From the outside looking in, I've always wondered about this. I work up until l find an accuracy node. Is it a pain in the ass, yes. But I don't chase speed, I want accuracy and precision (there is a difference). Could it be that people are looking for speed and, therefore, encounter "fucked up things" in chasing that speed? Probably? The faster the projectile, the less time gravity affects it in flight - I get that. Once I find the first acceptable accuracy, I stick with it and then fiddle with seating depth, primers, brass, etc. If that proves futile, I move up to the next node.Why do people load so hot?
- Thread starter Salmon Exceptional Ape
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From the outside looking in, I've always wondered about this. I work up until l find an accuracy node. Is it a pain in the ass, yes. But I don't chase speed, I want accuracy and precision (there is a difference). Could it be that people are looking for speed and, therefore, encounter "fucked up things" in chasing that speed? Probably? The faster the projectile, the less time gravity affects it in flight - I get that. Once I find the first acceptable accuracy, I stick with it and then fiddle with seating depth, primers, brass, etc. If that proves futile, I move up to the next node.You misunderstood, I meant you can read the published pressure data. There are various folks around though that sprung for pressure gauges and test stuff and put videos out that you can see, not with your exact gun unless you are lucky, but I think you knew that. I havent done it for rifle but for shotshell loads you can send them to Precision and they will test pressure for you.
My favorite was ROing at a match and the daughter (sharing a gun with her father) couldn't even close the bolt on the rounds loaded by the father due to his desire to chase high velocity and increased COAL.
You did not read what I wrote. I find where a given case, bullet, powder, primer combination (varying only powder weight) shows pressure then back down.
You said that 3rd party people confirm the reloading manual numbers, where is this data confirming reloading manual pressures? Do they use the same measurement tools and techniques? I am confident that the people who prepare reloading manuals report their measurements honestly and accurately. But suppose that my barrel length or inside diameter or twist is different? I use 5R rifling profile, how many manuals use 5R barrels? Suppose I use different primers or cases or bullets. Do you know how to adjust manual pressure numbers for these differences? Please enlighten us.
For example, I use Federal primers - known to be somewhat soft so they show pressure sooner.
In 308 I use mostly Lake City LR brass with a reputation for thick walls and smaller case volume than Lapua. I also shoot Lapua, oddly enough with the same powder charge and to the same point of impact. I use 175 SMK bullets - pretty normal. GRT says that I am getting 53,800 psi (max is 60,191, my load is 89.3% of max) with an estimated muzzle velocity of 2,608 - the MV matches my measurements.
In 300 PRC, I use Lapua brass and Berger 230 grain bullets with secant ogive and J4 jackets. Those jackets and bearing surface are different than SMKs. Lapua brass is harder than Hornady and handles pressure better. GRT says that I am getting 57,172 psi (max is 63,817, my load is 89.5% of max) with an estimated muzzle velocity of 2,790 - 97.8% of actual. Actual measurements tell me that my muzzle velocity is 2,850.
GRT is a simulator using a LOT of math and exact numbers when the actual items being modeled vary and some of those calculations vary in non-linear fashion. GRT was careful to tell me that 300 PRC case volume varies, I accepted their guess. Same with the Berger bullets. I figure if it gets within 5 percent I think that is pretty darn good. If you think my loads are hot, I think you are wrong.
I trashed my first batch of lapua 308 brass using my winchester brass load.
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PM me that recipe. Or post it here if you like. Not that I would run with right off the bat, but I'm curious. I leaned on my 20" 308 pretty good with hybrid cases and 178's. Sadly, it shot the best around the low 2700's with varget so I left it there.I am guilty as f!@# and proud of it!!! At least until I'm not
Currently running 180 grain Gamechanger at 2800 in a 20" 308 win
There's people on LRH running 230's out of .300NMs at 3300+ FPS. It's shocking.
My .300NM loads are much like yours. Essentially a modest .300PRC when compared to the rest of the internet.
+1
Lake City 7.62 brass is thick. I'm up to the case neck with 43.0gr IMR-4064. Learned that the hard way after popping a couple primers right off the bat during load development.
Lake City LR brass is just not good. I don't remember the H2O capacity, but my ES across 20 cases was over 1.5gr. No wonder my ES was in the 30s and SD in the teens regardless of how carefully I was loading. 15 years ago the lore around here spoke of the superiority of LC LR brass... but now you'll see recommendations for other stuff done by competitive .308 shooters... and for a reason.
I did Lapua brass, 175SMK, 42gr IMR-4064, WLR and also 43gr Varget.
Rem 700 VSSF 26" I'd get 2650fps - brass didn't last long using the 43gr Varget.
RPR 20" I'd get 2560fps - The only recipe that POS shot sub minute. Lol
I was told once that lc 5.56 brass was as good as lapua with the caveat that you needed to sort it to find a group with similar capacity and centered flash holes.
I heard that Arkan and Savage are just as good as anything also. If someone says it. Someone is gonna beleive it.
This has been going around for a long time. There are definitely people who experience (believe?) that as you near case capacity you see improved consistency in es/sd.
I’m not prepared to argue against it but I’m also not 100% on board as it being causative
When I tested 20 random 5.56 LC cases many years ago, it was pretty consistent. It shot well too. I was happy about it because I may or may not have picked up a few thousand of them while I was running ranges for the boys.
Stop crapping on my Arken scoped Salvage.
My pig load for 150gr bullets is 43.0, IMR-4064 in standard LC brass. It is starting to get a little spicy at that point, but I've got thousands of pieces and no worries if it lasts 2-3 reloads.
43.0 Varget under a 165gr NBT was my deer load for several years. I run 42.8 in LC LR brass under the 175gr SMK for my M24, and it matches the ballistics of M118LR pretty well.
Experience, precision shooting and bench rest competitors. Notice I said acceptable pressures. Your particular brass determines what pressures you can load to. I want a load that shoots well and doesn't ruin my brass.
20” .308, for reference. I’m still intrigued by the numbers I’ve gotten. Shooting 169 SMK, the manual states 45 gr max with Varget, WLR primer in Win brass. 2750 fps. I’ve seen 2720-2740 in LC brass, 44.8 gr, and CCI 200’s. 200 is by far the least spicy of 200, 250, and WLR. 250 is the hottest by ~70 fps. My personally happy place is around 2650, and loading the PRS match a couple weeks ago, 2615 was fine. Recoil between mid 2600’s and 2720+ is noticeable.
My sample size is a handful versus a couple dozen, but between FC, 20-23 LC, and 01-04 LC LR is was a few tenths. 54.9-55.2. Got 120-140 Hornady cases from ~2007 I did most of my load development in and am working on wearing them out, but their capacity was 57.9. Weighed some Armscor, too, think it was 55.5. I won’t shoot max charges of Varget in any of them, and I just saw last week Sierra online has a sheet for the 169 now and it states 45.6 versus 45 for all the 168’s.
I worked up to 2850 with the 175gr Nosler CC's. Super accurate with single digit SD's. I backed way off after seeing how far I could get. My active load has them running 2775.
That would sure make it easier to know who not to sit next to at the range.
There's a guy over there shooting a standard 300 PRC with a 26" tube faster than I shoot my 30 Sherman mag with a 32" barrel. same projectile. and I consider my load at/ near max
Yeah, you know there are a lot of members over there with lifted trucks that sag in the ass end! LOL
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Just as a heads up....Shellshock released their 308 binary cases for sale today. Ordered 250 to play with, if they work as advertised itll be a hoot. They are less expensive the Alpha and Peterson.
Ah, the era of people sneezing actions instead of cases is here.
Could be I have better than average Lake City LR brass - mine is 2005 thru 2011 - I got a good deal and bought a bunch.
I happen to be reloading 308 with LC LR. I grabbed ten random pieces. All had been sized and decapped, primer pockets dirty. I also grabbed ten random pieces of brand new Lapua, primer pockets clean. Just for grins, I weighted each population and ran basic stats.
using only case weight, my LCLR is more consistent than new Lapua. The pedantic among you will notice that the Lake City is on the average about 3 grains heaver than Lapua.
I think my Lake City shoots not quite as well as Lapua but loaded exactly the same (same shoulder, primer, powder and charge, bullet and COL) both are 0.4 and 0.5 MOA at 100 yards and that is good enough for me.
One of the guys who blew up a gun while I was standing there got some shrapnel in his face - his glasses probably saved his eyesight. Most of the shrapnel was in the front of his body. He was wearing a white tee shirt and there were maybe 15 bloody spots I could see as he was jumping around working his way through the adrenaline dump. We sorta calmed him down so we could decide if he had any deep wounds. Some of the gun was over here, some over there.
I don't care what the velocity is. I shoot for the best consistent group I can get that fits in my magazine including my magpul ar10 mags. The rest is wind reading and math and I have AB for that.
Definitely not going to 'poo-poo' on your data man, as I appreciate your comparison.
However, I found years ago that case weight is surprisingly not as good an indicator of volume as I would have thought. H2O capacity has been the way I turned to about 15-20 years ago for my layman's approach.
My LC LR brass is all '12 headstamp. I actually had two different weight ranges. Most of the cases were like yours, but I had at least three (IIRC) that were about a full five grains heavier - the kind of result that makes you stop and start re-weighing stuff. Even though those cases were heavier, the case volumes were in the same range as the other 17.
For years I’ve been saying that the game you shoot or the target you hit can’t tell the difference if the round is 100 fps slower or faster. Yet your barrel and your wallet sure can. It’s why we buy those very expensive scopes that allow us to dial the elevation and windage necessary to hit our targets. Why does this not make sense?
I simply find a good load that shoots accurately, and go with it. Barrels last, I use less powder and life is good.
Simply said, if you need more power, get a bigger gun.
I simply find a good load that shoots accurately, and go with it. Barrels last, I use less powder and life is good.
Simply said, if you need more power, get a bigger gun.
yeah, okay but I'm not doing case volumes with water for 20 cases so I can make a comment on this board. AND, I would have to put primers into the Lapua which I don't want to do. If I did it right, I would make sure they were all trimmed to the same length - wot I am not doing either
Funny thing, the Lake City was just annealed and sized so the outside dimensions are essentially identical. I can't say the same for the Lapua. When you start to think about comparisons things get complicated pretty fast. Same thing I said earlier about pressures.
yeah, okay but I'm not doing case volumes with water for 20 cases so I can make a comment on this board. AND, I would have to put primers into the Lapua which I don't want to do. If I did it right, I would make sure they were all trimmed to the same length - wot I am not doing either
Why not collect the rest of, and more relevant data? That's like punching your load into your powder thrower and not measuring the result.
I don't do it to "make comments", I do it so I know what I'm working with.
Or, just don't measure anything and keep on keeping on. You do you.
In my .308 pushing 177 SMK's with 46.5 grs H-4895 got those pills to average 2,902 fps, this using neck up 277 Sig Hybrid cases with the cartridge COAL of 2.977" . Estimated PSI at 80k with no bolt lift or extraction issues over 15 shots, which is easy enough to do for modern actions to handle. But, DO NOT try this load in your gun as you could easily find even higher pressure than this. You'd better know what you're doing!
Ultimate reloader ran a test on some .308 Alpha Munitions brass. . . for those of you that might find it interesting:
I discovered the same with Hornady brass. Batches weighing 170gr vs 190gr had same H2O capacity. TAP brass was the heavier batch, probably for LE/MIL use with thicker webs possibly.
I put fired primers in the cases to measure. Just sayin. If you H2O your cases you'll get mad forum board cred. Women find out and you'll be skewering the fucken panties thrown at you! LOLyeah, okay but I'm not doing case volumes with water for 20 cases so I can make a comment on this board. AND, I would have to put primers into the Lapua which I don't want to do. If I did it right, I would make sure they were all trimmed to the same length - wot I am not doing either
Back in 2020 I competed with a large frame AR in PRS Regional Gas division and learned a lot about pressure when it came to yearlong consistency with H4350 and Varget in a 6.5 Creedmoor. I don't recall the charge weight but settled on moving 140's with Varget in the mid 2600's and brought the regional season trophy home. Since then, I went back to open division with a bolt rifle and used the 6GT with Varget. I stayed in the 31.5-32.5 weight range over 6 barrels to make a consistent 2830fps load. Eventually I wanted to go slower and moved to a 6mm BR with 109 Hybrid's and 29 grains of Varget for 2725fps. For the past 9 months and 2367 rounds it has remained consistent and generally stays under a 5sd for any given shot string. Since slowing things down and jumping bullet's .055 or longer I have never had to retune a load in close to 10 barrels now. This in 6GT's, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6mmBR, 25GT and 6.5x47L. The exception was two barrels with tighter bores, which I will never do again. Otherwise, the loads have worked equally well in the next replacement barrel screwed on to the action provided the freebore was the same.
I love the amount you can see with the extra flight time when it comes to rifle sports... I also run a 25GT with 135 Hybrid's and a 6.5x47 with 135 A-tips in the mid 2600's for the same reason.
The looks can be priceless when speaking to shooters struggling with their combo that are running loads two or three hundred feet per second faster than you, and you just left them in the dust with a stage clean.
I have a feeling that a more modest load adds barrel life as well, but I have only shot out one-barrel and that was a 6GT that started to show signs at 3200 rounds and was definitively done at 3600ish when a 6 tenth windage shift occurred and I had lost about 60fps after cleaning... it still shot great though, LOL.
I love the amount you can see with the extra flight time when it comes to rifle sports... I also run a 25GT with 135 Hybrid's and a 6.5x47 with 135 A-tips in the mid 2600's for the same reason.
The looks can be priceless when speaking to shooters struggling with their combo that are running loads two or three hundred feet per second faster than you, and you just left them in the dust with a stage clean.
I have a feeling that a more modest load adds barrel life as well, but I have only shot out one-barrel and that was a 6GT that started to show signs at 3200 rounds and was definitively done at 3600ish when a 6 tenth windage shift occurred and I had lost about 60fps after cleaning... it still shot great though, LOL.
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I could not care any less what the case weights are. I only care about group size and making good wind calls. If I get those right, with a 308 I can make cold bore 600 yard A-zone and 800 yard silhouettes every time. That is what I care about.
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