Judge my load development? Which load was best? 308

[mydogsmonkey]

So I went to load develop yesterday. My load is 168gr Hornady BTHP with IMR 4064 powder in a Remington case. This is for 308 Win. I got about 4 good loads that got good groups. I'm trying to decide which is best. I started at 39.8 and went up to the Hornady manual max of 41.6gr. I know this is low for some people and was wondering if I should continue going? I got good groupings for 39.8 and 41.6gr but I saw the least amount of vertical dispersion in my 40.7gr. A lot of this could be just my shooting and its quite possible all of the loads I made are equally accurate as its only my second time seriously shooting.

Do you guys have any suggestions as to which to go to? I know the starting load is about 36gr in the manual but I'd be getting about 2100 fps. I'm thinking I should be at something at least 2400 or so for longer distances. I've heard that horizontal dispersion shouldn't be really looked at. Once I become a better shooter, I'm expecting to get around 0.5 MOA easily from the gun. I'm not sure if I've done it this time as I dont know if I'm supposed to measure the bullet diameter while measuring groups.

My set up is an AI AE MKIII in 308, 20" barrel
All the groups shot at 100 yards

Thanks in advance!

Most of these are 4-5 round groups, I think some of the brass wasn't sized right so some wouldn't chamber.

39.8gr

41.6

40.7

 

[the once-ler]

what is the twist rate of your barrel?

 

[mydogsmonkey]

i believe 1-12"
I'm not sure but its a sstandard AI barrel

 

[918v]

Have you looked into the OCW load development method?

 

[Brasscow]

Can you shoot any further than 100yds? Pretty sure a known go-to load is 41.5 of 4064 behind a 168.

 

[mydogsmonkey]

I have not looked into the OCW method, and yes I can shoot at paper out to 200 yards some days.

 

[918v]

You should look into the OCW method. It will help you identify the best group. You might be surprised.

OCW Overview - Dan Newberry's OCW Load Development System

 

[M40_A1]

Showoff! O.K. I'll bite. They all look GREAT!

FYI, you should measure center to center. Your eye will naturally find center of the holes much more precisely than the edges which are always tattered. These guys "calculating" their center-to-center by measuring outside "edge" to outside "edge" with calipers and subtracting one bullet diameter are only kidding themselves, IMO.