Looking for Tikka 243 8 twist pet loads

[sage1]

Remington, 1-8 twist, 39.5 H4350 , .025 off lands, starline brass, 103 Eldx, every gun is a little different

 

[ktm450]

I have had a hell of a time dialing in my 1:8 Superlite. I am committed to 103 ELD-X for a variety of reasons, but have tried most everything from 100-108. I have also tried a ton of different powders. I finally found a load that repeatedly puts 10-round groups under an inch.

44 grains H4831 (42-46 was tried)
103 ELD-X
Federal Match Primers
.7(ish)/100 yards
3000FPS average (no visible signs of pressure)

This project took a while and the gun was pretty frustrating. I was hoping to find a more available powder that would work, but most of everything just ended in garbage groups.

 

[BlackHillsShooter]

Good to hear. My 108 load is 41.5 grains of H4350. It's a one inch load and moving right along. 1:8" Tikka. Have not had luck with the 103. Will give yours a try. Thank you.


Screen name in reference to an EXC or XCW?

 

[offthebeatenpath]

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~

 

[BlackHillsShooter]

Okay, so I finalized my load work up. The girl gun is now ready to hunt. 41.5 gn H4350. Starline brass. 108 ELDM is 2.255 at ogive. Puts them at .020 off lands. Garden variety primers. The brass is brand new. Only chamfered inside the neck and loaded them.

Tikka 1:8 twist with a suppressor.

 

[Castle Rock]

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 think you are on the wrong track here, what you prioritized is way down the list.

 

[offthebeatenpath]

I think you are on the wrong track here, what you prioritized is way down the list.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but it wasn't written in order of priority, just in the order of the conversation.
I don't have the COAL numbers with me at work, otherwise I'd tell you what they were.

 

[bnsafe]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

 

[Ajsomp]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

Not going to find factory loaded 243 with heavier bullets (103-115)

 

[bnsafe]

i get that, i was reading the 95 grain tmk thread also an didnt sound great. not sure what the point is. i was buying stuff to reload 243 an gonna buy a tikka 20 inch 1 8 and load some 95 gr tmk's for it so try an get the best out of it but nobody on either thread is doing much if any better than factory. maybe some more speed but not groups. now, i may well be missing something and not trying to argue, i am just trying to understand.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

i get that, i was reading the 95 grain tmk thread also an didnt sound great. not sure what the point is. i was buying stuff to reload 243 an gonna buy a tikka 20 inch 1 8 and load some 95 gr tmk's for it so try an get the best out of it but nobody on either thread is doing much if any better than factory. maybe some more speed but not groups. now, i may well be missing something and not trying to argue, i am just trying to understand.

Not everyone is trying to shoot/load 95tmk, that alone easily answers your question without going into any other motivations.

 

[coyotekilla]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

Well... reloading isn't always about going faster than factory. Sometimes its about accuracy and repeatability. If your shooting green and yellow 100gr and the store doesn't have any of those, you might have to go to 80, ill just roll out another 50 of my handloads.
Sometimes its about making combinations that suit your particular purpose like a 160gr 6.5 grendel sub sonic.

If factory shells were consistent and available, I wouldn't reload...

 

[ddowning]

I have been down this rabbit hole. The BEST money you can spend on accuracy is a great gunsmith to fit a new barrel with a great reamer design. The next best is on the barrel blank. Those two are almost both of equal importance and together a count for nearly all of rifle accuracy. After that, buy top quality brass and bullets. You are 98% of the way there at that point. It is possible to do load development on a poor shooting gun and get a % improvement. It never really results in impressive precision and accuracy. To get impressive precision and accuracy you need everything with the 3 Bs to be top notch.

Every once in awhile you get extremely lucky and get a factory gun that will hammer because the barrel is chambered concentric to the bore and the bore is very consistent. With money invested in the 3 Bs, I almost always end up with nearly everything under 1" for 10 shots at 100 yards. It is often better than 3/4" and occasionally even better than that. With 6 Dasher and prs weight rifles it is often 3/8 to 1/2" for 20 shot groups or more. No amount of load development is going to make a bad barrel shoot like that.

 

[Castle Rock]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

If you read a bit here you will notice the 108 ELDM and about 40-41 H4350 is a popular choice.
I was regularly hitting targets at one mile with mine this weekend

 

[Fireflyfishing]

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~

Wasting money and time is a good motivator and teacher to do better. I always prep new brass one way or another when it comes out of the box/package. Even with premium bottle neck brass like Laguna, Peterson, etc., I have to neck size the brass as I find the factory stuff is too tight on neck tension. Chamfer and deburring the case mouth may also be needed. Load development for me doesn’t start until a couple firings into new brass.

If you have favored components for one of your cartridges. Stock up. There’s no excuse for being out of any components right now with the shelves being full.

 

[Fireflyfishing]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

You’re correct, you don’t know much about reloading if you believe you can achieve the same results with factory ammo in the .243 WIN.

Every rifle is different so working up loads in your own rifle is imperative for a good or great final result and pet load for YOUR rifle. Reading these types of threads certainly can get you started on which components to try out. However, the optimal recipe for your rifle needs to be discovered by you through the load development process.

 

[Matt5266]

If you read a bit here you will notice the 108 ELDM and about 40-41 H4350 is a popular choice.
I was regularly hitting targets at one mile with mine this weekend View attachment 949802View attachment 949803

You mind sharing your load specs?

 

[Castle Rock]

It’s using 40.2 with this lot of 308 brass necked down, which gives me 2930 for 25 mils at 1627m

 

[satchamo]

so i admit i dont know a thing about reloading, but sounds like there are zero pet loads for the tikka 243. seems like i can get the same thing out of factory loads from reading this thread. what am i missing

Did you read any of this thread? 39-41.5 grains of h4350 behind 108s. Running factory 243 out of a 1:8 twist is neutering it bad. You have to hand load for this rifle IMO because it can shoot lights out with the above combo.

20 shot group below - the outliers were me - this setup flat hammers.