Chasing Accuracy Twice - 6.5 PRC Reloading Log

[he_lives]

I started reloading back in 2012 with a Lee Challenger reloading kit, relying on what I could learn from books and whatever was posted on forums at the time. Lots of trial and error. I spent the first few years throwing powder charges with the Lee plastic powder measure, trickling powder by hand hunched over the included beam scale, and loading ammo into spent brass I had collected. It was time consuming, and didn’t yield the best ammo, but it was good enough to fill my tags and I haven’t hunted with commercial ammo since.

I started reloading when I had more time than money, originally just wanting ammo to go hunt with for cheaper than I could buy it. Now, raising a young family has shifted my focus to prioritizing time a bit more than doing things cheaply and I’ve upgraded to better equipment.

I also wanted to point out that I fully agree with the “painless load development” concept that Form has posted and see how it can quickly get a rifle shooting accurately enough for any reasonable hunting scenario. I reload as a hobby. I enjoy most aspects of it and like to tinker with new loads and rifle combinations. These days, it’s easier to carve out a couple hours of range time, versus the time it requires me travel to hunt. Developing a load is something I enjoy doing, even if it could be done quicker with the painless method. If you’re at a place in life where you can be away from home hunting, absolutely do the painless method and don’t waste that time at the range or in the reloading room

To the point of enjoying tinkering with my setups, I’m currently pulling a 300 wsm barrel off a Tikka action to try out a 6.5 PRC barrel I bought off a member here. Nothing wrong with the 300 wsm, and nothing really to be gained by switching calibers. It shoots repeatable 1.1 to 1.25-moa groups with 168-eldm and 185-juggernauts. I just feel like seeing was the rifle is like in 6.5 PRC.

Shortly after buying the Tikka 6.5 PRC barrel, an Origin carbon Proof 6.5 PRC barrel fell into my lap at a price I couldn’t say no to. I had no plans to put together two 6.5 PRC rifles, but I’m going to play around with it as well.

Since I am going to work through load development on two different rifles, I figured I would start a reloading log to show my process. It may provide a couple tips to new reloaders, and I’m sure anyone that may read this could provide some critiques to my current process.

Here are the rifles I’ll be working with:

Tikka:

• Factory 6.5 PRC 1:8 Twist Barrel, cut to 20" and threaded 1/2" with adapter to 5/8". Purchased from a member here with 50-rounds on the barrel. Unsure who did the barrel work or where the adapter was made/ purchased from.
• SWFA 3-15 scope in Sportsmatch Rings
• DDC Enticer LTi direct thread.
• Stock except for Tikka vertical grip and Limbsaver Airtech recoil pad.
• The unloaded rifle with suppressor weighs 8.4-pounds and is ~ 48-inches total length

Note: Photo is with 20" 300 wsm barrel still installed, but same final form.





Solus spare parts rifle:

I had originally planned to install the Proof barrel on a long action and run the bullets long. After measuring the COAL for several bullets at the lands, it looks like a short action is best suited to this barrel.

• 24" Proof 6.5 PRC with 1:7.5 Twist. Area 419 Hellfire Brake
• Solus Lightweight Short Action
• Trijicon Tenmile 3-18 in Seekins Precision rings
• XLR Magnesium Chassis with Magpul MOE stock and 3D printed grip, thumbrest, and bag rider.
• The unloaded rifle weights 9.2-pounds and is ~44-inches with the stock in the position that fits me.

I will update this as I work through the load development process.

 

[streamerfish]

Cool, looking forward to seeing how it goes....

I am pretty much a "painless" reloader from a efficiency of the actual reloading steps, or lack there of. But, I like to tinker with load development as well, And I will be doing similar with my 6.5 creed.

 

[he_lives]

Step 1

These two rifles are not good examples of my normal first step as the barrels were both purchased from the classifieds.

Typically, when I am trying to pick out a barrel, cartridge, and bullet combinations, I build a spreadsheet to organize the different options. Here are my steps:

• Select a bullet (or several) that I want to hunt with
• Use GRT to play with barrel length and powder combinations that meet my needs. I'm not trying to be perfect with exact measurements here, but I'm looking for bullet & powder combos that provide burnt powder ratios close to 100% and case fill somewhere in the 90% range. I also don't prefer to operate at the ragged edge of being over pressure.
• I take the GRT estimate and plug that into a ballistic calculator. I hunt deer every year at EL.1400' and most my elk hunting is between EL. 5000' and EL. 7500'. I limit my shots to 600-yards, hopefully less. I'll set conservative "minimum" expansion velocity for deer (typically 1900-fps) and a little higher "desired" velocity for elk (typically 2000-fps).
• The last two bullet points are iterative. I will go back and forth on several bullet/powder combos and vary the barrel length until I find the shortest barrel with the lowest recoil that meets my velocity goals at 600-yards.
• Once I have a few bullet/powder combinations that I think will produce the desired velocities at reasonable pressures, I will order a barrel.

Here is a simplified example of the spreadsheet I built to organize potential combinations:



As mentioned, I bought these barrels first and did the research second this time. For a better example, here's my spreadsheet playing with bullet/powder combinations in advance of ordering a 280ai barrel last fall:



The highlighted rows are combinations I think look promising.