6.5 Grendel

[bobke]

Just got a recent release of Speer 6.5mm 120gr Gold Dots to test and potentially load for a long TX deer season. Pretty respectable accuracy, a flyer or two, but SD’s running a bit higher than my usual 5-7’s for my 120 Scenar load.
Started seating over 27.3 AR Comp last night and decided to check BTO for the record and found .407 to .420 in last 15 rounds, which turned into yet another rabbit hole.
Ran through 315 rounds and got spread from .399 to .428, which may explain some of the SD variance being more than normal.
Where in the hell has QC gone at Speer-not a pinnacle of consistency on any day, but this is worse than buying Nosler seconds. Come on guys, you can certainly do better than shoving this into the market without any regard to expected tolerances.

 

[Snuby642]

Wow
That's bto on the bullet right?

Unacceptable. Oal variance due to tip is one thing but not 0.030 worth.

For a comparison, and not a fanboy of Hornady, their 6mm Aeromatch was roughly +/- 0.0050 oal and + 0.0015 bto with a 0.1g wieght variance.

I have had an unscrupuless company sell me china junk sold as factory seconds that ended up being a waste of primers powder and time.

I wouldn't risk a good hunt on those bullets, factory crap would probably out reform that stuff.

 

[Basic user]

Just got a recent release of Speer 6.5mm 120gr Gold Dots to test and potentially load for a long TX deer season. Pretty respectable accuracy, a flyer or two, but SD’s running a bit higher than my usual 5-7’s for my 120 Scenar load.
Started seating over 27.3 AR Comp last night and decided to check BTO for the record and found .407 to .420 in last 15 rounds, which turned into yet another rabbit hole.
Ran through 315 rounds and got spread from .399 to .428, which may explain some of the SD variance being more than normal.
Where in the hell has QC gone at Speer-not a pinnacle of consistency on any day, but this is worse than buying Nosler seconds. Come on guys, you can certainly do better than shoving this into the market without any regard to expected tolerances.
View attachment 8793549

How bad does the projectile only bto affect your group size? Assuming a +/- .001 on seating depth, did it make a huge impact on your groups?

 

[Snuby642]

@Basic user

I had similar problems with some 69g 223 bullets.
It was bad enough to have to toss them out.
You don't nessisairily index from the ogive while seating.

It jacks up the time the bullet leaves the barrel and can cause pressure problems if it ends up in the lands.

At some point you are wasting powder primers, barrel life and time.

 

[bobke]

Basic
Hadn’t had time to retest sorted vs unsorted, though would expect more consistency in group size, velocity and deviation after the sort process. Bullet has a good rep as a bonded hunting bullet-but won’t know for a couple of weeks or so. Just very disappointed with fact that there is so much variation in a single box, which leaves the one box reloader without option if they’re hunting consistency.

 

[Basic user]

@Basic user

I had similar problems with some 69g 223 bullets.
It was bad enough to have to toss them out.
You don't nessisairily index from the ogive while seating.

It jacks up the time the bullet leaves the barrel and can cause pressure problems if it ends up in the lands.

At some point you are wasting powder primers, barrel life and time.

You dont index from the ogive while seating? How are you indexing? The only part of the bullet the seater touches is the ogive, and from that to the base is where you're measuring from.

 

[hlee]

You dont index from the ogive while seating? How are you indexing? The only part of the bullet the seater touches is the ogive, and from that to the base is where you're measuring from.

Depending upon the bullet and the specific seater stem in your die, this may or may not be the case. My seating dies certainly do not index at the bullet ogive of anything I’ve ever loaded.

 

[Snuby642]

I measure from the ogive but I don't think any of my seating stems actually touch it.

They seem to be well forward of it.
Mark up some bullets for whatever caliber and see where they touch.
You could also pull the stem out and measure the diameter.

That would make it very easy to set lengths I suppose but think it's on purpose.