What did you do at the range today?

[Steve300xcw]

Been working on double taps. Both with the AR and handgun. Not really something Ive ever done much of. Seeing progress though.

Actually paid attention to which mags were an issue, and was able to cull 3 of them.

XS sights on the M&P are sighted in and a big upgrade.

Also broke it

 

[UnckleBob]

I tested some loads for my Tikka 243. Dead Air Nomad 30 can.
I got off about 35 shots of various ammo. It was hot and the mirage off the can.
- Herter 100g SP - surprisingly adequate velocity and accuracy. I picked up a box on a lark.
- Federal Fusion 100g - .75" roughly equilateral triangle - I would not hesitate to use it on a hunt.
- 95g Accubond handloads - 3k fps - 1" horizontal string - will retest with cold barrel. Priority bullet in my load plan for the rifle.
- 95g Berger Handloads - 3k FPS - .9" triangle - good load to have in my pocket, but not a bullet I plan to use hunting anytime soon.

I tested some loads on my 280AI (20" barrel) -AB Raptor 8 Can. Nothing dramatic. It like 140g TTSX the best, but the 160g Partition loads showed some promise before they went to pot. It turned out the can worked loose, but I forgot my oven mitt to fix it.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Well well well ... 5 rounds tt 54 yards isn't enough to totally convince me, but... 52.5 through 55.5 grains of H4350 behind a 180 AccuBond in the new Shilen 30-06 barrel... Looks promising. The 55.5 load had a big velocity jump from the others, and was the lone flier.

Anyway, maybe I finally own a gun that doesn't hate H4350!


View attachment 1070325

And this is why sample size matters... from the 5 round pressure work-up group, you'd think that bullet, that powder, etc would shoot great, right? You'd be wrong. Sample size of 10 at the real range. Awful. SD/ES was even pretty good, but the accuracy was s**t.

The streak continues - H4350 hates me.

 

[Chris in TN]

Nothing but .22lr yesterday.

Shot the Tikka 223 at 225 and 400 just now. The more I shoot .223 at these medium distances the more I enjoy it.

 

[Kauaihunter]

Zeroing in a new scope and found a 300 Win Mag round in a box of 7mm Rem Mag. Emailed the pic to Remington with the Lot number.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Zeroing in a new scope and found a 300 Win Mag round in a box of 7mm Rem Mag. Emailed the pic to Remington with the Lot number.

Yikes!

 

[RockAndSage]

A few hundred rounds into a session with the Staccato C, and this one lit off - heard a pop and quick hiss, and had smoke coming from the chamber area. Thought it was some sort of weird hangfire at first because of the amount and duration of the smoke, but turned out it was a reversed primer.

Didn't ignite the powder, but the priming compound sent enough hot particulate into the grease to have it smoking for a few seconds. Opened it up after a minute and the lube was still plentiful and wet, but this cartridge popped out - with that reversed primer. Was concerned about fouling in the firing pin channel, but it ran another couple of hundred rounds for the remainder of the session. These were reman loads - have had a couple over the years turn up like this, but this was the first one I didn't catch in loading mags...was a bit surprised it actually ignited:

 

[Chris in TN]

Zeroing in a new scope and found a 300 Win Mag round in a box of 7mm Rem Mag. Emailed the pic to Remington with the Lot number.

"Now with more wallop in every box!"

 

[43.6N]

A few hundred rounds into a session with the Staccato C, and this one lit off - heard a pop and quick hiss, and had smoke coming from the chamber area. Thought it was some sort of weird hangfire at first because of the amount and duration of the smoke, but turned out it was a reversed primer.

Didn't ignite the powder, but the priming compound sent enough hot particulate into the grease to have it smoking for a few seconds. Opened it up after a minute and the lube was still plentiful and wet, but this cartridge popped out - with that reversed primer. Was concerned about fouling in the firing pin channel, but it ran another couple of hundred rounds for the remainder of the session. These were reman loads - have had a couple over the years turn up like this, but this was the first one I didn't catch in loading mags...was a bit surprised it actually ignited:



View attachment 1071865

Glad you and the staccato are ok

 

[43.6N]

Took the 6GT and 116 TMK out into the wind today.

Then finished with some timed pistol work.
124gr reloads are feeding beautifully at 1.140” OAL.

30 round fbi instructor course of fire: 290pts

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I drove to the farm today as the first stage of my drive to S2H. After I got there, I went for a walk around the farm. I didn’t see anything worth shooting, so I shot at steel at around 450 yards for a while. I had some success, but wasn’t perfect, at least as far as I could tell.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

3 Carl Ross drills with my 22.
Just to get some reps in.
Plan to do 3 tomorrow and 3 Sunday if the ticks don’t eat me alive.

 

[Austin Kaufman]

Did some load development the last few days with my 6.5 creed and staball 6.5. My gun liked every load I fed it. Shot a bunch of PRS practice stages as well with my 6 creed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BAKPAKR]

I test fired a new to me Shiloh Sharps 1874 in 45-70 today. The first shot, to see if the sights were even close, is on the target on the left. I then shot a three shot group on the other target. This was only at 25 yards but it is probably about as good as my bifocaled eyes can do with semi-buckhorn/blade sights.

 

[Livedog]

I test fired a new to me Shiloh Sharps 1874 in 45-70 today. The first shot, to see if the sights were even close, is on the target on the left. I then shot a three shot group on the other target. This was only at 25 yards but it is probably about as good as my bifocaled eyes can do with semi-buckhorn/blade sights.

View attachment 1073489

That’s a cool rifle. An old buddy of my dad’s from the Navy started that company. When he went to visit him way back when, he brought me this mug back. I finally broke the handle recently, but that sucker has made it thru several moves across the country!

 

[Livedog]

Nice cool day to shoot some steel today. Noticed my optic witness marks had moved. I had blue loc-tited on install, but did not degrease. They were pretty greasy. Cleaned, paint penned this time and retorqued.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

Some more Ross drills.
Man there humbling!

 

[waspocrew]

Put 70 rounds down the new Proof 223 barrel. Not bad for a windy day.

First up - 10 rounds with the 69 gr Norma (top). Middle line is two 10 rounds grounds with PSA 62 gr Sabre. Bottom line is two 10 round groups with PSA 75 gr Sabre. Finished with another 10 rounds of the 69 gr Norma. Overall, good start on the barrel.

For reference, the white squares are 1”.

 

[steelheadmike]

Being that I may be doing some warmer temperature hunts this year, I wanted to see how my current powders would deal with being hot. I didn't want to repeat what I learned the hard way with Superformance last spring (hot loads that produced very high pressures).

So, I did a basic temperature test using Staball 6.5 and N550 in my 7-08 using 150 ELD-X. The loads used were both recipes that I have well over 100 rds of each in the last few months and they generally give very similar velocity (2685-2690). Both of them are a fair bit under book max with no pressure signs at "normal" temps.

I put two rounds each in a cooler with frozen ice packs, a cooler with a nalgene of hot water, and ambient. The hot cooler was ~110°. I never measured the cold cooler so I guessed around 30 (I wasn't too worried about cold powder). Ambient temp was 55-60°.

N550 Cold (~30) = 2646, 2664 , AV = 2655
N550 Amb (~60)= 2669, 2695 , AV = 2682
N550 Hot (~110)= 2742, 2712 , AV = 2727

SB65 Cold (~30) = 2641, 2699* , AV = 2641
SB65 Amb (~60)= 2681, 2693 , AV = 2687
SB65 Hot (~110)= 2726, 2709 , AV = 2717

*I threw this one out because it was definitely an outlier as it was faster than the ambient. More evidence of the "glitchiness" of Staball 6.5 that I have repeatedly observed.

Both resulted in very roughly 0.9-ish FPS/Degree (without exactly knowing the "Cold" temp, this really a estimate)

Both did pretty well at the higher temps. The hot N550 rounds had just the slightest ejector mark and no noticeable bolt lift. The hot SB6.5 had a little more ejector mark and a noticeably heavy bolt lift. Primers on both looked fine.

I was satisfied with my experiment and will continue to lean on N550 as my main powder now that I'm more confident in warmer temps. Staball works fine for the most part, but over and over I have seen it do weird stuff as well as pressure out really fast.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Being that I may be doing some warmer temperature hunts this year, I wanted to see how my current powders would deal with being hot. I didn't want to repeat what I learned the hard way with Superformance last spring (hot loads that produced very high pressures).

So, I did a basic temperature test using Staball 6.5 and N550 in my 7-08 using 150 ELD-X. The loads used were both recipes that I have well over 100 rds of each in the last few months and they generally give very similar velocity (2685-2690). Both of them are a fair bit under book max with no pressure signs at "normal" temps.

I put two rounds each in a cooler with frozen ice packs, a cooler with a nalgene of hot water, and ambient. The hot cooler was ~110°. I never measured the cold cooler so I guessed around 30 (I wasn't too worried about cold powder). Ambient temp was 55-60°.

N550 Cold (~30) = 2646, 2664 , AV = 2655
N550 Amb (~60)= 2669, 2695 , AV = 2682
N550 Hot (~110)= 2742, 2712 , AV = 2727

SB65 Cold (~30) = 2641, 2699* , AV = 2641
SB65 Amb (~60)= 2681, 2693 , AV = 2687
SB65 Hot (~110)= 2726, 2709 , AV = 2717

*I threw this one out because it was definitely an outlier as it was faster than the ambient. More evidence of the "glitchiness" of Staball 6.5 that I have repeatedly observed.

Both resulted in very roughly 0.9-ish FPS/Degree (without exactly knowing the "Cold" temp, this really a estimate)

Both did pretty well at the higher temps. The hot N550 rounds had just the slightest ejector mark and no noticeable bolt lift. The hot SB6.5 had a little more ejector mark and a noticeably heavy bolt lift. Primers on both looked fine.

I was satisfied with my experiment and will continue to lean on N550 as my main powder now that I'm more confident in warmer temps. Staball works fine for the most part, but over and over I have seen it do weird stuff as well as pressure out really fast.

I tried SB6.5 briefly in my 7x57 a while back (just a hair more powder capacity as a 7mm-08 Ackley), and it was definitely VERY "glitchy". I got nowhere near the listed Hodgdon max loads or velocity before I was getting obvious pressure signs; case head swipe, sticky bolt lift. ES/SD were horrific as well (over 100 FPS spread), and I was using WLR Mag primers, so I don't think I was under-powered primer-wise, LOL. Maybe it works better in a Creedmoor or a 30-06, but I kind of gave up on it at that point and haven't messed with it since.

If you have't tried it already, you might try some Varget in your 7mm-08. I was pushing 140's around 2850 FPS at a grain under Hodgdon's listed max in my 22.4 inch Tikka, and it was the most accurate load I found for it back when I had that gun. I'd bet you could comfortably get a 150 up into the 2680 to 2700 range (Hodgdon and QuickLoad both agree), and would have quite a bit less temp sensitivity than you got there.