The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Scarface wrote:Hi Brian I got my FCP about 3 months ago great gun for the price !
As for sizing I too have found that neck sizing dose cause problems unles you use Lapua brass (if you can stand the bill for buying 100 at a time) if not RWS is almost as good but I was getting bolt lift issues. I full length sizes every time now and anneal after three firings and have no issues.

Powders, H1000 ! accuracy and mv consistency were really good I have some VV N560 to try also as H1000 availablity seem to be a bit hit and miss.

Bullets , Lapua Scenar 300gn work well with the faster twist rate of the savage tube as do 285gn ELDs

Primers, Fed mag every time

My best load so far is
Lapua brass
Fed primer
300gn scenar
90gn H1000
3.65 coal

This gives me 1.5" on the HME zero proceedre and a quite surprising 2850fps! , back it off a bit and see how you get on !

On a side note if you decide to remove the brake and run a suppressor as I do it's incredibly difficult to get off they use v strong thread locking compound as well as a crush washer

I was sharing a lane at Kingsbury range with a guy who had a TimberWolf in .338 LM. He was using The same load but with 89 grains of H1000 giving out 2743 fps. It was very accurate!

I have a pot of both H1000 and N560 with 300 grain Scenars, so this is the route I will probably go down once all my 250 grain Lockbase are used up.

I just bought 100 Lapua .338 LM once fired from Greenzone. All clean and in good condition just need resizing. Arrived next day too. Still expensive at £1.47 each but better than new Lapua at £260 per 100

Annealing is definitely the way to go with these expensive cases especially if full length resizing. I find the combination of using Redding Competition Shell Holders, to get exact and repeatable shoulder bump and annealing has made for even more consistency on the range.

ColinR wrote:I just bought 100 Lapua .338 LM once fired from Greenzone. All clean and in good condition just need resizing. Arrived next day too. Still expensive at £1.47 each but better than new Lapua at £260 per 100

Annealing is definitely the way to go with these expensive cases especially if full length resizing. I find the combination of using Redding Competition Shell Holders, to get exact and repeatable shoulder bump and annealing has made for even more consistency on the range.

I was able to take my .338 to the range for the first time on Saturday. Along with the rifle came 100 once fired military cases and also a number rounds loaded by the previous owner, (he didn't have a bullet puller and I was reasoning that I could use these for zeroing/general practice and use the fired cases for my own load development.
The rounds looked fine (the bulge near the base that the fired military cases have was not present) and COAL was 3.613
The data sheet in the ammo box said the rounds were 250gr Lockbase with 74gr of IMR4350.
I stopped after firing 10 rounds as I was getting hard extractions with most rounds, 2 of the cases got stuck in the chamber and had to be tapped back out with a cleaning rod!
I didn't see that any of the primers look badly flattened after firing so I assume that maybe the cases weren't correctly sized? Maybe just neck sized do you think? They seemed to feed into the chamber ok though.
I also cannot find any load data for IMR4350 and 250gr .338 bullets, so cannot verify that the powder weight is safe for that bullet.
I now have 70 unfired rounds of dubious quality and will have to invest in a bullet puller earlier that I had anticipated.
I'm not willing to take the risk of using anymore rounds that other people have loaded. Lesson learnt aaarggh

A very wise decision! Pull the bullets and FLS everything. The bulge you refer to - presumably just about half an inch up from the base is normal and will mostly disappear when you FLS. As you have probably found flattened primers are not necessarily the only sign of over pressure, but a round that feeds easily and is difficult to eject most certainly is. Get a decent set of load data - you can download Vihthavouri data for this calibre from their site for free, but it of course only lists VV powders. I would recommend looking at N165 as a good starting point.

Scarface wrote:Hi Brian I got my FCP about 3 months ago great gun for the price !
As for sizing I too have found that neck sizing dose cause problems unles you use Lapua brass (if you can stand the bill for buying 100 at a time) if not RWS is almost as good but I was getting bolt lift issues. I full length sizes every time now and anneal after three firings and have no issues.

Powders, H1000 ! accuracy and mv consistency were really good I have some VV N560 to try also as H1000 availablity seem to be a bit hit and miss.

Bullets , Lapua Scenar 300gn work well with the faster twist rate of the savage tube as do 285gn ELDs

Primers, Fed mag every time

My best load so far is
Lapua brass
Fed primer
300gn scenar
90gn H1000
3.65 coal

This gives me 1.5" on the HME zero proceedre and a quite surprising 2850fps! , back it off a bit and see how you get on !

On a side note if you decide to remove the brake and run a suppressor as I do it's incredibly difficult to get off they use v strong thread locking compound as well as a crush washer

Hi Scarface,
Just out of interest, what distance did you shoot your groups during load development? I can go to the tunnel range at Charmouth and shoot at 100m off a bench (no cross wind to worry about), but as I will do the rest of my shooting prone on a range do you thing this will be better for load development (shooting at 200m prone)?
Brian.

I have never been able to group anything worthwhile at 100 yards so I imagine the bullet is still settling down, or it might just be me. I use Lockbase 250 grain in an AI AWM with a 1:11 RH twist. I think you guys have tighter twist barrels. Likewise any thing much heavier than 250 grains in the AI are probably not fully stabilised. I am about to try some 250 grain SMK again - a long bullet that I'm sure probably needs a tighter twist than 1:11.

For what it is worth - I have been using once fired Lapua .338 LM brass in an AI AWM. On checking none of this brass goes anywhere near fitting the chamber before sizing and needed the shoulder bumping way back to freely fit my chamber - I use Redding Competition Shell Holders and it was only the last one, +.002", which allowed the bolt to close freely (with AI's it is easy to remove the spring and firing pin so all the friction is removed so easy to 'feel' the cartridge being chambered and adjusting until the bolt closes without any resistance) I always full length size these high pressure cartridges and have easy insertion into the chamber and with most loads easy bolt lift. Neck sizing alone is not the answer with these cartridges IMHO.

For Lapua .338" brass I use a .364" neck sizing bush which sizes the internal neck to 0.334". I then use a carbide Sinclair mandrel which sizes the internal neck to a consistent 0.336" giving 0.002" tension on the bullet. The cases are trimmed to 2.714" Once fully sized I anneal the neck and shoulder on an AMP annealer each time before priming and loading.