Today's work on the bench

[MikeGrad]

Slow day today at the real job so i took the time to work up some loads. Trying to find out what makes the biggest difference in accuracy in my rifle. Cant wait for range day Thursday!

from left to right - all 300 WM, all H4831 SC powder, CCI Large Rifle Magnum primers

10 rounds Berger Hybrid Target 185 grain, Nosler Brass, 72.5 gr powder, seated .015 off the lands
15 rounds same, .02 off the lands
10 rounds same, .03 off the lands

8 rounds sierra match king tipped 175 gr, 68.3 grain H4821SC, hornady brass, seated .02 off lands
10 rounds same as above, but neck turned. everything else identical

 

[Podmonkey]

Oh so pretty. Shiny ammo excites me so! Looking forward to the results post.

 

[HighlandLofts]

Is this the gun that fell on the scope?

 

[cgrutt]

Very nice! Looking forward to results. Good luck!

 

[Deplorable Me]

Post the results when the final paperwork is complete.

 

[MikeGrad]

Is this the gun that fell on the scope?

yes, for that one. i have some other loaded rounds i will use to verify its not broken and rezero it if required.

 

[zzrguy]

I'm still chasing the rabbit on my AR but my 308 and 30-06 seems to be like the H4895 and I'm finding that they both like the middle of the road speed. The hot stuff seems to open up a good deal at 200

 

[RugerGP]

Nice looking rounds!

 

[squib]

how far are you going to shoot?

 

[MikeGrad]

i usually zero at 200 and shoot at 200 of 300, as this is all i have access to at the moment. I may have a chance to go learn how to shoot out much further in a couple weeks.

I still have some more work to do with the scope, have a couple of tests to run to see if i need to send it back or not.

 

[MikeGrad]

pretty good work today at the range. the sierra TMK 175s seemed to work better overall, but the berger hybrids held their own too. pretty good average 2705 FPS for the Sierras and 2690 on the bergers.

the tracking test was done with the sierras, so the scope i think is ok and working great. Grouping are good too. The bergers were the second target, surprisingly those were all different seating depths and it didn't make too much a difference.

Just an FYI to reloaders out there, i use the RCBS gold medal seating die and its pretty good with runout. But i recently picked up the hornady concentricity gauge and it really seems to have made a difference. Out of 50 rounds, about 10 were perfect right out of the die. the rest were all within.002-.005, but i was able to correct them all with the hornady tool. I highly recommend it. I think now i need to work up a load thats about 2800-2900 fps to keep it supersonic past 1000 yards - at least thats my goal.

 

[kev74]

What kind of accuracy improvement have you noticed from tweaking the concentricity?

 

[MikeGrad]

What kind of accuracy improvement have you noticed from tweaking the concentricity?

tighter groups. those first two shots, right next to the #8 on the target are a good example. interestingly the first of those was the cold bore shot and was still consistent with the second. Or i just got lucky. But it seems like an important step in taking out all the variability and leaving it all up to the guy behind the gun.