Good day? Bad day? Ehh.

Where are the other sheets of paper you are not proud of airborne?

Don't be shy...

Airborneguy said:

No pics lol.

Honestly it wasn't bad shooting, I just thought i had dialed in that load last time and apparently not. I shot ten rounds before it was time to go so I quit. I have about another inch or two of adjustments left to make.

I had hoped to fire 5 rounds and have 15 left for hunting. Now it looks like I'm gonna have to load more before even thinking that far ahead.

Click to expand...

Everything you and your friend fired today were reloads?

As for the reloads i don't know squat but many experts here will. Sorry bud.

The SCR i fired it once and founded to be decently accurate taking my time with a chepo red dot. My spread was mainly palm size @ 50 using imi 5.56 55gr but i did not like the rifle much after shooting it and field strip.

AR-15 has a threesome with a Ruger mini and a shotgun= Ares SCR. Just my 2 cents.

I am sure others more knowledgeable will chim in soon.

Airborneguy said:

Hit the range today for about 2 hours after work. Mixed bag.

The good:

1) I picked up almost 100 once fired, mint pieces of .308 brass to feed my soon-to-arrive PA-10.

2) My KS-47 is dead on with some new range loads I cooked up using Xtreme 123gn heads. Happy to see that since I use 123gn Hornady's for hunting in that rifle. No adjustments needed.

The bad:

My newish Mossberg Patriot .30-06 which I planned to hunt with this year is not ready to take my hoped for load (180 Hornady A-Max over 48.5gn of 4064). The recoil on that load is a hammer but I don't think I am the problem. Going to have to load more and work on it again.

Could I have heated up the barrel to much shooting 4 WWII black tip rounds I had lying around? I shot them first and think that may have affect my POI.

Click to expand...

IMO you should come down with the loads.

The mossberg doesn't take the torque forces of hot loads very well. The action and whole platform is not up to the task.
I would switch to light loads and 130gr bullets. speed is more lethal than grain in this case.
You are hunting white tail right? ...and not grizzly bears or moose.

Also if you want to improve a little balance the rifle. If you hold it with one hand right ahead of the trigger guard does it want
to tip forward or stays balanced? If so add weight inside the stock. Ideally if you can set a couple of pvc tubes with epoxy or
even rock tittle you can build your own dead blow weights using lead bird shot and sealing that really well.
The whole dynamics deal of the rifle will change but it might also need some bedding that I think is critical with the tupperware
stocks unless you want to buy an aftermarket with alumintum beding. But not sure who makes one that is consistent
and not too expensive.

good luck.

Heat up the barrel too much shooting WWII black tip. (Black tip = armor piercing.) No, you did not over heat the barrel. Chances are real good though that the AP, if it was WW II as you say was corrosive primed. Corrosive priming was slowly being phased out of US military ammunition supplies in the early 50's.

If it was WW II ammo you need to clean that rifle really well with something with ammonia, like windex. The more ammonia the better. In my formative shooting years we shot a lot of military surplus which was corrosive primed. Every day for the 3 (three) days following the match we cleaned then oiled our Springfield rifles throughly. I suggest you do the same ASAP. Corrosive priming is just that, very corrosive...

Recoil... If recoil from the 180's is bothersome try 165's or 150's. It's a matter of physics. My pet and mild load for a Win. M70 in '06 is 45 gr. IMR 4895 w/a 165 gr. Hornady and LR primer. I've never had a critter walk away from a well placed 165... If your concerned with the possibility of not being enough bullet I would suggest a Nosler Partition. In reality a good 150 gr. bullet is plenty for any whitetail...

Airborneguy said:

The reason I'm shooting 180's is because my other '06, a 70's Rem 700, is only accurate with 180gn bullets. I just kind of got used to them. I do think this load might be too much though.

Maybe now that I'm working with a different rifle I'll pick up somw lighter bullets and see what I can get out of it. I have a feeling that I'm not going to shoot either of them much once my PA-10 arrives anyway lol.

Click to expand...

I think the first thing is to learn what is your free-bore that can be substantial in order to allow for the 200gr flat metplat to hunt... like I said grizzlies or something.
Manufactures cut the chambers with extra freebore for two reasons..A) to make sure it chambers reliably with any ammo B) To avoid liability when people shoot all shit they find like surplus and even old AP rounds from WWII, sounds familiar? lol.
Seriously the AP rounds are fine they do nothing to the rifle. Just clean it after to remove traces from old corrosive primers. Ammonia is cheap and a pretty good neutralizer.

But what this all means is that you should really get a few bullets and seat them out with a partially sized neck until you find out when they barely touch the lands. Then back from the lands like 20 thousands or so and take notes.
Then you can find heavy or light bullets but you will know where to seat them as you work up the reloads.
Some of the lighter flat base match bullets are more accurate at short distances because they are FAST and recoil is a lot more manageable so they make for
better shooters. Just look at the 30 BR wildcat, sometimes wins over the 6BR parent and PPC kings at Bench rest score competition up to 300 yards.

And if you are hunting deer you want a light bullet anyway and not a huge torpedo meant to harvest grizzlies or large moose.
If you take a barnes TTSX 120gr-130gr you can drive those to 223 speeds (like 3,300fps) but w/o the recoil and those will put such
hydraulic shock on the animal that might go into a comma before it bleeds out. = DRT.
Heavy bullets will not dump much energy and simply pass trough in thin skin relatively soft animals.
Perhaps heavy fragmentation bullets like a match bullet will dump more energy but will also create a mess with bits of lead and ruin a lot of meat that I would not even give to my dog because of the lead bits and dust.

Once you know the max COAL you can also play with seating depths or the max allowed by the magazine, whichever comes first as max but the magazine
should be plenty.

Work up a load with a decent quality bullet. Even for deer no so much accuracy is needed it will give you great pleasure and confidence to get the shots
where you precisely want them.

follow this and your results will improve. ... otherwise all your money back! lol.

I hope this makes sense.

Airborneguy said:

Oh, and if anyone wants to tackle a real problem, my friend's Ares SCR was driving tacks at 25 but all over the map at 50 with both him and I shooting it. I'm at a loss to explain that. I'm talking 10" groups.

Click to expand...

Airborneguy said:

He was shooting factory ammo. Mostly PMC. But had the problem with both brands.

Click to expand...

That is a little odd. What was the bullet weight and what was the barrel twist? He wasn't shooting 62gr M855 out of a 1-12 barrel was he?
Honestly I've not found PMC ammo to be all that accurate in the first place, but not 10" groups at 50 yds bad!

What optic? Mount? Are they tight? Is the barrel tight?

Podmonkey said:

That is a little odd. What was the bullet weight and what was the barrel twist? He wasn't shooting 62gr M855 out of a 1-12 barrel was he?
Honestly I've not found PMC ammo to be all that accurate in the first place, but not 10" groups at 50 yds bad!

Click to expand...

I think they would be able to tell the difference between a bullet hole and key holed rounds.
I am with the bullet guy since more times than not the problem is a simple one often overlooked like loose glass rings
or mount, loose barrel upper, etc... even a crappy trigger will not make that much difference.

You were not shooting with one of those tacticool brakes were you. Sometimes manufactures make mistakes with runout
in the bore or the brake itself sometimes too narrow exit and the bullet is disturbed by the brake or comp.

just thinking out loud here. need more info.

meketrefe said:

I think they would be able to tell the difference between a bullet hole and key holed rounds.
I am with the bullet guy since more times than not the problem is a simple one often overlooked like loose glass rings
or mount, loose barrel upper, etc... even a crappy trigger will not make that much difference.

You were not shooting with one of those tacticool brakes were you. Sometimes manufactures make mistakes with runout
in the bore or the brake itself sometimes too narrow exit and the bullet is disturbed by the brake or comp.

just thinking out loud here. need more info.

Click to expand...

Yeah, now that you mention it a loose optic would account for it. Happened to me awhile ago, sudenly couldn't hit my targets and I then noticed my red dot was wobbling on the rail.

Driving light for game .30 cal. bullets at very high velocities is just asking to ruin too much edible meat. Turning good meat into bloody goo is a waste. Do what you will but in the .30 cal. I prefer medium weight (150 gr. & 165 gr.) bullets at lower than max velocities. Generally better accuracy can be had at lower than max velocities as well as shooting comfort. If it's beating you up you aren't enjoying shooting it and you are not at your shooting best.

Don't use a match bullet for deer as they do not expand much at all. Game taken with a 168 sierra match bullet had similar entrance and exit wounds indicating little if any expansion. I like a bullet to expand violently and be rugged enough to bust through heavy bone if need be and still be able to give a good exit wound. Too light a bullet will go to pieces within the critter and not give an exit hole.

@tony,
hold on. Nobody asked for light for caliber bullets but specifically lighter solid bullets.
Those do not behave any different than a 243, 260 or a 270 of comparable weight, speed and construction that we all know are wonderful deer and hog bullets.
This is actually how they are intended to work.
solids should be selected by their ballistic coefficient and then you realize you can put a lot more speed and consistent
temporary wound cavities w/o exception even when driven through hard bones like forelegs joints or pigs shoulders.
Speed is the key. lower SD and construction (non-fragmenting) works better for this instead.
Don't need to drive them to top velocities if you don't need to but make sure, at impact, the do not fall below the 2400 or at least 2200fps in order to activate well.
All I was trying to day they very effective when used properly. More consistent than even the best bonded ones. Heavier is not always better. That is why understanding the bullet, the ballistics and the anatomy is the always the best approach.

read this when you get a minute...

Copper bullets can be inhumane

speed. 130ttsx...



150gr ttsx (winmag here)


game goes into a comma before it dies from the wounds.

i load my 270's to 2800 to 2900 per the books with oh shit what is it imr4350 .. i'm hunting under 100 yrds for deer not a moose so don't need that big recoil
of max compress load like that famous hunters load ... but i did experience testing my loads .. was a good group at first and then went waco ... damn scope mount got loose ..

Meke,
No need to direct your comment to me. I said " light for game .30 cal bullets " , not light for caliber. If I wanted to use lighter bullets I'd go with a smaller caliber. Generally, if your shooting lighter bullets you're shooting them faster. Perhaps I should have said " I " don't need the speed, ruins too much meat. Factory 7 mm mag is a perfect example of that, ruins way too much meat. Plenty of deer have been taken with the lowly, and slow round ball in a muzzle loader.

I've been handloading and harvesting whitetail for 48 years and am very satisfied with the performance of standard Hornady hunting bullets. No need for a premium bullet for .30 cal., but that's my preference. I would have no qualms of poking a 300+ lb. black bear with my load. I'm not shooting 500+ yds. where BC and the need to stay supersonic is paramount.
In the .243 I use a premium bullet. For deer I like 100 gr. Nosler Partitions and have had stellar performance from them.

Perhaps I'm just an " old school fool " and don't need the newest, slickest, prettiest, trickest, and most expensive bullets on the market... I want a bullet that delivers the performance to suit the type of hunting I'm doing. So we can agree to disagree. To each their own... That's what I love about freedom.

tony said:

Meke,
No need to direct your comment to me. I said " light for game .30 cal bullets " , not light for caliber. If I wanted to use lighter bullets I'd go with a smaller caliber. Generally, if your shooting lighter bullets you're shooting them faster. Perhaps I should have said " I " don't need the speed, ruins too much meat. Factory 7 mm mag is a perfect example of that, ruins way too much meat. Plenty of deer have been taken with the lowly, and slow round ball in a muzzle loader.

I've been handloading and harvesting whitetail for 48 years and am very satisfied with the performance of standard Hornady hunting bullets. No need for a premium bullet for .30 cal., but that's my preference. I would have no qualms of poking a 300+ lb. black bear with my load. I'm not shooting 500+ yds. where BC and the need to stay supersonic is paramount.
In the .243 I use a premium bullet. For deer I like 100 gr. Nosler Partitions and have had stellar performance from them.

Perhaps I'm just an " old school fool " and don't need the newest, slickest, prettiest, trickest, and most expensive bullets on the market... I want a bullet that delivers the performance to suit the type of hunting I'm doing. So we can agree to disagree. To each their own... That's what I love about freedom.

Click to expand...

Oh ok. No problem.
Your formula seems like a sound approach and proven to work, no doubt there. Nosler partition works on the same principal with the bottom half being untouched. The barnes is not anything new neither. They have been around for decades. I just want to make sure that if one is looking for less recoil selecting a solid bullet by BC. yields more speed that is what these bullets need to be 100% effective by design.
I don't think they are better or worse. They are different yet they work on the same principals. speed in a solid is similar to speed on man bonded that have
hard jackets like accubond, sirocco etc... with the difference that they retain more weight on average. And if thee is fragmentation there is no contamination from lead bits and dust. Also in some places in the world one cannot use lead anymore.
But for a lighter bullet that potentially quick less and as effective or better as many others this is a proven formula too.
Even the new military 308 round M80A1 has gone down in weight to 130gr and leadless construction that stills offers superior
ballistics and terminal perfomrance, with the added hard barrier penetration for this role obviously.

Discussing based on the op it is something that came to mind for hunting proven with white tail, pigs and black bears but of course there are other very effective formulas. I think the bottom line here is that 180gr bullets from 30-08 for whitetail is not the ideal choice first in terms of unnecessary recoil and 2nd in terms of terminal effect that is not more effective for think skin and soft relatively small animals.
A different story would be a 180gr or 200 gr from lets say a 35 Remington with wider frontal area and lower speeds. Milder recoil and yet more effective in deer. The 30/30 with 160-170gr with the sp flat metplat shows similar effect although less broad wounding because of the larger section but also a good example of a great woods deer round.

There are many ways to skin a cat.

wish i would have taken a photo of the deer in my avi of the impact hole from 2 spam can mosin rounds .. you could put a softball in the hole from 2 shots 2 inches apart .. i thought i missed on the first shot ..

@Airborneguy have you checked any of the Mossberg forums? Not that there is not good knowledge here! Just that some of the info may be more specific to the brand.