Honest results from first batches of 6.5 CM

[Bridgerland]

New to reloading.

Shooting a factory Tikka T3X in 6.5 CM. Probably 50 rounds through the barrel so far. Used an OAL to find the lands at 2.906”. All of the brass is from a factory box of eld-x. Tumbled, then trimmed all to 1.912”

Thought I’d share my group results and recipes from a range day shooting 100 yard groups.

1. 41.0 gr H4350, Hornady brass once fired, Remington large rifle primer, 143 gr ELD-X. Seated 50/1000” off the lands. Best group of the bunch:

2. Same as 1, but 80/1000” off the lands:

3. Same as 1, but 41.5 gr powder

4. Same as 2, but 41.5 gr powder


Admittedly, I’m sure there’s a fair amount of user error on these groups. For example, the 41.5 gr charges were shot immediately after the 41.0, and the barrel was hot to the touch after the 3rd shot of those groups.

Any of you use a timer between shots when grouping? Didn’t occur to me until later that a minute or two of equal time between shots could have corrected that issue.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

New to reloading.

Shooting a factory Tikka T3X in 6.5 CM. Probably 50 rounds through the barrel so far. Used an OAL to find the lands at 2.906”

Thought I’d share my group results and recipes from a range day shooting 100 yard groups.

1. 41.0 gr H4350, Hornady brass once fired, Remington large rifle primer, 143 gr ELD-X. Seated 50/1000” off the lands. Best group of the bunch, of course I’m sharing this first!
View attachment 1037593
2. Same as 1, but 80/1000” off the lands:
View attachment 1037594
3. Same as 1, but 41.5 gr powder
View attachment 1037595
4. Same as 2, but 41.5 gr powder
View attachment 1037596

Admittedly, I’m sure there’s a fair amount of user error on these groups. For example, the 41.5 gr charges were shot immediately after the 41.0, and the barrel was hot to the touch after the 3rd shot of those groups.

Any of you use a timer between shots when grouping? Didn’t occur to me until later that a minute or two of equal time between shots could have corrected that issue.

There are a lot of threads on this site you should probably read. But to summarize a couple: even a 10-round group is only about 85% accurate as a determination of how a rifle shoots. And good, modern barrels, like on a Tikka, don’t “open up” as they get warmer. A lot of the old lore about what matters in shooting is based off drawing conclusions from insufficiently large samples.