pieces of brass, you will have 6 boxes numbered from 1 thru 6. It is very important to keep them in order within a box because as you shoot them later you will see that (usually) the comparitive velocity placement will remain in the order you have just set down.

Now you have a small amount of high quality and well prepared brass to use for your load development.
Good luck

[ 04-04-2003, 23:50: Message edited by: Bruce Gordon ]

sierra 85 BTHP and IMR-4895.

Stonecreek beat me to this one, IMR 4320, 42 grains, 70 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip, I will add to this, use Lapua brass, the best out there, and the seating depth should be from .005" to .007" off the lands. Get a 90 degree ball micrometer, you can sort the brass to choose the ones with the best uniformity in the necks. I have a 3 shot group with this load that I quit after the 3, I always shoot 5 shot groups, it measures .071" bigger than a .243 bullet. I would also look at the newer 90gr. Nosler BT with H4350

[ 04-06-2003, 03:39: Message edited by: Tim in TN ]

I get my most accurate loads using H4350 w/ 75 gr Hornady HP & Nosler 70 gr BT. 1 Rifle wants 45.5 gr of powder and the other tightens up with only 45.0 gr. Good luck.

Hey Wyat, I've got some good news and bad news for you. First the "bad" to get it out of the way:

Regardless of what you may have read about Mythical Magical Mystical Universal Charge Loads(MUC Loads), they really don't exist.

The "good" news is, the .243Win is normally one of the easiest cartridges there is to get shooting very accurately. But, you still have to "Develop the Load" specific to your rifle.

I have a Varmint Load using a 75gr Flat Base Sierra about 0.020" Off-the-Lands fueled with H380 and a Fed210M that shoots just amazing well in mine. But, your rifle might prefer something else.

A while back a buddy and I were shooting and I put a 3-shot group on the target. Let the rifle cool and we went down to check the targets. When we got back my buddy picked up that rifle and put another 3-shot group into the same target. The combined 2-man 6-shot group was in the 6s. Don't know if I(we) could do it again today, but my rifle sure likes that combination.

By the way, more "good" news - No Charge for the info.

All the way to 300 yards..... Start with 40gr. of IMR 4350, my best load in two different rifles was 42gr. Use the Sierra 100gr. SPZ.

whatever load you intend on using the real key to winning that match is to practice. Lethbridge is a very windy place, you need to be able to read the wind like a champ!

good luck

First, try a 75gr Hornady V-Max over 46.5gr of IMR4350 in Rem brass with a standard Win primer. This load is a touch over max in some books, so work up to it. Extremely accurate in my 788.

Another good load is a 95gr SST with 41.1gr of IMR4350, Rem brass and Win primer.