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Yesterday's Outing With My LTR

918v

Range Physic
Full Member
Minuteman
Jul 15, 2007
8,460
7,025
Miserable CA
Hello,

My .308 LTR likes FCGM 175gr alot. It avarages .6" with the stuff. But the stuff is too expensive, so I decided to try other stuff.

I got some BHA 168 and 175gr, but my LTR does not like them too much. The 168 averages 1" and the 175 averages .8". I also got some Winchester 168's and they shoot like BHA.

So I decided to tune the BHA and Winchester ammo by pulling the bullets and reducing the powder charge in the BHA 175gr and Winchester 168gr ammo. I saw no improvement in the BHA load, but the Winchester 168 tightened-up considerably to .5" when I dropped the powder charge down to 43.3 grains. (Winchester's powder charge weight varies from 43.5 to 43.8grs in this load. I reduced it down to to 43.1 grains in .2 gr increments.)

And then I tried Hornady's TAP. I have never shot the stuff, being under an impression that secant ogjive bullets did not like to jump in Remington's long throats. The 155gr stuff shot .5" and the 168gr shot...

... you won't believe this...

.2" for the first 5-shots and .3-.5" thereafter, and this is with a dirty barrel. This is the personal defense TAP, the one with the blackened nickle case. I wanna get some more, being it shoots so good, but I discovered the LE TAP is considerably cheaper. But is also has a brass case. I know that nickle cases offer twice the bullet pull as plain brass.

With the above said, is the LE TAP as accurate as the civy TAP? More? Less?

Have you guys found TAP to shoot this well in your LTR's?

(BTW, 85 degrees, little humidity, no wind, 100 yard distance from a Caldwell Fire Control benchrest)

-918v
 
Re: Yesterday's Outing With My LTR

I get almost the same results with the TAP in my SPS, I have shot both the nickle cased ones and the LE TAP, it loves them both
 
Re: Yesterday's Outing With My LTR

I havn't shoot the TAP ammo myself but the people that I have seen run it, it has always done good. I have an LTR and I found that it does shoot better when dirty I havn't clean mine in about 800 rounds and shoot a .493" 5 shot group at 300y last month at steel citys match. I also found that my LTR shot the Hornady match 168's stuff just as well as the FGGM 168 at half the price, plus the hornady brass is pretty good to boot.

My pet load after about 1000 round of the Hornady match to have some brass is:

Hornady match brass
coal 2.00
oal 2.80
44.5gr rl-15
cci br2 primers
178 amax

shoots will out to 1k havn't had the chance to try it any farther.
 
Re: Yesterday's Outing With My LTR

Because I wanted to see if the load could be improved upon. I can get the Winchester ammo for 50% of the cost of the FC. The other issue is I have been unable to get 168's to shoot as good as 175's in this rifle.