Finally good results for Savage

el gordo2

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Jun 13, 2008
994
11
San Antonio, Tejas
Been burning a bunch of IMR 4895 and R15 trying to find a good shooting load with 168gr SMK and Amax's. About the best any combination would do consistantly was about an inch for 5 shots. I cut the barrel back from 26 to 20 inches, recrowned and threaded it for a Badger brake.

IMG_1470.jpg


Thursday I finally found some Varget and went to working up some loads with it. It didnt take long to find out that 45.0grs worked well with a Sierra 168. The Amax actually took 45.6gr to get the same velocity as the SMK with the bullet seated .010" off the lands and it didnt quite match the accuracy.

Here's three five shot groups fired back for comfirmation on the 45.0gr load. Averaged under 1/2 moa, velocities avg's were 2644,2644 and 2652 repectively.
100 yard groups
MeasuredSavageGroup.jpg



We had a cold front come in this morning and the temps were probably 25-30 degrees colder than it was yesterday.Went to 400 yards this evening with the same load, dialed up 8 clicks from my 100 yd zero. Should have dialed in another click for wind though.
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400 yard group
Savage400yd168grSMK450grVarget.jpg


Thinking I should go with this one.
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Re: Finally good results for Savage

Thanks, I can finally sleep now. Havent had to work at it like this before.

Here's another group I fired at 400yds today. (later lasered @ 409y) Thinking that a wisp of wind spoiled a really great group, it could'nt have been me.
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4 into 1 inch while the fifth brought it to 2.3".

Edit... after looking and comparing this group to the one yesterday,it is nearly identical in the shape and placement of shots, just the flyer is a bit wider.

400ysavage1010.jpg