Been screwing around, trying to get a good load for my SPS Tactical with 155gr A-Max's and Varget. I've went through about 80 rounds at 100 yards trying to tune them in to giving me a repeatable load. The first OCW I ran showed a node at 46.6gr, so I started playing with the seating depth and ended up at 2.210" to the ogive. Problem was, the load went to absolute shit at 300 and further.
I then suspected my FL sizing wasn't giving me a consistent size on my fired brass, so I reworked the load in NS only brass and the same charge weight. Groups went from .8" average to 1"+ average (5-5 shot groups @ 100 yds)
Determined to make this work, I scrapped the load and started over. Used fired Win brass that was annealed and then NS only, I found another node at 46.0 gr. Played with the seating depth and every load still showed a little vertical stringing, but the same OAL as before looked promising. Loaded up another batch and ran them through the rifle yesterday. I can live with the results considering it's an out of the box action and barrel.
From 100yds, flyer is from clean cold bore. Should have put one more in there to give a 5 shot group beside the CCB shot, but I like to see the first group with the CCB accounted for.Target paster is 1.5" for size reference.
I adjusted to get a good solid 100yd zero and moved on out to do some drop testing and see if the load held together at distance.
From 309 yards, much better than before with the other loads I tried. I haven't run it through on-target but it looks to be around .7 MOA, maybe a touch less. I was fighting a wind that was shifting from 9-11 o'clock and gusting up to 20+ mph at times, so it took a little while to get this 5 rounds down range. Shot 3 groups total at that distance and this was NOT the smallest, but is the only one fired with corrections to hit the target paster. Holes on a blank piece of paper just aren't as pretty
Velocity isn't spectacular, but this is a factory 20" Remington barrel and I intend to use this load under 500 yards. It took 5.0 IPHY (my Nikon Monarch adjustments are in Inches Per Hundred Yards) to put that group center of the 3" paster at 309 yards. According to JBM, my velocity is in the 2700fps area which will put it subsonic shortly past 900 yards.
I've learned my lesson now, and I'll do my load testing further out than 100yds from now on.
The final load ended up as:
155gr AMax
Fired Win brass, neck sized only
46.0 gr Varget
Wolf LR Primer
OAL: 2.210" to the ogive
I then suspected my FL sizing wasn't giving me a consistent size on my fired brass, so I reworked the load in NS only brass and the same charge weight. Groups went from .8" average to 1"+ average (5-5 shot groups @ 100 yds)
Determined to make this work, I scrapped the load and started over. Used fired Win brass that was annealed and then NS only, I found another node at 46.0 gr. Played with the seating depth and every load still showed a little vertical stringing, but the same OAL as before looked promising. Loaded up another batch and ran them through the rifle yesterday. I can live with the results considering it's an out of the box action and barrel.
From 100yds, flyer is from clean cold bore. Should have put one more in there to give a 5 shot group beside the CCB shot, but I like to see the first group with the CCB accounted for.Target paster is 1.5" for size reference.
I adjusted to get a good solid 100yd zero and moved on out to do some drop testing and see if the load held together at distance.
From 309 yards, much better than before with the other loads I tried. I haven't run it through on-target but it looks to be around .7 MOA, maybe a touch less. I was fighting a wind that was shifting from 9-11 o'clock and gusting up to 20+ mph at times, so it took a little while to get this 5 rounds down range. Shot 3 groups total at that distance and this was NOT the smallest, but is the only one fired with corrections to hit the target paster. Holes on a blank piece of paper just aren't as pretty
Velocity isn't spectacular, but this is a factory 20" Remington barrel and I intend to use this load under 500 yards. It took 5.0 IPHY (my Nikon Monarch adjustments are in Inches Per Hundred Yards) to put that group center of the 3" paster at 309 yards. According to JBM, my velocity is in the 2700fps area which will put it subsonic shortly past 900 yards.
I've learned my lesson now, and I'll do my load testing further out than 100yds from now on.
The final load ended up as:
155gr AMax
Fired Win brass, neck sized only
46.0 gr Varget
Wolf LR Primer
OAL: 2.210" to the ogive
