.308 advice please.

[Jon B]

New to reloading so all advice gratefully received.

I am reloading for my Remington 700 with AICS stock, I started off using HPS 155 grain but found it a bit unforgiving and very inconsitent, probably down to my shooting and not the ammo, I then tried Privi and found a great improvement. Next step try reloading, so did a bit of researched talked to people on the firing point at Bisley.

I have loaded 42 grain of N140 in Lapua brass with a 155 grain Lapua SCENAR bullet and Winchester rifle primer, this have proved to be very good for me at 600 yards but not as good at 300, barrel is a 1:12 twist.

Any ideas why this does not work at 300 yards? am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Thanks in advance.

[Mr_Logic]

Wouldn't have thought so necessarily - what groups does it print @ 100?

Also 42 grains of N140 under a 155 is a very light load.

[ovenpaa]

I agree your load is a bit on the light side and would expect around 44-46 grains to be a better place to look with a jump of around .010" to .020" (Start low and run a ladder test at 200/300 to start with) Personally I shoot Lapua brass, Fed210M primers and 155 Scenar's with N540 through a 1:12

It is interesting that you found PPV more accurate than HPS, have you tried putting a box of the Bisely RUAG through your rifle as a comparison, it is a good 1000 yard round.

[Gun Pimp]

I have loaded 42 grain of N140 in Lapua brass with a 155 grain Lapua SCENAR bullet and Winchester rifle primer, this have proved to be very good for me at 600 yards but not as good at 300, barrel is a 1:12 twist.

Any ideas why this does not work at 300 yards? am I doing something fundamentally wrong?

Jon,

How are you evaluating your rifle's performance? Did you shoot groups at 300 and 600 yards in similar conditions? If so, what were the group sizes?

Also, why did you pick 42 grains? You would have to be extemely lucky to pluck a load out of the blue and it be the most accurate one for your rifle. This is why serious shooters handload - each rifle has its own 'personality' and should be 'tuned' using the powder load.

The normal procedure would be to test at 100 yards, increasing your load in small increments - say half a grain and then carefully watching for pressure signs - flattened primers, cratered primers, sticky bolt-lift. Do not attempt this unless you are aware of what these pressure signs look like. Get an experienced reloader to help.

Once a (safe) 'maximum' has been established, drop back a grain and look for your accuracy load by adjusting the powder in say one-fifth of a grain increments. Shoot three-shot groups at first and then five-shots to confirm your accuracy load - five-shot groups don't lie!

Finally, you can play with seating depth - to squeeze out the last bit of accuracy but, Remingtons are very long-throated so you may not reach the rifling with a 155gn bullet!

Remember, BE SAFE always work up the load in small increments.

Vince

[Jon B]

Thanks for the replies, very helpful.

I have not been able to try this load at 100 yards yet, I loaded the ammo and was invited on a 300 and 600 yard shoot so went along and tried it after a visit to the zero range.

Shot both distances on the same day, very little change in weather wind remained constant, at 300 yards the group was all within the 4 ring but grouped like a 12 bore, at 600 yards had 6 bulls and 4 V bulls, may well have been a fluke but I was happy!

I arrived at 42 grain after talking to several people at Bisley, the concensus from the group was I would find the sweet spot between 40 and 44 grain, so I looked in the Hornady handbook and went for the middle figure of 42.

[rox]

I buy about 10,000 rounds of HPS per year for my team, and this year we defeated all comers (12 out of 12 teams that mostly used HPS or RUAG). If I supplied Privi to the team I think I would have a mutiny on my hands! Note that I am talking about HPS in new brass, not the once fired stuff. If you routinely shoot less than about ¾ of a minute of elevation then you will be able to benefit by developing and tuning handloads, but HPS is usually quite capable of knocking the crap out of the V on an NRA target from 300 back to 1000 (I have had 50.10’s at both distances with HPS in recent years). Of course, any particular ammo might be spectacularly unsuited to your rifle, but HPS is routinely used in competitions with 100’s of rifles without problems, so the chance of that is low. As suggested, try RUAG if you think there's a problem.

Typically a 155 through a 1-in-12 at 300 yards is not quite optimal and if you are talking about the NRA target then 300 yards is the most challenging target in terms of proportional dimensions. It demands very good technique. That said, the Imperial Grand Agg has been won with a 1-in-12, although probably due to having a world class wind coach behind the gun and hanging-in at short range while getting-ahead at long range.

The Scenar tends to need more tuning than length tolerant designs like the Sierra 2155, 2156 or even the Berger BT Full-bore, and most shooters that I know who use it only see the benefits at long range (900+), especially when driven fast to cheat the wind.

If the combination of you and your rifle (ignoring ammo for a moment) aren’t shooting well, then you could spend a lot of time tuning ammo and basing your decisions on not entirely sound data. Assuming you are rested and scoped then you should easily be able to stuff the V at 300x to 600x on an NRA target with any reasonable factory ammo (HPS in new brass or RUAG). If you’re not doing this then work on it until you are, either with factory ammo or by replicating RUAG/HPS performance, which is easy and cheap and doesn’t need a lot of development and tuning. Once you have a good performance base-line you can work on improving it with more exotic bullets, tuning jump, finding load sweet-spots, evaluating different primers etc etc.

..

[Jon B]

Please don't take my comment about HPS the wrong way, I know it is very good, but with me behind the gun I could not achieve a very good result.

[rox]

Please don't take my comment about HPS the wrong way

Not at all - I was just trying to reassure you that within reasonable expectations it is usually 'up to the job' in a wide range of rifles.

..

[Dougan]

Hi Jon B,

As has already been said: All rifles have different personalities, and changing factors such as bullet type, size and load will all have various results. But there does seem to be some common ground, when it comes to 155 gn bullets in .308, and the relationship with the number of turns in the barrel - When the bullet leaves the barrel it is 'spirraling', and depending on the barrel length and number of turns, it will 'stabalise' at different distances - With my .308 (30" and 1/13), it groups a lot better at 600 yds than 300 yds, which I believe is down to it 'settling' beyond 300.

With TR rifles there is some consistancy to the theory that; the less turns in the barrel...the further out it will stabalise. And some rifles intended for short range (200/300 yds) have upto 14 turns.

There was quite a lot of discussion on this (and some other stuff you may find interesting) on a tread called 'Wind at 100yds' .....http://www.full-bore.co.uk/viewtopic.ph ... lit=spiral

[Alpha1]

I use 155g Amax bullits with 43.2 grains of N140 works well in my rifle.