Handload Performance at 600 Yards and Beyond?

[swampratt]

Something to do on some ammo you have had loaded for over a month,

This was discussed in another thread but it was based on ammo loaded much longer than 1 month.

Take a couple cases that were loaded some time back and stick then into the press and seat the bullets .002 or .005" deeper.

I found a lot of my loaded stored ammo would need considerable pressure to seat the bullet deeper..and to initially move the stored ammo's projectile you would hear the pop. Just before the bullet would start moving.

Now if the ammo sat 1 day and you set the bullet back .002" it would feel smooth and gradual.

In other words the bullet could be actually bonding to the case a bit and making pressures and speeds increase.

Just something to try out on some old loaded ammo. I have no idea if 1 month or 6 months is long enough to test..But something to test.

 

[jc5420]

I understand what you are saying, but those same month old loads were the first rounds over the chronograph for a base in my test. I could see having issues that you are talking about when it comes to virgin brass or SS tumbled brass where there is virtually no lubricity to the inside of the neck. That is one reason I quit SS tumbling, ES and SD nearly doubled on my practice rifle because of the uncoated case necks.

We will see how these do beyond 1000 yards this sunday.

 

[jc5420]

You can see where it started speeding up here.


Here is my standard load of 36gr from today.

 

[swampratt]

I could see having issues that you are talking about when it comes to virgin brass or SS tumbled brass where there is virtually no lubricity to the inside of the neck. That is one reason I quit SS tumbling,

I believe it too, While doing a brass fail test and only hand cleaning cases i noticed my groups were very tight.. tighter than my Pin cleaned cases.
Sad thing to say,, I mostly hand clean now.

Do you have an IR temp gun?
I noticed with my savage 10fp when i got the barrel to a certain temperature slot the groups got tighter.
I was not using a chrony at that time.
Like you said "extremely interesting results" will happen especially if you shoot enough.
Heat and barrel fouling have a big role to play in accuracy and your tests help sift through some of this information, keep it up as it's good information to read.

 

[jc5420]

Just an update on this.

Rifle shoot ok at my match, had a little variance in the load but overall it was useable. I did not shoot as well as I had hoped because of a failure on my part with the scope's zero. Anyways, now that I am done for a short while with that, I will be working on yet another load with yet another bullet.

Looking forward to evaluating the performance of this bullet. Picked this up today, hope to be on the range sometime this weekend before I slay some yotes...

 

[jc5420]

I could see having issues that you are talking about when it comes to virgin brass or SS tumbled brass where there is virtually no lubricity to the inside of the neck. That is one reason I quit SS tumbling,

I believe it too, While doing a brass fail test and only hand cleaning cases i noticed my groups were very tight.. tighter than my Pin cleaned cases.
Sad thing to say,, I mostly hand clean now.

Do you have an IR temp gun? No, the method I prefer to use is the touch method. I check just in front of the recoil lug, and then my suppressor (Very carefully)
I noticed with my savage 10fp when i got the barrel to a certain temperature slot the groups got tighter. This seems to be true with factory barrels, I have never noticed a difference in my Benchmark.
I was not using a chrony at that time.
Like you said "extremely interesting results" will happen especially if you shoot enough.
Heat and barrel fouling have a big role to play in accuracy and your tests help sift through some of this information, keep it up as it's good information to read.

I hope to have this up and going soon.

 

[Larry Morgan]

Dunno if anyone has asked this yet? Did you deep clean the barrel somewhere in there? If you did, then that's not terribly surprising as the fouling will change as it builds. Powders are also known to have lot to lot variations, so if the lot changed in there somewhere, it may have caused the load to tweak too.

Also, neck tension in terms of interference fit is a bit of a red herring. It's a fist pass way to control what you would think of as neck tension, but neck tension is just that: tension. The only way to check it really is to measure force on the bullet during seating (which some high power and benchresters do). Some people argue the effect of neck tension when the bullet is seated into the lands, but whatever. It can be affected by lubricity inside the neck, brass hardness, brass thickness, etc, etc. I had an extreme example of this in that my uncalibrated right arm could even detect. It was what caused me to vow to never use federal cases for serious reloads. After using quite a few other brands, I decided to dig out some FGMM cases just for the heck of it. During seating, about 3 out of 5 would have more seating force than I've ever felt, then 1 or 2 would be about what I was used to. I loaded the rest of the rounds and designated them "plinking". I half expected to see some neck-splits, but none did.

You can moly-lube the case necks as well to try to get it more consistent, but that might be excessive. Also, personally, I would not test for groups with a chrony attached. There's no way I could ever convince myself that hanging that big weight on there doesn't affect the resonance of the barrel, therefore changing where the bullet is released from the barrel in terms of peak or trough of vibration (aka in the node). It's very common to have a barrel speed up as it wears in. It will screw with the load pressure as well.

 

[swampratt]

Larry i have tested pressures to seat bullets and got some really great information and i too do not get consistent results with federal cases.
I used something like this to test bullet seating pressures and pullet pull pressures were also tested. I gotta test things you know.

Here is the tester type I used to check pressures (valve spring pressure tester)..You could make one from a drum wheel cylinder and a gauge twisted into it.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/PRO-66835?seid=srese2


Most of my testing resulted in 40-120 psi so if you plan on testing i would say 150 psi gauge would be max for the .308 diameter stuff. Even with .005 interference fit I never got more than 120...yes .005" I was messing around to see what would happen.

 

[jc5420]

Dunno if anyone has asked this yet? Did you deep clean the barrel somewhere in there? If you did, then that's not terribly surprising as the fouling will change as it builds. Powders are also known to have lot to lot variations, so if the lot changed in there somewhere, it may have caused the load to tweak too.

Also, neck tension in terms of interference fit is a bit of a red herring. It's a fist pass way to control what you would think of as neck tension, but neck tension is just that: tension. The only way to check it really is to measure force on the bullet during seating (which some high power and benchresters do). Some people argue the effect of neck tension when the bullet is seated into the lands, but whatever. It can be affected by lubricity inside the neck, brass hardness, brass thickness, etc, etc. I had an extreme example of this in that my uncalibrated right arm could even detect. It was what caused me to vow to never use federal cases for serious reloads. After using quite a few other brands, I decided to dig out some FGMM cases just for the heck of it. During seating, about 3 out of 5 would have more seating force than I've ever felt, then 1 or 2 would be about what I was used to. I loaded the rest of the rounds and designated them "plinking". I half expected to see some neck-splits, but none did.

You can moly-lube the case necks as well to try to get it more consistent, but that might be excessive. Also, personally, I would not test for groups with a chrony attached. There's no way I could ever convince myself that hanging that big weight on there doesn't affect the resonance of the barrel, therefore changing where the bullet is released from the barrel in terms of peak or trough of vibration (aka in the node). It's very common to have a barrel speed up as it wears in. It will screw with the load pressure as well.

Thanks for the tips Larry.

To answer your questions.

I have not cleaned the barrel yet, it has shown no signs of needing to be cleaned to date. Powder is a non factor as I buy my powder by the case (Same lot#) and have not ran out and will not for some time.

As far as the neck tension goes, I realize that using a specific bushing size does not actually measure how much neck tension is being placed on my projectiles. I simply use it as a reference point to note what I am actually doing. I have no use for lubing bullets or case necks, and do not SS tumble my brass anymore so that I keep some of the carbon inside the necks (Acting as a friction reducing agent.) Brass is also a non issue since the only source is Lapua which from my minor testing seems to be extremely consistent. I also anneal my cases every 3 firings as well as trimming.

The chronograph is never used for ladder tests and only used to check for velocity and accuracy simultaneously. Final test is without the chronograph which really only weighs a few ounces. And with shooting a massive MTU profile barrel with a nice heavy SS silencer attached to the end, I doubt the little magnetospeed will do much in hurting my accuracy. It does show to change POI .2mil at 600y, but with it attached I am still holding .5moa or less vertical groups. I will look back in this thread to see if I have those posted or not, if not I may try and get some pics up for reference. I am not an expert, but just a guy trying to squeeze the most from my rifle / handloads without venturing into things such as runout, kernel cutting, neck turning, precision primer seating, and the like. I shoot too often for those to be practical for me.

I do appreciate your imput and wish to see more from other members. Sadly I have yet to make it to the range again, but will be testing loads for the new 130 hybrids as well as a new powder for my .223 Ackley improved.

 

[Larry Morgan]

Thanks for the tips Larry.

To answer your questions.

I have not cleaned the barrel yet, it has shown no signs of needing to be cleaned to date. Powder is a non factor as I buy my powder by the case (Same lot#) and have not ran out and will not for some time.

As far as the neck tension goes, I realize that using a specific bushing size does not actually measure how much neck tension is being placed on my projectiles. I simply use it as a reference point to note what I am actually doing. I have no use for lubing bullets or case necks, and do not SS tumble my brass anymore so that I keep some of the carbon inside the necks (Acting as a friction reducing agent.) Brass is also a non issue since the only source is Lapua which from my minor testing seems to be extremely consistent. I also anneal my cases every 3 firings as well as trimming.

The chronograph is never used for ladder tests and only used to check for velocity and accuracy simultaneously. Final test is without the chronograph which really only weighs a few ounces. And with shooting a massive MTU profile barrel with a nice heavy SS silencer attached to the end, I doubt the little magnetospeed will do much in hurting my accuracy. It does show to change POI .2mil at 600y, but with it attached I am still holding .5moa or less vertical groups. I will look back in this thread to see if I have those posted or not, if not I may try and get some pics up for reference. I am not an expert, but just a guy trying to squeeze the most from my rifle / handloads without venturing into things such as runout, kernel cutting, neck turning, precision primer seating, and the like. I shoot too often for those to be practical for me.

I do appreciate your imput and wish to see more from other members. Sadly I have yet to make it to the range again, but will be testing loads for the new 130 hybrids as well as a new powder for my .223 Ackley improved.

I can appreciate your position of practicality, because there is certainly a point of diminishing returns. I personally do not measure true neck tension either, but I know it's probably affecting me (and I take note if it varies enough I can feel). And you won't catch me neck turning or measuring run-out either. I don't even sort the cases or bullets by weight. To quote one benchrest shooter "If you have to sort the bullets by weight, then you need to be buying better bullets". Oddly enough, I obsess over charge weight. I am constantly trying to dream up ways to decrease the spread. My wife thinks I've lost it sometimes!

But even with all that, I've managed to get my factory barreled .223 remington down to the .5moa range and it performs satisfactory (for me, anyway) out to 800yds.

I'm definitely an advocate of the clean less, shoot more philosophy. If your barrel wasn't hand lapped, though, it might foul faster early on until the roughness from the rifling tooling wears down some. It might be interesting to clean all the fouling out, including copper, then see how the velocity behaves as more and more shots are put through.

Also, Reloader 15 is an awesome powder for .223, if you can find it. It's what I currently use for my most accurate load. IMR-4895, H4895, Benchmark, Varget, H335, H332, BL-C2, and Ramshot TAC are all notable performers in .223. There are so many choices, it could take awhile to find the very best one.

Good luck with it!