Sierra 88 TMK Load Data

[Scooby-93]

Book max of n565 22 creed. 16".

Ha, first two shots with this rifle I haven't shot in a while didn't go good

Going to increase my neck tension and try it again. This gun keeps doing the double cluster in a single group. Measured my case mouths with a loaded round. Was at .251. lol my bushing is .250
15 shots total.

What charge of n565? I run n565 45.6gr 88eld and it shoots lights out.

Check your action/base screws and make sure your barrel isn’t touching barrel with split groups.

Please update

 

[Scooby-93]

@SloppyJ . Did you happen to measure case head expansion at .200 line after first firing on the new brass? Thinking I'm going to give the Alpha brass a try this summer

+1 @SloppyJ have you measurements before and after?

 

[TradLife406]

I can’t speak for anyone else. But on my rig, the 0.263 g7 bc has held up out to 1120yds.
View attachment 1071267
I’ve also figured out a solution for 5 round 223 aics mags that I’m happy with. But that’s for another post lol.

18” 223
23.0gr 8208xbr
2690fps
Swfa 3-9
Rokstok

What bdm are you using for aics?

Butchered a brand new rokstok standard this weekend to get the Red Snake to hopefully work. But the front oem action screw is too short now

My original plan was to convert a CTR rokstok to aics with my Atlas bdm. But apparently when UM says 120 day lead time that's give or take a month or two So to try and get my trainer in a Rokstok for S2HU next week I bought a Rok from a buddy.

Only complaint with the tikka are the mags. Had my 6 UM mag just come apart the other day randomly

 

[43.6N]

What bdm are you using for aics?

Butchered a brand new rokstok standard this weekend to get the Red Snake to hopefully work. But the front oem action screw is too short now

My original plan was to convert a CTR rokstok to aics with my Atlas bdm. But apparently when UM says 120 day lead time that's give or take a month or two So to try and get my trainer in a Rokstok for S2HU next week I bought a Rok from a buddy.

Only complaint with the tikka are the mags. Had my 6 UM mag just come apart the other day randomly

Dm sent

 

[SloppyJ]

+1 @SloppyJ have you measurements before and after?

I can measure later after our baseball game if I can remember. I doubt it was anything excessive. Why are you concerned with that measurement? I've only heard it really honed in on for PRC cases.

 

[Scooby-93]

I can measure later after our baseball game if I can remember. I doubt it was anything excessive. Why are you concerned with that measurement? I've only heard it really honed in on for PRC cases.

More out of interest really, I am shooting alpha out of my current creed barrel. No issues other than had to run a really mild load on first firing as would get case head swipe with anything more.
Fixed its self after first firing.

 

[SloppyJ]

More out of interest really, I am shooting alpha out of my current creed barrel. No issues other than had to run a really mild load on first firing as would get case head swipe with anything more.
Fixed its self after first firing.

They grew 2 thou almost exactly over 4 or 5 different pieces.

 

[Rugger7622]

I shot 88 TMKs in in my 16.5 PVA 22 Creedmoor last week and they were lights out at 100 yards. Can't take them longer distances for a while due to work.

Alpha Brass
COAL = 2.695, loaded about .015 off my lands
CC450 SRP
39 grains of H4350
2,995 fps

No indications of pressure, this is the same load I shot with 88 ELDM's

 

[Grizzle]

I shot 88 TMKs in in my 16.5 PVA 22 Creedmoor last week and they were lights out at 100 yards. Can't take them longer distances for a while due to work.

Alpha Brass
COAL = 2.695, loaded about .015 off my lands
CC450 SRP
39 grains of H4350
2,995 fps

No indications of pressure, this is the same load I shot with 88 ELDM's

That's funny I'm running 39gr h4350 as well and when I switched from 88 eldm to 88 tmk all I changed was bullet, didn't touch seating die or charge and its working fairly well. I'm sure with enough fussing I could get them shooting a little better but nice to have a usable load with no fuss.

 

[Rugger7622]

Yeah, I just seated them to the same depth as I seat 88M's and they shot even better than 88's, which have shot well....but, not great for me. Berger 85.5's shot the best, until the 88 TMK's - at least so far

 

[Grizzle]

Yeah, I just seated them to the same depth as I seat 88M's and they shot even better than 88's, which have shot well....but, not great for me. Berger 85.5's shot the best, until the 88 TMK's - at least so far

So far the eldms have been more accurate in my barrel but the tmk's are good enough and hopefully a little better terminally. Like I said though I did zero load dev so I'm sure I could narrow the gap if I tried.

 

[NWBLKTAIL]

Shot some more 88’s today in the standard 8twist tikka 223 barrel, they continue to shoot well. Same load I’ve been using with H4895.

 

[SloppyJ]

Loaded up quite a few 88tmks over the weekend and ran into a bit of an issue with my seating stem. I'm using a RCBS Matchmaster seating die with the window in it. If you haven't tried one, you should.

I noticed that the tips of the bullets were getting deformed. Not the green plastic tips but the actual bullet right under the green portion. There were dimples in the actual bullet and it appeared wavy. This was all new brass so I chamfered and deburred it really well. Same issue so I dug a little deeper.

Based on feel, it seemed that the polymer tip was bottoming out in the seating stem and likely jamming back into the tip of the bullet deforming it. I pulled the seating stem and went out to the shop. Clamped it in a vise and drilled it out deeper. That worked but now it was leaving a pretty nasty ring where it made contact with the bullet. I drilled that out just a tiny bit to let the bullet get even deeper before it made contact. I chucked an 88tmk in my drill, covered it in lapping compound and lapped the stem out. There's still a tiny imperfection where it touches but it's about 80% better than what it was before. I'll widen it out just a hair and lap it again to get it perfect. It worked perfectly on the 62eldvts I loaded after that too.

I didn't see anyone talking about that in this thread so I wanted to document it for everyone. I don't think RCBS sells a VLD stem for these but I wasn't going to order it and not get my reloading done with the extra time I had so I got to do a little redneck engineering.

 

[Nine Banger]

The Hornady custom match dies work. And the Frankford Arsenal universal seating die.

Ironically the Hornady 6 creed die will eff up some TMKs.

 

[rafiki]

It’s been mentioned a couple times in other threads but the Frankford Arsenal universal seating die works well and doesn’t deform the longer bullets. It’s been very consistent for me

 

[SloppyJ]

The Hornady custom match dies work. And the Frankford Arsenal universal seating die.

Ironically the Hornady 6 creed die will eff up some TMKs.

I'm too stubborn to buy another one when I had the one I wanted but that's good to know. Gave me something to tinker with too while it was rainy. I'm about 50/50 on whether or not that tinkering would completely destroy it or not but I got lucky this time and it worked. For a guy who enjoys to modify very precise things, I was born with the finesse of an elephant.

Had no issues with the same model die in 6 creed with the 107s. It was just something about the shape of the 88s that did it for some reason.

 

[Thegman]

Not sure if it will work in your die, (probably not?), but Hornady does make seating stems made for ELD-M, etc. That helped reduce that deformation on my 77TMKs.

Individual Dies & Accessories - Hornady Manufacturing, Inc

Individual Dies & Accessories Custom Bullet Seating Stems These seating stems are designed to fit Hornady® Custom Grade™ Dies and are machined to fit the profile of the A-T...

www.hornady.com