No problem SJ. Water under the bridge.

Conflict keeps things interesting!

Rick,

What is the twist on your 243 WSSM barrel?

1 in 10

Thanks Rick. Was talking to another shooter friend of mine about horizontal stringing at distance and he brought up if it wasn't wind or anything else that too slow or too fast a rifling twist could also do it. I don't see that in your case, I believe your twist to be just fine.

Thanks for checking!

I don't know why it does that, but it's a good load.

This one I just finished with the same rifle has a tad of vertical. You might not have noticed the "up" with an arrow on the page. Up is to the left so the pic needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise. I wrote on it that way because that's how it goes into the binder

You are getting there. How many rounds you have through that barrel and who is the barrel by, if I missed that?

Ha!

Getting there? This rifle is as accurate as any custom that I own. It is a FACTORY Browning A-bolt Varmint Stalker. Medium heavy contour, chromed barrel. It has quite a few rounds through it, I haven't kept track but I'd say 700, and I'll be sad to see it die. I've used it in competition when I first started!

It is a true 1/2 MOA rifle. It is the one I killed the coyote at 934 yards with.

That group was shot from a piss poor rest as well. I develop how I'm going to shoot the thing. It had a Stoney Point Rapid Pivot Bench model on it with a rear bag. It's amazing how well it shoots.

Rick it will be interesting to see how long that barrel goes being chromed. I knew Browning/Winchester chromed many calibers that they didn't publicly announce right off.

Good shooting rifle for a factory rig.

rcamuglia;

RE: HIGHEST VELOCITY AT LOWEST PRESSURE. Go to Hodgdons website, it has velocity AND pressures...a quick view will tell you you can easily find a load that produces the highest velocity at the lowest pressure for A SPECIFIC powder...I didn't mean the lowest pressure in the book...you have to read the meaning AND the words. Pressure drives velocity, but powders have different burn rates which means different peak pressure points...some powders kick hard so to speak and some push firmly...you are looking for the balance between those two extremes.

It will also show you many loads with a HIGHER PRESSURE but with MUCH LOWER VELOCITY when using some powders than with other powder with a different burn rate.

It all has to do with powder burn rates.

Want more understanding, read all you can from Powley papers and other internal ballistics information.

Keep working, your load is coming together... all it does it take time and effort. When those 5 - 200 yd rounds starts touching, then you have something to really crow about.

Rick,

Unless you have you may take a look at Hodgdon's new Superperformance powder. Here's loads for your 243 here:

http://hodgdon.com/PDF/SuperLever.pdf

I usually don't keep targets anymore...I already have a stack of 3 ring binders 3' wide, one for each rifle I have/had and the targets were taking over my world...so I just draw a small pic of the groups in my notes now...but I found these just so you'd know what I'm saying I can back up...not that I know anything much to speak about.

My range is ~130 yds long and is right outside my loading shed so all I have to do is load up and walk that distance to check things out.

This target is for Factory Savage 223, 26" HB, barrel, laminated target/varmint stock, 6-20x Leupold Vari-XIII, plus the barrel is readjusted to fit my Redding bushing FL dies. I picked the load out of Hodgdons manual, substituted the 40gr VM bullet instead of the Nosler 40, found the land COAL at 2.30", started 2 gr below listed max and loaded 3ea in .3 gr increments, group started closing at the higher lever and continued until group started opening up again at 27.3gr then stopped futzing and loaded up 50 and went sagerat destroying. Load chronos ~3575fs.



I worked the original 338-06 225 Horn load up some 40 odd years ago with IMR4320/2710fs...5 shots in one ragged 0.650" OD hole...and this one I did a few years ago after I found some data for Varget. This rifle was chambered very long for a discontinued Speer 270gr bullet PLUS 0.300" freebore. It WON'T shoot anything but Hornady bullet into anything less than about 1.5" which is all right for normal hunting...chrono's ~2736fs with 59gr Varget and ~2920fs with Horn 200 SP's with the same small groups. I have gone up to 62 gr with Varget but only gained ~2764fs and the groups opened up to ~1".



These are just good loads developed in tuned rifle systems with benchrest quality ammo, nothing to brag about or hard to do, but certainly much better than run of the mill stuff, they do their jobs and make it easy to hit distant targets and fit MY rifles.

NO one should have to work very hard to find an accurate load as load data is rampant on the web and in reloading manuals.

LUCK

quote:

NO one should have to work very hard to find an accurate load as load data is rampant on the web and in reloading manuals.

Printed data doesn't tell everyone what is the most accurate load for THEIR RIFLE.

It is what it is. Printed generalized data that can be relied upon to be safe for standardized chambers (most of the time).

The MOST ACCURATE LOAD for your rifle must be found out by trying different components, quantities, and measurements.

EX. I've been working on my 6.5 Creedmoor for some time with the bullet it "liked" in its last barrel. No luck. Changed bullets for this barrel and Wha La....

Same barrel manufacturer. Different components for accuracy.

Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it's a long search for the right combination.

Data is a guidline.

Also, the 3 shot groups on your target can hardly be called definitive....

Actually that's a 9 shot group using 3 different levels of powder in half grain increments and 9 different cases...not too bad if you care to measure the different group sizes...you just can't get past the fact that a 3 shot group does give definitive data...maybe I should group together the hundreds of rounds I fired in that rifle with that specific load that would pretty much go into a 3/4" hole.

A 3 shot group is VERY definitive if it is repeatable to a certain level...it doesn't matter if you shoot 10-3 shot groups or 3-10 shot groups or 1-30 shot group...you seem to have trouble understanding that simple concept.

What good is a 5 or 10 shot group if, as far as hunting goes OR target shooting, every shot is as important as every other one, and "each" first shot either makes or breaks you.

Doesn't matter much if you can't get around your prejudice...re: a horse to water. The information is there, but you don't seem to want to accept it...

Some of what you say is also true but in a negative sense and not contructive for those beginners or even advanced reloaders who are not interested in esoteric verbage.

As I've said someplace, sometime, I hardly ever take more than 25 or so shots to develop an accurate load in ANY rifle I've ever played with...I hate wasting components on paper...I would rather go kill something...rocks, cans, steel plates, rats, edible or not and the number of legs doesn't matter...centipedes and insects are all fair game, but no small birds, lizards or snakes.

LUCK

Agreed that what is important for killing things is generally not what is important for a target gun.

First shot accuracy repeatable cold bore is what you want in a hunting load / rifle. You're not going to shoot a 5 shot group on an elk's rib cage.

My point is that we all have shot 3 shot groups that may be 1 hole by chance with a load that may not be right and repeatable.

Ask woods!

For my hunting rifles I cold bore test my load that I think is perfect. I go out, put a tatget up, shoot 1 shot, go get the target and put everything away. Come back the next day and do it again. Etc. Do it under as many different atmospheric conditions as possible on the SAME target until you have 10 shots on it.

Then you'll know something

quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:
Agreed that what is important for killing things is generally not what is important for a target gun.

First shot accuracy repeatable cold bore is what you want in a hunting load / rifle. You're not going to shoot a 5 shot group on an elk's rib cage.

My point is that we all have shot 3 shot groups that may be 1 hole by chance with a load that may not be right and repeatable.

Ask woods!

For my hunting rifles I cold bore test my load that I think is perfect. I go out, put a tatget up, shoot 1 shot, go get the target and put everything away. Come back the next day and do it again. Etc. Do it under as many different atmospheric conditions as possible on the SAME target until you have 10 shots on it.

Then you'll know something

Well for a hunting rifle and a first shot cold barrel group, one could do like old Ross Seyfred wrote about long ago. Take your hunting rifle out, shoot it, gather your target, go back to the house and put the rifle away. Go out the next day and repeat. Then the next day and so forth until you get the number of shots you want. You will have a good picture and target of your first shot cold barrel. I even guess one could carry this further, such as, if they fire the first shot from a clean bore...see what I mean? One further note, I guess you could really do this a little faster then just one shot a day.

I've done it and cleaned the barrel after each shot. My Browning .300 WM holds sub MOA cold clean bore over a 4 day period.

I just found out I can't load as well as Hornady can...



I'll be duplicating this factory load!

Yeah that's a good method to find out where that first shot is going to go Rick. I just found out something about American ammo manufacturers that wasn't good to hear....as compared to European manufacturers such as Lapua and RWS for example. So with that said Rick I do believe if you got "good" brass you could load better then any American manufacturer.

I do the same test for cold clean bore but I also have another target at shoot a shot with the day old fouled bore then clean the barrel and shoot the cold clean bore. You never know, on a hunting trip, that you'll only be shooting with either a cold clean bore or a fouled bore. Best to know for both.

Larry Gibson

That's a very nice target for any ammo...I'm putting together my 3rd 6mm-284, this time on an XP-100 receiver...maybe I should have looked a little harder at the Creedmoor...and maybe I will if things don't do what I want them to do with the 6mm-284...

If I didn't already have all the dies, brass, bullets, etc, for the 6mm-284 I would have gone with one of the 6.5's...I did research all the present day front runners, but picked the 260 for a number of reasons...and it doesn't take much to do another barrel in 6.5...I might even have a 6.5 barrel stuck away somewhere I disremembered, I'll have to look...I still have a few weeks wait for the 6mm and 22 cal barrels to arrive.

I've been at this game a very long time, I don't ask too many questions of very many people...I've found that prejudice runs just a deep in the knowledgeable as in the unwashed masses...and "experts" have been pumping people full of hot air as long as I can remember...I don't discount what others say, but I have my own drummer to dance to.

I've never been good at hero worship, but Ross had a very good handle on one way to go about getting your ducks in a row and your shooters dialed in.

That doesn't mean I don't listen because everyone has something to say, but it also means I don't necessarily follow along like a little puppy dog. Everyone has their own way of doing things...not necessarily right or wrong...just different...the information is there to use or not.

I foul the bores on all my hunting weapons at the beginning of the season and they go uncleaned until the end...DEPENDING ON THE LIKES AND DISLIKES OF THE RIFLE...a fouled bore doesn't guarantee anything except your knowing WHAT SPECIFIC rifle does under several sets of circumstances...which you better know if you really want to do your job..HUNTING OR TARGET.

Every one of my rifles likes things it's own way...sometimes fouled sometimes clean...sometimes it doesn't matter...that 338-06 will put 5 rounds into a half inch hole, hot or cold, fouled or not...but it's one of the few I ever came across that would do that...I still foul it just in case.

I was taught early on to learn how a rifle likes it's bacon and eggs...a very long time ago by a lot of bery old timey shooters who would spit bacca juice on your boot or leg when you were messing up or worse yet..not invite you hunting until you learned your lesson...I only missed one season and my boots stayed clean for the most part. You didn't have to do what they did necessarily but you DID have to do what was right and learn what it was when you did "wrong".

The journey isn't always about the destination, but what you see along the way...so it is with shooting.

LUCK

"If you were more accomplished, you'd realize that SJ's group shot with an AR at 600 is not the norm."

Yes and probably NOT TRUE either. There's a reason he's called Pinnochio Joe!

Joe never claimed to have shot that group. It was shot by his buddy. We all know if Joe had shot it, it would be one hole.

This "buddy" of SmokinJ(aka Starmetal,MaxPayne,joe,old joe, et al,ad naus)also the exterior ballistics expert from Sierra bullets the he likes to quote ??? Idabull

quote:

Originally posted by idabull:
This "buddy" of SmokinJ(aka Starmetal,MaxPayne,joe,old joe, et al,ad naus)also the exterior ballistics expert from Sierra bullets the he likes to quote ??? Idabull

I'll bet it's the same guy, still laughing!
Imaginary friends, hearing voices, keyboard one hole groups, do-do-do-do TWILIGHT ZONE