Solve my velocity ES issue please!

[Pacific_Fork]

1-2 years old on the recent batch. So should be prior to the shortage.

 

[SDHNTR]

I like your process. The only thing I would add is that super clean brass could be screwing with your neck tension if your loads are not super fresh. Meaning, after a short time you could be getting some chemical bonding between bullet and brass. I lube my necks now with Imperial Dry Lube and I noticed all my specs got tighter. I’d try that first, then I’d try a new powder.

 

[AkMtnRunner]

Are you trimming your necks? The neck thickness could be getting out of control.

I would also second the possibility of warming up the powder in the chamber after the first round.

 

[eaglemountainman]

RL19 is notoriously temperature sensitive. I’d pick a different powder for that reason alone. After a few shots, your hot chamber could be heating up the round in the chamber enough to cause velocity increases.

final thought…how’s it shooting at your max effective distance? I’ve got a load for my 30-06 that has an ES of 50ish, 0.5 moa groups at 100 and hammers my 12 in gong at 600 yards…no reason to chase ES if the impacts are where you need them to be.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^ especially if you chamber a fresh round and let it sit there while the barrels cools a bit.

 

[Pacific_Fork]

Are you trimming your necks? The neck thickness could be getting out of control.

I would also second the possibility of warming up the powder in the chamber after the first round.

On occasion we will trim the necks, usually bump them approx 2k. If the neck is out of round then use a neck trimmer to clean up the neck/trim off uneven brass.

As far as RL19 being Temp sensitive I have heard this a lot. I never let my cartridge sit in the chamber until I am ready to fire at the range. The range day temps have been 60-90 degrees F.

 

[cmahoney]

This solved my issues

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[Vern400]

I suspect your powder / primer combination is not ideal. Pop in a magnum primer and see if your ES drops. RL19 is getting towards slow burn. AND I've had problems with temp variations with RL15. It gets mad when it's hot. When you try a new powder find out which primer gives the lowest ES. I have one or two boxes of every large rifle primer I've come across for that exact reason. I've settled on F210 and Rem 9 1/2 for most stuff but I still play around if I pick up a new powder. I go for ES and groups at 200/300 to decide what's good. I don't care at 100. It's a freakin' deer not a chipmunk. Lots of good comments. And IF you're getting poor ignition neck tension kicks you harder!

 

[CastIronSkillet]

How is factory ammo? If it's awful, maybe it's not anything to do with the reloads at all. Have you ever had a low ES load? It might be time to point at the barrel

 

[Pacific_Fork]

My proof barrel is brand new. Now have about 250 rounds through it. I can get low ES with various factory ammo. Shooting some Berger 140s semi customs with 20-30 ES with no problem hitting center 12 inch plates out to 1000.

 

[Mike D Texas]

RL19
Seems like a fast powder for the 6.5-284. What does your case fill % look like? Ideally you want between 98-102% case fill. If you have a lot of air space in the case you will typically see a big swing In ES/SD.


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[Stu]

Your precision in your reloading process is impressive. However I'm going to go against the precision route to some degree.

The following is based off the assumption that your powder measures are precise and accurate.
My experience has been that 90% of the reloading game revolves around the bullet/powder combo. Follow that with the primer you use which is significant but not nearly as important as bullet/powder.

All the other minutia like clean brass, type of brass, annealing, cleaning primer pockets, etc. being way way way down the list in importance/effect.

If I don't get good results with a particular powder/bullet combo I scrap it immediately. Only after getting good initial results with a powder/bullet combo do I worry about any of the other details. If the powder/bullet combo shows promise I'll then experiment with primers and seating depth, and even that experimentation is limited anymore. I'd be embarrassed to share how much time and money I've spent trying to tune loads that didn't show promise with the first groups fired.

Example:

Received a jug of RL16 in the mail. Had 140 ELDs, Lapua brass, and CCI 450s on hand. Loaded max charge from the Hornady manual at the Hornady specified COAL.
This brass has at least 9 firings on it, with no annealing (and yes, I have annealed plenty of brass in the past), no modification (neck turning, weight sorting, etc), and I've never cleaned the primer pockets.








530 yards













In contrast, I started looking for a new load for my 223 after I ran out of XBR 8208 to push my 77TMKs. N140 didn't show much promise at first and I tried 5 different primers, many different powder charges, and many different seating depths. Sadly, there are way more combos than what's shown below and none of them were consistent at 100 yards, on the labradar, or at distance. See below. I have many more groups other than this picture of failed attempts. Bottom left is a go-to Varget load that I knew worked and I shot it at the end of this session just to confirm that there wasn't something wrong with me or the mechanics of the gun. That 10 round group is sub-moa and confirmed that it wasn't me or the gun.
This is just one failed example of trying to fix a bad powder/bullet combo. I have many many more....




All that to say, given my current experience, I find most of the reloading variables outside of the powder/bullet combo, followed by primer selection, to have marginal effects on the overall performance. Thats not to say they can't provide incremental improvement, but the best predictor of a loads success has been the first groups on target.

 

[LRJammer]

I wet tumble my brass and haven’t found it to be an issue.

Nor I. I have some quite a few friends that pin tumble as well. Several of them consistently get an SD of less than 5.

Annealing will help consistency dramatically. Neck tension is not only more consistent, but permits very precise and consistent resizing as well, which has an impact on seating depth variations.

 

[EdP]

I see a big difference between cold bore shots and the rest of a string when the bore is clean and oiled, or unoiled following use of a foam copper remover with an antocorrosive agent. A couple of passes with an alcohol patch before heading to the range pretty much solves this.

How long do you let the barrel cool between shots? I think 3 minutes is generally considered good (I use an old egg timer), but more time may be needed shooting at higher temps like the 80s or 90s. Keep the barrel out of the sun too.

Sometimes I don't get a shot squeezed off on the first breath hold. When that happens that round has gotten warmed more than the others so it comes out to cool.

I have had the same ES issue shooting secant ogive bullets so I stay away from them. The new "long range" high BC bullets are secant ogive. I don't consider the difference in BC enough to matter at most hunting distances and I'll shoot game out to 600 yds or a little beyond in the right conditions. The long range gong bangers go out well beyond that and want the high BC, so I assume they have solved the problem, but not me.

 

[OXN939]

My proof barrel is brand new. Now have about 250 rounds through it. I can get low ES with various factory ammo. Shooting some Berger 140s semi customs with 20-30 ES with no problem hitting center 12 inch plates out to 1000.

Check out Form's load development thread. A lot of these suggestions to make fine tuned adjustments will result in fine changes. You are having a major issue, and probably need a major change. I'd try another powder.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Nor I. I have some quite a few friends that pin tumble as well. Several of them consistently get an SD of less than 5.

I didn't say it's an absolute issue, I said it can be a potential issue. I used to do it and never noticed anything myself, but I read a detailed precision load development thread by Alex Wheeler where he identified squeaky clean wet tumbled brass to be the direct culprit of wild ES from a proven powder/bullet combo. It was just a suggestion.