A little more history. This was a good load that turned out to be inconsistent. One bench group and two positions.
Consistency, or lack thereof
- Thread starter Josh Umsted
- Start date
Any time you get new brass, you've going to find variations in their head space. This is why its a good idea to fire form them to your particular chamber before you do any load development and you don't want to measure case volume until they're fired in you chamber to you have the proper case volume to your loading.
When Lapua brass comes boxed in the bulk, it's always a good idea to run a mandrel through them to be make sure the necks are round. Also, when they're trimmed, they're not chamfered and it's always best to seat bullets in a neck that's ben chamfered.
PS: for fire forming, it's ok to just load and shoot new cases. . . preferably with cheap bullets since you're not likely to get the best results until after you've fire formed them.
Forgot to include this Pareto chart from the little crow series that’s a nice summary of what he found impacts groups the most:
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What’s the total weight of your rig?
It sounds like you’re shooting a relatively lively recoiling cartridge in a light gun (which will move on you as you get fatigued and requires a fairly high level of recoil control 100% of the time to maintain NPA, and which only gets harder as the round count climbs) with a light barrel contour (that’s vastly more affected by higher temperatures, again, only getting worse as rounds add up). I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but maybe you should look into that…
If not that, I’d bet the solution to your lack of consistency is probably something simpler like: when’s the last time you checked your action screws or something? Sometimes what we see on target are symptoms of a different problem than we first assumed.
Or, feel free to continue trying to “Reloading Wizard” your way out of it by trying every brand of primers, doing some more ladder “testing” and trying every seating depth or whatever… that is popular around here after all.
I mean, there’s a lot of things to get tripped up on or that might have to get looked at, like: you said “REM700”… non-pinned lug? How’s the bedding in that Oryx? Or is it bedded? There’s a lot of things to scrutinize before turning to reloading-voodoo…
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I wish the shots on these targets were labeled in order fired. It looks to me like your rifle is trying to shoot two groups on each target. That's either you being inconsistent behind the gun, or something is shifting. Or maybe dragging.
I know you said your rifle was in an oryx chassis, but I had a 700 LTR that did the two group thing until I changed stocks. Put it in a bedded stock and that problem disappeared.
As to the dragging comment. I have a 700 in 300winmag that I chased my tail with off and on for years. Three barrels, three different smiths, four different stocks/chassis, 600 plus rounds of "load development" never found anything it would consistently shoot well. Not typical for a winmag. Some days it would hammer. Reload it and it would shotgun. Ended up being the firing pin assembly. Totally fixed it.
After much reading here (a few post from Chad Dixon of LRI were most helpful) and watching a pile of gunsmithing videos on YouTube about blueprinting the 700 bolt, I tore into mine and lo and behold, that was the source of all my problems. I've done it to all my 700's now and even the ones I thought shot good got better.
If your rifle has the J lock firing pin assembly in it like my LTR did, scrap it and order a pin assembly from GreTan.
For new Lapua brass, I chamfer the case mouth and run an expander mandrel/ball through the neck.
13#, not bedded, not trued. Everything is torqued. I’m trying to get more consistent velocity. Rifle shoots good enough for me when sd/es are within limits. Only burning 95% of powder is definitely a factor, and the next thing I’ll try. Bedding and truing are good ideas. I’ll get to that.What’s the total weight of your rig?
It sounds like you’re shooting a relatively lively recoiling cartridge in a light gun (which will move on you as you get fatigued and requires a fairly high level of recoil control 100% of the time to maintain NPA, and which only gets harder as the round count climbs) with a light barrel contour (that’s vastly more affected by higher temperatures, again, only getting worse as rounds add up). I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but maybe you should look into that…
If not that, I’d bet the solution to your lack of consistency is probably something simpler like: when’s the last time you checked your action screws or something? Sometimes what we see on target are symptoms of a different problem than we first assumed.
Or, feel free to continue trying to “Reloading Wizard” your way out of it by trying every brand of primers, doing some more ladder “testing” and trying every seating depth or whatever… that is popular around here after all.
I mean, there’s a lot of things to get tripped up on or that might have to get looked at, like: you said “REM700”… non-pinned lug? How’s the bedding in that Oryx? Or is it bedded? There’s a lot of things to scrutinize before turning to reloading-voodoo…
Saw that. Watching all the videos in that series. It’s excellent.
I would take the rifle out of the stock and look for wear marks on the receiver. It's my opinion they should all be bedded. Especially if you are trying to get the best accuracy possible.
Think ill worry about bedding later. It’s my starter rifle. Might wanna do something else with the chassis.
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Playing more with GRT. Theoretically, it shows an optimal charge of 44.9gn at 97% load ratio and 100% burn rate at 62,000 psi. Not gonna test that load any further for now, though.
Saving components for fire forming. GRT will help a lot comparing all my random powder, just for fun. I don’t need to test powders, really, but can compare Varget, 4895, N450 and whatever else is in my stash, for fun.
Feel like I should buy something from Little Crow. What a great series.
Saving components for fire forming. GRT will help a lot comparing all my random powder, just for fun. I don’t need to test powders, really, but can compare Varget, 4895, N450 and whatever else is in my stash, for fun.
Feel like I should buy something from Little Crow. What a great series.
Im not telling you to just load this and shoot it, but my load with a 175 or a 178gr bullet is 45gr of varget seated to book length. With whatever flavor of the month large primers. Currently it's 40 year old Winchester LR. Lapua large primer or sig hybrid cases, 20" 9 twist lilja.
I read through the thread and was going to chime in, but @CK1.0 already said it all.... focus should be on the shooter skill development and not the load development.
A lighter 308 is hard to shoot well, and often times certain equipment/components are only going to shoot so good. If you've got multiple 3/4" groups in a row I would personally call the load development done.
However I get that load development can be a fun exercise and if that's what you enjoy about shooting then keep doing it. I would just focus on coming home from each range trip with as much analysis about yourself as a shooter as you have analysis about your groups.
Video yourself close up with an iPhone in slo-mo mode and analyze the footage... are you blinking? Anticipatory tensing/movement? Does the rifle recoil look smooth and your body look relaxed? Did the reticle end up in the same place every time? Stuff like that is why we miss targets, not ES/SD.
A lighter 308 is hard to shoot well, and often times certain equipment/components are only going to shoot so good. If you've got multiple 3/4" groups in a row I would personally call the load development done.
However I get that load development can be a fun exercise and if that's what you enjoy about shooting then keep doing it. I would just focus on coming home from each range trip with as much analysis about yourself as a shooter as you have analysis about your groups.
Video yourself close up with an iPhone in slo-mo mode and analyze the footage... are you blinking? Anticipatory tensing/movement? Does the rifle recoil look smooth and your body look relaxed? Did the reticle end up in the same place every time? Stuff like that is why we miss targets, not ES/SD.
Been meaning to video myself to make sure I’m getting square behind the rifle. What I think I’m doing might not be. Been shooting for 50 years and have good & bad habits. Recoil management and establishing good npa are new concepts on which I’ve worked a lot. Also working on “building a bridge” to establish consistent shoulder connection. Trigger control, flinching, and follow through aren’t problems, at least I don’t think so. Feedback would be great.
So I’m not disagreeing. I’m fairly certain, though, my load will improve with knowledge gained in this thread.
Good to know, anyway. Once I get GRT trued with new components, load development won’t take long.
Think I would have found a better load months ago if I didn’t have pressure signs. Seems clear it wasn’t due to too much powder.
It just occurred to me that OP may want to run an exercise I have used with new shooters over the years - mainly pistol and shotgun, but it should certainly work with rifle.
I would explain to the shooter that I was going to be watching for a flinch. Depending on the individual, I may or or may not have explained what I was going to do. Then I would slip a dummy round somewhere in the magazine or shell pouch. The shooter wouldn't know when the dummy round was going into battery.
Yeah, when the muzzle would dip the better part of an inch or two on trigger pull with no "bang"... it told the tale. Most of the time, the shooter would be pretty shocked at how far off target the muzzle moved.
In skeet, we used to say, "There are two kinds of skeet shooters: those who flinch, and those who will." Once the fundamentals are learned, skeet is harder to master mentally than physically... for most shooters, the further one goes in a 100-target event - especially without missing - the more the adrenaline pumps and flinching gets harder to suppress.
I still notice it sometimes when I'm shooting for scope zero or load test, even with .223 or 6BR in an 18-pound rig - in rifle, I guess flinching is "throwing the shot."
Fwiw.
I would explain to the shooter that I was going to be watching for a flinch. Depending on the individual, I may or or may not have explained what I was going to do. Then I would slip a dummy round somewhere in the magazine or shell pouch. The shooter wouldn't know when the dummy round was going into battery.
Yeah, when the muzzle would dip the better part of an inch or two on trigger pull with no "bang"... it told the tale. Most of the time, the shooter would be pretty shocked at how far off target the muzzle moved.
In skeet, we used to say, "There are two kinds of skeet shooters: those who flinch, and those who will." Once the fundamentals are learned, skeet is harder to master mentally than physically... for most shooters, the further one goes in a 100-target event - especially without missing - the more the adrenaline pumps and flinching gets harder to suppress.
I still notice it sometimes when I'm shooting for scope zero or load test, even with .223 or 6BR in an 18-pound rig - in rifle, I guess flinching is "throwing the shot."
Fwiw.
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