Re: Reload Svg 10FP .308 for hunting, and LR learning
I didn't have much luck with the 165's. Not to say you won't, but i didn't. I found that my rifle likes 168's and up. I've also tried the IMR4895 with luck. I'm going to try some IMR4064 to see what it will yield. It appears that it should carry alittle more MV and hopefully alittle better down range ballistics.
I use a set of Lee dies, but the neck sizer is not a bushing type. There are alot of brands for that. I use a Forester FL die to resize new/non fire formed brass. Then it is strictly a neck sizer at that point.
I've found, though I have not checked my distance to the lands, that my rifle likes about a .010" into the lands, instead of a jump to the lands. With that said, your rifle may be different in that account. There are several accurate ways to check the chamber, from having the tools and doing it through the muzzle to making a molding of your chamber. What I do is to load a longer OAL until I can see the land marks on the bullet. I then measure the marks on the bullet. Now you can only do this once per bullet or you won't be able to tell. I'm at about 2.880" when I'm approximately .010" into the lands by my measurement. My rifle seems to like that, but I also have a CDI DBM and use AI mags, so I can get away with that alittle better than the guy running a factory magwell setup. All I'm saying is simply play with the OAL of your round and see where your particular gun likes to be. I didn't start doing this until I had found an approximate load that my rifle liked.
Also if you do load into the lands, keep an eye on your brass or monitor your pressure information to make sure it's safe. I do this using a method that shows when the brass starts to "flow". By this I mean that you can see when your brass is starting to imprint, the best terminology I can think of at this time, the features of your bolt head/ejector plunger, extractor in the rim/head of the brass that you're using. I usually adjust my powder charge in .5gr increments until I find something that is close and then I'll fine tune it, but I'll start in a safe range and load up until I see the brass "flow" and then I'll back it off about .5gr and see what it looks like. At that point, I've found the maximum charge I can use with that bullet in my gun. Like I said though, if you've found a max charge and then you load into the lands, you will possibly have an unsafe pressure at that point. So I would back it up a grain or two if I decided to load into the lands and then start working the load back up until I see signs of pressure problems. Hope some of this is helping and as always, I'm not an expert so check the powder manufacturers and such to make sure you have a safe load. Attention to detail is where the fine tuned accuracy is at, along with consistency in your loads to be duplicate a successful load time after time. Take good notes along the way and you'll find something that performs within your perameters that is safe to shoot as well.
