What did you do in the reloading room today?

[DSB OUTDOORS]

Loaded another 200 rounds of 300 Blackout, deprimed and re-sized some 45 ACP. And reorganized my brass holding racks.

[Zombie Steve]

Loaded up some .357 mag to replace what I shot last week, loaded some good old fashioned .45 Colt with some lead round nose boolits and got in a few mags worth of a new .45 auto load I've been testing.

[Rucker61]

Today, I loaded my first rounds ever. After spending time in January decapping, sorting, trimming, chamfering, pocket cleaning, degreasing and priming, I finally got to load my first rounds. I'm working to get the best rounds for both antelope and elk this fall, so I loaded up 5 rounds each of Barnes 150gr tipped TSX in Wincester brass and Federal 210 primers with 46, 47 and 48 grains of Varget. I also loaded 168gr Barnes TTSX in Federal brass with 43, 44 and 45 grains of RL15. Once I figure out which of those set ups I like best, I'll finish off the boxes of Barnes and load up the remainder of my powder with 150gr Hornady FMJ and 168gr Hornady AMAX for practice.

[Zombie Steve]

Today, I loaded my first rounds ever. After spending time in January decapping, sorting, trimming, chamfering, pocket cleaning, degreasing and priming, I finally got to load my first rounds. I'm working to get the best rounds for both antelope and elk this fall, so I loaded up 5 rounds each of Barnes 150gr tipped TSX in Wincester brass and Federal 210 primers with 46, 47 and 48 grains of Varget. I also loaded 168gr Barnes TTSX in Federal brass with 43, 44 and 45 grains of RL15. Once I figure out which of those set ups I like best, I'll finish off the boxes of Barnes and load up the remainder of my powder with 150gr Hornady FMJ and 168gr Hornady AMAX for practice.

I usually like to ladder up in 1% jumps in rifle (and usually less as I approach max). In this case, half grain increments. You might skip right over your sweet spot (or the threshold for overpressure). What cartridge are we talking about here? .30-06?

Also - not trying to give you grief or anything, but you know the barnes all copper bullet is going to have a long bearing surface. What your gun likes for this probably won't be plug-and-play with a traditional fmj or amax of the same weight. No free lunch. Load development takes time and effort.


Good luck on shooting the first rifle loads. Be safe.

[SA Friday]

I usually like to ladder up in 1% jumps in rifle (and usually less as I approach max). In this case, half grain increments. You might skip right over your sweet spot (or the threshold for overpressure). What cartridge are we talking about here? .30-06?

Also - not trying to give you grief or anything, but you know the barnes all copper bullet is going to have a long bearing surface. What your gun likes for this probably won't be plug-and-play with a traditional fmj or amax of the same weight. No free lunch. Load development takes time and effort.


Good luck on shooting the first rifle loads. Be safe.

With those charges I would suspect 308 and not 30-06. I like to do half grain charges until I find the area the gun seems to like and then run a second test run at every 0.2 grains.

[Rucker61]

I usually like to ladder up in 1% jumps in rifle (and usually less as I approach max). In this case, half grain increments. You might skip right over your sweet spot (or the threshold for overpressure). What cartridge are we talking about here? .30-06?

Also - not trying to give you grief or anything, but you know the barnes all copper bullet is going to have a long bearing surface. What your gun likes for this probably won't be plug-and-play with a traditional fmj or amax of the same weight. No free lunch. Load development takes time and effort.


Good luck on shooting the first rifle loads. Be safe.

No grief taken. I shot the 150 gr last year in my .308 Tikka, and really didn't see much accuracy difference between 44 and 47 gr (one grain increments). I'd love to do more experimentation to really hone in on the best load, but with the scarcity of bullets, power and primers, I can't play around as much as I used to. I didn't see any pressure issues at 47 gr with the 150, so perhaps I should just start from there and load 3 at .2 gr increments. First time with the 168s, so I didn't want to jump into max load (45). I realize that the non-Barnes aren't drop in replacements, but as long as they group somewhere (and a known somewhere) I can at least stay shooting over the summer. I don't even have enough RL15 and Varget to load the bullets I do have. At least my arrows are reuseable.

[SA Friday]

No grief taken. I shot the 150 gr last year in my .308 Tikka, and really didn't see much accuracy difference between 44 and 47 gr (one grain increments). I'd love to do more experimentation to really hone in on the best load, but with the scarcity of bullets, power and primers, I can't play around as much as I used to. I didn't see any pressure issues at 47 gr with the 150, so perhaps I should just start from there and load 3 at .2 gr increments. First time with the 168s, so I didn't want to jump into max load (45). I realize that the non-Barnes aren't drop in replacements, but as long as they group somewhere (and a known somewhere) I can at least stay shooting over the summer. I don't even have enough RL15 and Varget to load the bullets I do have. At least my arrows are reuseable.

If you are not seeing a difference in group sizes from one test load to another, something is off. It could be many things. Most common is the OAL is too short and you are jumping the bullet too far to see where the rifle is really wanting the bullet at a certain velocity. Another can be the gun just doesn't like the bullet. Neither of my 308's shoot 150's for damn. They both shoot 175 SKMs in half inch groups. Barnes bullets are a PITA if you ask me. They are long and light, and this makes everything kind of a craps-shoot like Steve was mentioning earlier.

[Zombie Steve]

I guess I'm confused. I thought today was your first loads you've ever done.

48 grains of Varget sounds like a pile. Maybe the barnes data is different, but it's a grain over max on the Hodgdon site, and more than 3 grains over the sierra data for a 150 grain bullet. Maybe I just need some sleep, but that looked like a light '06 charge, and when I think hunting, I think '06. =)


Edited to add - if he's not seeing anything grouping better than anything else, they all might be overpressure too. Again, don't know about Barnes bullets and I'm not researching anything right now. Have a good night.

[Rucker61]

I guess I'm confused. I thought today was your first loads you've ever done.

Sorry. A hunting buddy loaded my rounds for my last season.

48 grains of Varget sounds like a pile. Maybe the barnes data is different, but it's a grain over max on the Hodgdon site, and more than 3 grains over the sierra data for a 150 grain bullet. Maybe I just need some sleep, but that looked like a light '06 charge, and when I think hunting, I think '06. =)

48 is max according to Barnes latest data.

Edited to add - if he's not seeing anything grouping better than anything else, they all might be overpressure too. Again, don't know about Barnes bullets and I'm not researching anything right now. Have a good night.

We did 43 to 47 grains last year, and I only shot one 5 round group at 100 yds with each load. Not the best test, for sure, but all were around 1" with one flier. My rifle really liked the Freedom Munitions 155 gr AMAXs, but that's not a good elk round.

[Rucker61]

If you are not seeing a difference in group sizes from one test load to another, something is off. It could be many things. Most common is the OAL is too short and you are jumping the bullet too far to see where the rifle is really wanting the bullet at a certain velocity.

When we first set up the OAL, we backed off 0.05" from the lands, but the cartridge wouldn't feed from the detachable Tikka magazine. Right now I'm at 2.177" to the ogive, using the Hornady Comparator. Don't think I can get too much longer and still feed.

Edit: and thanks very much for the advice. Given that the 150 will just be for goats and whitetails, I think I'll not worry about getting too hot. I'll just stick around 46 and play with .2 gr increments. My best three round group with 46 was 1.25" at 250 yards.