Garand at 300 yards

[pmclaine]

First time shooting the Garand at 300 yards.



Zeroed with some crappy Fed 150 grain American Eagle 30-06 fare. I was able to get about 50% hits on the steel torso.



Tried some home made 46.5 grn Varget with 168 Nosler CC. First target was nothing special.



Thought I had a good zero but target two showed no great promise



The load does okay at 100/200 yards. I blame the shooter.

I guess until someone creates a website called the "Mediocre Shooters Hide" Ill have to muddy up this place.

 

[Mike Radford]

Looks pretty good to me.

 

[HD-Ghost]

1. You are shooting a combat rifle, not a match bolt-gun.
2. You have to load to the gun. Loads for some guns, don't work in others. Just changing the bullet weight (not the powder), can tighten the groups.

 

[JMGlasgow]

Maybe try 47 grains of Varget. That is the Hornady M1 load.

 

[pmclaine]

1. You are shooting a combat rifle, not a match bolt-gun.
2. You have to load to the gun. Loads for some guns, don't work in others. Just changing the bullet weight (not the powder), can tighten the groups.

I've got some 155 palmas I want to try in both a .308 MWS and the Garand.

I like reloading, I absolutely hate load development.

 

[-Jake-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYonIxCj1ZQ

I use 46.5 gr of Varget and 168 gr Speer BTHP boolits. 600 yards at a 24" swinger.

 

[95LTZ]

Nice shooting. Glad you are out enjoying the Garand. I have a bunch of Greek HXP 63. If I am short on time I seat the bullet .020 farther into the case. By breaking the seal it helps a great deal. I pulled a bunch of the HXP63 & cleaned the tar type sealer off the bullets & found that the average powder charge was 56.6 grs. of whatever powder they were using. Of the 200 rds. I pulled from supposedly the same Lot # there was 7.0 grs. difference from the heaviest to the lightest. Just re-seat the bullets and in one rifle actually shoots better than the 10 or so handloads I have tried.
As a side note. I went to correct the windage on a 1903A3 by drifting the rear sight base. I was using some LC69 30-06 to just get on paper @ 100 yards. While the HXP 63 didn't seem like it had more recoil it printed about 4 inches higher @ 100 yards than the LC69 did.
Enjoy the Garand.

 

[pmclaine]

Nice shooting. Glad you are out enjoying the Garand. I have a bunch of Greek HXP 63. If I am short on time I seat the bullet .020 farther into the case. By breaking the seal it helps a great deal. I pulled a bunch of the HXP63 & cleaned the tar type sealer off the bullets & found that the average powder charge was 56.6 grs. of whatever powder they were using. Of the 200 rds. I pulled from supposedly the same Lot # there was 7.0 grs. difference from the heaviest to the lightest. Just re-seat the bullets and in one rifle actually shoots better than the 10 or so handloads I have tried.
As a side note. I went to correct the windage on a 1903A3 by drifting the rear sight base. I was using some LC69 30-06 to just get on paper @ 100 yards. While the HXP 63 didn't seem like it had more recoil it printed about 4 inches higher @ 100 yards than the LC69 did.
Enjoy the Garand.

I think HXP is fine fodder in the Garand and 03. I just picked up two spam cans from the CMP - 480 rds for +\- $300. It's been going up from the $75 per can I first bought.

I like to sit on the sealed cans opting to reload saving that brass for later down the road. Never tried the seating trick. I'll keep that in mind. I have heard of Mexican match (replacing the ball round for a more quality entity) I think you'd better be sure how much powders in the case though and as you note there is some variation in the Greek rounds depending on whether or not there was souvlaki or spanikopita in the cafe on any given day.