You're looking to practice at very long range, is that to transfer over to hunting situations?
Since you sold all the equipment five years ago and you're not currently dealing with the issue you want to solve, I don't think there's anything to suggest other than get back in the game with the things that have been suggested here and report back.
However based on your past experience there still could be some things to glean from that.
Can you please share the difference in consistency you are talking about between your hand loads and factory ammo? What metric(s) is/are used for the comparison? I agree, riddled responses or differently worded responses can be difficult to read between the lines. However, we don't have information, IMO, that has been asked for that can help us help you.
For example, and maybe this will help you to help us... is the consistency model for what you want based accuracy, consistent velocity, bullet run-out, other? If it was a velocity issue, at longer range that's gonna show up as an accuracy issue. That speaks to powder choice, charge weight, possibly primer. Lots of things that could enter in that would have nothing to do with your equipment used to assemble the loads.
What are you not able to attain with your loads and what is the level of difference between that and factory ammo?
To respond to Taperpin and you (can’t figure out how to multi quote).
I should’ve been more clear in my original post.
- My 6.5 was bought after reloading stuff was sold so all it know is factory. Shoots factory precision hunter and Hornady match very well
- I loaded for a 270 and 22-250. 22-250 seemed to shoot well at 100 pretty easily. I actually didn’t continue to mess or test for consistency with the 22-250 for some dumb reason now I think about it. Haven’t shot reloads in that rifle since I shot those first first reloaded groups lol. Shoots factory ammo well as well
- The 270 fought me for a long time, many trips to the range. And when I thought I found a load that shot sub MOA at 100, when I’d go back to confirm it would usually shoot worse. Long range wasn’t good either, likely because accuracy at 100 wasn’t good. Come to find out like Form says, I was shooting too few shots when shooting for groups
- the 270 can be picky which is probably part of my issues when truly to load with it. Only shoots certain factory ammo at MOA at 100. For example it shoot the precision hunter like trap at 100 but will shoot the 130 grain whitetail around MOA
- also tried loading some light loads for a new Winchester model 70 30-06. It’s very light weight and I wanted to it not kick so much. I tried 165 nosler factory and Barnes 168 factory both of which shot poorly. I was loading the TTSX 130 and would one day shoot a .75 ish 3-5 shot group and then come back a week later and it would be 1.25-1.5”. Drove me up a wall because I thought I had it figured out. Turns out after reads Form’s info, I just wasn’t shooting enough shots in the group to see what the group has to offer
- looking back at my load data manual (one thing I didn’t sell lol) a lot of my 3-5 shot groups had an ES of 30+- fps some as good as 12 some as bad at 53 (difference loads/bullets). The factory ammo precision ammo in the 6.5 is +- 35 fps over 8 shot group.
So long story short I’m coming to realize that I caused my own frustrations with reloading. Small shot count groups, changing .2-.3 grains per group, changing seating depth etc. on top of that, other than the 22-250, I was reloading for picky guns
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