What did you do in the reloading room today?

[IDVortex]

Well, got my can today so went and sighted in my rifle and tested my load.

FED GM210M Primers
147 ELD-M
H4350 39.7grs
Starline Brass

I'm happy with it. After sighting it in and goofing around with and without the can, I did a 5 shot group, the 3rd shot I made a bad shot, but out of the 5, the 4 other shots grouped good.

 

[Hausser]

worked on 6.5 PRC shooting Berger 156’. Working on seating depth in about 2 weeks.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Cleaned stainless .25-06 Tikka take-off barrel and sorted and bagged 363 pieces of .30-06 and .25-06 brass for potential sale.

 

[Jason Snyder]

 

[wyosam]

Loaded some 132HHT for my 7-08ai, in case I decide to carry it for spring bear at all. Will likely use my primary, but doesn’t make sense to not have my backup ready to go.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[theduke11]

Loaded some 165 SST’s in a 308. It’s my favorite load for off season thermal hog hunting

 

[Blinddog]

Started a rebuild - getting rid of current Table and bench and replacing with Kitchen base cabs. and a plywood counter top. hopefull will gain me more storage and make the room more usable and look cleaner. Hopefully wont take to long to change over.

cabinets are in, just need to poly the tops and finish some trim work and them clean the mess.

 

[Unckebob]

I am a truly terrible carpenter and haven't used a router in 30 years but I gave it a shot and flushed mounted an Inline Fabrication plate on my bench. I also plugged up a couple of holes.

Hopefully, I can get the bench sanded, primed and repainted by the end of summer.

It is ugly, but it does the job.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Sanding, priming, and painting? Shoot, my bench is just raw plywood!

 

[Dos Perros]

I am a truly terrible carpenter and haven't used a router in 30 years but I gave it a shot and flushed mounted an Inline Fabrication plate on my bench. I also plugged up a couple of holes.

Hopefully, I can get the bench sanded, primed and repainted by the end of summer.

It is ugly, but it does the job.

They ought to let you borrow/rent a jig for routing that hole. I just did it free hand and it's a PITA.

 

[Dos Perros]

Looking for some advice. This is for my Tikka 308 with a 19" chopped barrel shooting the 178gr ELD-X over Varget. I'm loading to max COAL as constrained by the magazine, which leaves the jump as about 0.010" measured using the Hornady system.

This rifle shoots the factory Hornady Precision Hunter with the same bullet at 2492 fps (box says 2600 fps), so I know it's a slower barrel likely due to the chop.

Sourcing various reloading data, I expected 43ish grains to be, or near to, the max load. So I loaded up one of each of 41.0 gr through 42.5 gr, and then 10 at 43.0 gr, and got to shooting. The 10 shot group was meh, and with no pressure signs decided to go higher. The group at 43.5 grains was pretty meh as well, and again no signs. So, loaded 44.0 grains and shot. Meh group again. But I notice the ES and SD are improving as I go higher, and most recently SD = 5.4 and ES = 14.2. I think that tells me I'm producing high quality ammunition, it may just not jive with this particular rifle.

What next? Keep going higher? Seems risky.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Looking for some advice. This is for my Tikka 308 with a 19" chopped barrel shooting the 178gr ELD-X over Varget. I'm loading to max COAL as constrained by the magazine, which leaves the jump as about 0.010" measured using the Hornady system.

This rifle shoots the factory Hornady Precision Hunter with the same bullet at 2492 fps (box says 2600 fps), so I know it's a slower barrel likely due to the chop.

Sourcing various reloading data, I expected 43ish grains to be, or near to, the max load. So I loaded up one of each of 41.0 gr through 42.5 gr, and then 10 at 43.0 gr, and got to shooting. The 10 shot group was meh, and with no pressure signs decided to go higher. The group at 43.5 grains was pretty meh as well, and again no signs. So, loaded 44.0 grains and shot. Meh group again. But I notice the ES and SD are improving as I go higher, and most recently SD = 5.4 and ES = 14.2. I think that tells me I'm producing high quality ammunition, it may just not jive with this particular rifle.

What next? Keep going higher? Seems risky.

View attachment 705545

If no pressure signs yet, maybe increase by .25 grains until you get an extractor mark?

Regarding COL, if you can seat longer, but are restricted by the mag, you can swap the bolt stop ($50ish) and get an LA mag if you don't already have one from another Tikka. I did this recently for my Tikka 7-08 and it works great.

 

[Dos XX]

Can you jump the bullet any further and still have the boattail in the case neck? If so, try a seating depth test at whatever load has shot the best so far and see if the groups tighten any. If so, use the new seating depth and increase powder until you see pressure and see what happens.