Im fairly new to reloading, a little over a year, and ive been through major phases. Ive researched and looked at so many different loads. I started out with 168gr HPBT SMK and 45.5gr of Varget powder. Which did shoot well and shot great groups. Then my local gun dealer suggested Hornady 168gr A-max and Reloader-15. So I tried this and came out with 42.5gr of RL-15 shot the best groups. I finally broke down and bought a chrony because a ballistic calculator was pointless without knowing my FPS. Turns out my 168gr A-max were only pushing around 2,570fps which i thought was low. Now I'm considering registering for a 1000yd match and I know most shooters go with 175 or 178gr bullets for this so im back to the drawing board. I guess my biggest question is what is a good FPS to get out of a 168gr and 178gr bullet. And I have both varget and RL-15 at my disposal but I dont know which to use over the other. I shoot a remington 700 sps-v with a 26" 1:12 twist. Thanx for any help i can get.
