I was intrigued by the bullet, as well, until I found my gun likes the 169 SMK. Might be a fun exercise to load some up and see if they’d do well enough to be competitive.
I’d change brass or bullet, change nothing else pick one of those two, then go from there. Obviously better brass won’t hurt anything. Measure H20 capacity though, some brass like my M118 brass is lower than usual capacity, you might be higher in pressure than you expect at that powder charge.
In that weight class of bullet, I just dump 45gr of varget and don't liok back. Works pretty good in my rifle. My brothers trg22 likes it also with a 175 tmk.
Thats the smart play. I should note that I was using sig hybrids and lapua brass. Probably try it with wcc here in the near future.
That 174 is 1.432" long. It's longer than a 176 Atip. Best used in binderless mags @ 2.950". At that load length I got up to 2850 in Sig Hybrids using PP2000
I need to check them in my chamber. 178 eldm are only jumping .005" loaded to 2.8"
Sierra’s manual is 43.6 max, and I loaded 175’s to that with Hornady brass (largest case capacity in what I have). Loading 175 MKX in FC brass (IME similar to LC), I’m at 42.7, and while it’s not really pushing it too hard, it’s more than enough for white tails out to 300. That’s what I’d guess the Hornady 175 would top out at.
Sierra manual is well know to be under estimated for max. Hodgdon lists 45 at max and I always start at 43 and go up with any brass but LC. Never an issue.
The bullets in my post are 168 ELDMs, I did shoot some factory ammo with 168 SMKs (@2430fps) the same day at 600yards but the ES was 80fps and they sucked in the wind.
I checked the weight and length of once fired brass, 10x Sako 9x Hornady 20x S&B.
Don't overlook the rcbs matchmaster dies. I have a few sets and I like them. That said, my hornady dies have never done me wrong. I did have to polish my redding 243AI die to slick it up a little.
So I'm fairly new to reloading. Less than 2 years. I don't recall what I had read and researched back then. However, something had led me to believe that bushing dies "might" impose some potential issues, maybe donuts. I don't recall.
Yeah that's how I've always set mine up.
Yeah, the more I research/think about it I'm thinking the brass is shit.
Again, I have not personally proved or disproved any of these comments found on the internet. I was simply replying to the question asked about why I do it the way I do it. I was very inexperienced back then, I read some things that may or may not be true, and I decided to go a certain route. The route I went has given me really good results.
I thought I was pretty clear with my wording that what I heard/read was not conclusive and I had not proved/disproved anything, so draw your own conclusions from that pretty much.
Only input I have on dies, is going from Lyman to Lee to Hornady... much much nicer dies, even has the floating bullet guide thing in the Hornady die that makes sure to align the projectile before it starts seating. Also just felt smoother, and my groups tightened up over the OLD lyman dies from like I duno early 00's to the Lee's both felt and seemed pretty minimum effort compared to the Hornady. Never used Redding. Maybe that helps, maybe not.
That’s one of the Sierra projectiles I bought when doing real load development. I couldn’t get them to shoot like I wanted, but otherwise load it similar to a 168/169 SMK.
I’d say you’re right in the ballpark. 168gr TMKs shoot great for me. My go-to load is 44.5gr N150 in Lapua brass, but undoubtedly, Varget would work just as well. I have found N150 to match Varget grain for grain in my .308. To be honest, in my barrel, I have not found a powder that shoots poorly with 168gr TMKs.
I have both Forster bushing dies and FL sizing dies honed for my Lapua brass. Both work, but I prefer the custom honed dies (without the buttons) followed by a pass through a mandrel. Many ways to skin a cat and not sure I could shoot the difference, but that’s the route I chose many years ago.
That's a crap answer if you ask me, along the lines of, "it will probably be fine".
Have you thought that their suggestion may actually be supported by objective data? IE pressure tested? And the jacket thickness and bearing surface was close enough to not cause a significant change compared to the other bullets?
