Is it worth chasing the lands with hornady 140?

[YotaEer]

my current load for my tikka PVA light Palma 6.5 CM is 41.5 gr of H4350, WLR, hornady or S&B brass, 140 ELD or 140 bthp at 2.81 COAL. This nets me 2710 FPS, single digit SD, and sub half moa.

Is it worth messing with a good thing to “chase the lands” or should I stick with this known commodity?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

Depends on what your intentions are.

PRS? Leave it.
Bench rest? Tinker away

 

[YotaEer]

Depends on what your intentions are.

PRS? Leave it.
Bench rest? Tinker away

the guns main use is varmint/deer hunting as well as steel banging out to 700 yards.

I of course bench shoot with it out to 200 as well but it’s certainly not a bench rest gun

 

[archangel485]

Isn't chasing the lands when you have a good load but your groups start to open up after losing some of your rifling due to use and you have to move your bullet out to get back to the same jump you had? If you're still sub half MOA, I don't see any reason to mess with your jump. I recently had a rifle that went from shooting one hole groups to shooting 1-1.5" groups, I re-measured CBTO with the bullet at the lands and found it had moved forward a few thousandths, so I moved the bullets forward the same amount and am back to one hole groups.

 

[YotaEer]

Isn't chasing the lands when you have a good load but your groups start to open up after losing some of your rifling due to use and you have to move your bullet out to get back to the same jump you had? If you're still sub half MOA, I don't see any reason to mess with your jump. I recently had a rifle that went from shooting one hole groups to shooting 1-1.5" groups, I re-measured CBTO with the bullet at the lands and found it had moved forward a few thousandths, so I moved the bullets forward the same amount and am back to one hole groups.

ive got about 1000 rounds down the tube so far so I’m sure there’s been some erosion. What you mentioned is exactly what I’m starting to consider.

I finally ordered the hornady OAL gauge and modified case to get an actual measurement

 

[SonoranPrecision]

I’d recommend looking up Eric Cortina, and his video on “chasing the lands”. Basically the goal is less about staying a certain distance from the lands, and more about staying in a seating depth node. The two do not always correlate.

Scott Satterlee also has some interesting information on seating depth. I believe he also found that there are seating depth nodes, but that the nodes get significantly more forgiving the further you are from the lands. So his stuff would be good to read as well.

I know some people might say you don’t need a one hole gun for hunting. Personally, I want rifleto be shooting as well as possible so I can put that bullet exactly where I want.

 

[Skg_Mre_Lght]

Your rifle is at sub-half MOA, single digit SD, etc., and you want to cause more throat erosion by tinkering with seating depth? I guess, it's your rifle and money, not to mention a pain to replace your components right now.

It's a coyote gun, not a benchrest rifle.

 

[YotaEer]

Your rifle is at sub-half MOA, single digit SD, etc., and you want to cause more throat erosion by tinkering with seating depth? I guess, it's your rifle and money, not to mention a pain to replace your components right now.

It's a coyote gun, not a benchrest rifle.

You're not wrong. Just always looking to tinker but don’t want to guild the lily so to speak

 

[spife7980]

You're not wrong. Just always looking to tinker but don’t want to guild the lily so to speak

Tinker by testing, not following some arbitrary doctrine.

I use the wheeler to find and verify my distance from the lands (because how can knowing details be bad?) but I do let my testing dictate how I load, dont just go blinly chasing. When I have a few hundred pieces of brass I do a quick little powder check up and down a tenth or two and then I do a depth test up and down a few hundreths either way just to verify that what Im loading is going to be its happiest for the next few hundred trigger pulls instead of a surprise turd in your sandwich.

I find that generally stuff doesnt change nearly as much as the internet makes it out to if you have chosen good, reputable components.

 

[flyright]

I've seen deeper seating depths improve groups even after 600 or so rounds down a 6.5 barrel. Experimenting with seating depth has shown me appreciable differences in accuracy with even well worn barrels. I'm a firm believer that chasing the distance to lands will (sometimes, but) not always improve accuracy. A bullet that once loved .010 jump might now love .025 jump. I've seen too many barrels that got more accurate as the throat eroded and, thus, jump increased. I then wondered if I should have started with a much longer jump. I now test with ridiculously long jump and work out from there with new barrels. The results have been very educational and very handy when feeding from OAL limited mags. Just my .03...

 

[acudaowner]

well with 5900 rounds down his 6.5 barrel shooting 90% factory ammo and 10% hand loaded while the hand loaded did give me far nicer sd numbers the group have been about the same from 100 -1k with the cheap hornady factory 140gr am gunner ammo or the hand loaded bergers 140 or the heavier 142 smk and even when I shot it at 1k it still shot just as nice as the few hand loads I had left . now reloading my own I choose to keep using an almost factory load length and its mostly been fun i wish I had started 20 years ago . Try small batches of loads try them at different lengths maybe your gun will like them maybe not . But if you only do small batches Its not a loss but a learning experience , good luck and have fun ..