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I think you are on the wrong track here, what you prioritized is way down the list.This is hard to write... mostly because it's self-incriminating.
But I think this is the kind of info that often gets left out of these threads.
So this whole reloading world is relatively new to me, I've only worked on loads for three other rifles (all of which I own). Because I felt like I was spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, I made a call to The Professor for some objective input. I feel pretty lucky to have a guy like Carl as my reloading guru. We decided to spend some time at the range and attempt to isolate some variables to chase down my issues.
At this point in the process, I'm starting to question my own capability as a shooter, so having another shooter and another gun or two to check things was super helpful. Carl also has a 1:8 243 Tikka, which he brought, along with a box of his 109 gr ELDM handloads.
We shot my scope on his rifle, my scope on my rifle, my loads, his loads, and nearly all possible combinations.
My scope was fine enough. My shooting wasn't the issue. My rifle wasn't the issue.
Bottom line is this- I completely forgot to properly prep my brand new Starline brass. I didn't trim it to length, and I didn't chamfer it. This didn't show up too bad on the Hornady bullets, but as we looked closer on the Berger bullets, I had actually peeled copper shavings off the jackets. That ain't gonna work well down range.
Additionally, I didn't have a solid process on using the Hornady COAL gauge, so I was having trouble getting a good reading on the my COAL, and doing cartridge OAL math based on bad numbers.
It's good to know what the issue was, and it's a good reminder that we aren't all super experienced, and sometimes we just plain make mistakes. All of which is tough to tell on a forum board.
At this point, I'd pretty much run out of bullets. I didn't have any Hornady 108 or 109s left, and only a few Berger 105 and 108's. I did have enough Hornady ELDX 103's, so I worked up a load on those at 42 gr of H4350, and VIOLA! It works! I was right about 1.25" for ten shots, running right around 3000fps.
So that's what I'm going to run for hunting season.
I will likely revisit this after the season is over, but for now, it works. Cheers~
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but it wasn't written in order of priority, just in the order of the conversation.I think you are on the wrong track here, what you prioritized is way down the list.