Shooting a Savage FVSS 243 9.25 twist barrel.

I have Varget, IMR430, and RE15 powder.

Need COAL and amt of powder grains.

Thanks in advance for your input/help.

That's IMR 4350 powder, sorry

I should have wrote everything down first.

Also need your recommendation on bullet depth.

How many .000 off the lands?

Case full of H380, 53 gr. Hornady benchrest bullet, Federal primer, Winchester brass, factory o.a.l. All go in the same hole...... Grant.

Dennis, Give a try to 41.0 grains of Varget and the 70 grain Nosler GT's. I use Federal 210Mafch primers but a substitute would probably work fine. Not ever tested a 243 that didn't like this load!!
As for old70's advice, he needs to read the post thoroughly before replying! GHD

quote:

Originally posted by groundhog devastation:
As for old70's advice, he needs to read the post thoroughly before replying! GHD

That's what I was thinking.

I have had very good luck with 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips loaded with 44.0grs. Varget in the .243. As per Cartridge Overall Length, I load them so I have .243" of the bullet in the case neck as I have never found a .243 that I could get the 55's close to the lands.

Larry

There are not many combo's that don't work well with those bullets..

and don't worry about COAL...I have yet to see one that was that finicky..

I just barely seat the bullet deep enough to hold in the case and leave it alone..

If you have to have velocity, then Old70s recommendation of H 380 is a great one...I find out that 50 grains of it, does as well as 53 grains of it.. with no velocity loss at all...

on the other end, I like to load light loads with those bullets using RL 7, 4198, Blue Dot, etc

My Ruger 77VT in .243WCF thrives on 55-grain Noslers and 43 to 45 grains of W748. Twenty-shot aggregates are between 0.65 and 0.75 moa. Loa for the loads is 2.70"

BTW, oldmodel70 was recommending the Hornady 53-grain .224" bullet. Hard to get much velocity or accuracy out of that bullet in the .243.



.

Thanks for the input:

FYI: I measured the COAL length on both the 55 and 70 gr bullets.

55gr actual length to the lands 2.683
70gr actual length to the lands 2.762

To be on the safe side mainly because the 55gr are barely in the shell, I am going to measure some Federal NBT's in the morning. I know I have 55 and 70's, again just being on the safe side. One person told me to set .030 deeper than the actual reading but this still seems a little to long as the 55 barely fits in the shell already!

make test cartridge with brass fired from your rifle measure chamber lenght,and start at .015 off the lands. ajust to best groups longer or shorted. I have had great luck with varget. But it's hard to find sometimes. I also had better groups with seirra bullets.

Just finished loading a few rounds, hopefully will get to try them out tomorrow!

NOTE: Lee seating dies worked great, once set, they were on the money with every round.

I can't say this for the RCBS seating dies!

The following thread may be of some help:
http://www.noslerreloading.com....php?t=11875&start=0

I don't recall which company, possibly Alliant,
which got best accuracy with 41.5gr RL15. The
guy in the above post is getting things VERY
close with his loads, also. I'm loading up
both ways to see which one comes out best in
my rifle.

I have had very good results seating Nosler BT's .005-.010 off of the lands. If the bullet ends up just barely seated in the case I try to seat them to a depth equal to the diameter. In this case that would be .243 into the case.
Now if the cartridges are to be feed from the magazine & they end up being too long. I will decrease the OAL until they will feed reliably from the magazine.

Always start low and work up. Using someone else's 'worked up' loads can be dangerous.

I've had luck with 47.3 grains of Varget and a 55 grain NBT for 4050fps. Also 50.5 grains of 760 with a 70 grain NBT for 3775fps. These loads were out of a Rem CDL with a 24" barrel and as always your shooter will be different and needs care it the working up of these loads.

Those are some pretty HOT loads for these bullets. I will shooting with a 1-9.25 twist, bullets won't come apart with these load or ?

Just for the record, I am shooting a VLP Savage 243, Varmit barrel 1-9.25twist 24".

Just to make sure were comparing apples to apples! Thanks for all the great advice. I always check the recommended loads in my reloading manuals just to make sure. Of course I can't believe the differences with the same powders in the different manuals, Lyman, Nossler, etc. some have a 4. grain difference for the same bullet. I refer to Sierra as most of there test results were done with Savage rifles.

Going to post some pictures of my Savage VLP 243 groups I shot last sunday. Amazing what a few grains of powder will do. All were loaded exact, execpt for the grains of powder, got the 70, will fine tune the 55gr.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisH:
Those are some pretty HOT loads for these bullets. I will shooting with a 1-9.25 twist, bullets won't come apart with these load or ?

I'm shooting those out of a Rem 700 CDL with a 1:9 1/8 twist and using NBT in those 55 and 70 grain loads with no problems whatsoever with bullet integrity. I called Nosler about the speed tolerance of the NBT and their comments were not to worry about them coming apart with the very high speeds available now.

I've used the 55 grain on three mule deer bucks with devastating results and DRT. GOOD LUCK