Winchester STABALL and 6.5 creedmoor

[Bwhntr53]

Ok. I have collected a few powders now to start my reloading. I have the Hornady 10th Edition reloading manual. They do not have loads in the manual for this powder. I have contacted Hornady for information reloading using the Winchester StaBALL. Have any of you started loading your 6.5 creedmoor using this powder? Thank you for your replies.
Bwhntr53

 

[Bwhntr53]

So Hornady either could not or would not give me any load information for the Winchester StaBALL. They just referred me to Hodgdons website. Which I already have.

 

[wpgk58]

Go to Hodgdonreloading.com enter the bullet and caliber and you should be good to go.
I have done testing with StaBALL and had reasonably good results. You will need to start mid Hodgdon range and work up, but I was 2.5 gr over max and still very little sign of pressure. I did did find a solid load, so StaBALL is my secondary powder to H4350.

 

[918v]

Hodgdon’s data will get you to 2800+ FPS with 140 grain bullets. I ended up with about 44.6 grains under a 140 Hybrid. It’s a great powder. But going 2.5 grains over max is retarded.

 

[Moparguy69]

41 gr. and 140gr bullets are very accurate in a couple of my rifles.

 

[rockchalk06]

Thanks for starting this thread. I am going to buy an 8# jug of this and find something that works. H4350 has been a bitch it find.

 

[Bwhntr53]

Finally got time to reload using the StaBALL. Here is what I set up. Going to the range tomorrow. Only set up the one load for now to see what happens:
Savage Axis 6.5 creedmoor
StaBALL powder 43gr.
Hornady 120 gr gmx
Once fired Hornady brass
CCI 200 large rifle primers
Bullet seating depth 2.67
No chronograph yet so I will just be seeing how they group.

 

[tcamel4]

Finally got time to reload using the StaBALL. Here is what I set up. Going to the range tomorrow. Only set up the one load for now to see what happens:
Savage Axis 6.5 creedmoor
StaBALL powder 43gr.
Hornady 120 gr gmx
Once fired Hornady brass
CCI 200 large rifle primers
Bullet seating depth 2.67
No chronograph yet so I will just be seeing how they group.

results?

 

[GMZ]

https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/new-winchester-staball-6-5-ball-powder.6966803/

Tons of data in this thread

 

[White_Shark]

I’ve had great results with 43.3 grains with 147 Eld-m in my SP10 with magnum primers. 2695 FPS average with 22” barrel, about .75 moa. Still haven’t had a chance to pressure test though in our brass.

have started tinkering with 135 A-Tips and stab all with less than stellar results though, haven’t gotten below 1 moa with them in the Seekins yet, need to test them in our MRAD.

 

[Nosteponsnek]

my load is 43.9gr for both the burger 140 EH and the 144 hybrid target the 140 is at 2816fps and the 144 is at 2740. both shoot great. h-4350 would not shoot the 144's at all like 2-3" groups at 100 yds but it will shoot the 140 EH's just fine so im going to stick with the 6.5 staball

 

[rustyinbend]

On Thursday the weather improved and I was testing Staball in my Tikka T3x TAC A1 with 153.5 Berger Hybrids. The best result was at 41.0gr with a Velocity=2407, ES=6, and SD=4.4 and it got me a .35" group at 100 yards ... but that was (unfortunately) at the top end of the loads I built.

Next I'll build a ladder test in .2gr increments from 41gr to 43gr increments, and see what's up. I'll also build a range for Hornady ELDM 147's since I've got 500 of them laying around. I do love the Berger 153.5's though ... even with crappy loads and velocities all over the map, everything I fired was sub-MOA.

BTW ... testing included charge increments at .5gr for Shooters World 4350 and Accurate 4350 ... but the Staball was the only one that gave me single-digit SD's. Next closest was Accurate 4350 at 40.0gr with ES=15 and SD=10.3 and a .20" group.

The Shooters World 4350 was singularly unimpressive across the board.

NEWBIE LESSON LEARNED ... Don't waste your time building at the low end near the "Start" range. Just go straight to the "Max", back off 1 or 2gr's ... and start from there. I wasted probably 60 rounds at the low end watching the numbers improve as I got to heavier charge weights.

I LOVE my Tikka ... it's a very consistent platform for this testing. The quest for the perfect load ... continues.

 

[Mongoose67]

I just started working up a load for my Tikka 6.5 using Staball6.5 and 140 SMK. My best group was .43" with 40.5grains. I was using 0.5 grain increments so my next trip back will be to dial it in a little closer. At 40 grains I shot .54" and at 41 grains I shot .48" at 41.5 it opened up to .83". The funny thing is I also shot some 140 SMK's with 43.8 grains of Superformance. It doesn't exceed the listed max, but it blew my primers out, and the groups were 2".

 

[Zetlock]

Staball and 140gr ELDMS's seem promising so far for my 6.5 build. First day out it didn't do well with the lower powder charges but got much better for me around 43.5 and 44.0 (I was going up in increments of .5). Second time out I had my best group right at 43.8 (I was testing everything between 43.3-44.2) but then my TT Diamond crapped out on me with the delayed fire issue so my day was blown at that point. Thankfully TT has issued a recall on those triggers so I'll be sending that out tomorrow to be replaced. I'll be honest, I didn't even measure my best group yet because I was pissed about the trigger so I can't tell you exactly what it was. It was definitely under .5" and was running around 2750fps.

 

[Kyley808]

results?

 

[FuhQ]

I’ve got an 8 lb’er of StaBall 6.5, to test in my 7mm-08 and .260 Rem, but haven’t tried it yet. We’ll see if the extra velocity numbers are legit, or hype when I get around to testing it this summer during the hot months.

 

[bobb3950]

43.1 grains of StaBALL 6.5 with 147gr ELD-M and a 26" barrel gives me 2800fps and sub moa out to 1000 yds.