Hornady Brass?

I have a Ruger Hawkeye stainless laminated in .308 that I have been developing loads for. I glass bedded and free floated it, and cut a few coils off the trigger spring and the trigger is now pretty reasonable.

Almost all the brass I have is Lake City. I found a load that is pretty accurate, using a 168 gr. Hornady BTHP match bullet, Remington magnum primer, and 43.8 gr. Reloader 15, seated about .020 off the lands. This load puts 4 shots touching, then one outside the group that increases the group to 1". Another load using a 165 gr. Sierra BTHP Game Kings and IMR4064 gives similar results. So I was thinking maybe I could do a little better with commercial brass.

The only commercial brass I have is Hornady, so I prepped 20 casings the same way I have the LC. Trim to length, deburr the neck, deburr the primer pocket, etc. Using the same loading data as above, the groups were horrible. Like over 6".

I also bought a box of factory Hornady "match" ammo 155 gr. A-Max, which was horrible as well.

Is Hornady brass that bad? I might have to spring for some Winchester or Lapua brass to see what this rifle can do.

MaterDei said:

You think the Hornady brass is your problem? Not likely. You need to start over and do some more loads with both types of brass.

I could be totally wrong but I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

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I don't have a problem. I can shoot LC brass all day long and never load another piece of Hornady brass again as long as I live. It seems very plain that LC brass is giving me decent accuracy and Hornady is terrible. I have never loaded Hornady brass in any other cartridge, so I was hoping to hear if others are seeing similar results or if for some reason my particular rifle is allergic to Hornady brass.

Reloadron said:

If you are really curious take a few pieces of the LC brass that shot extremely well and measure the case capacity. Now take some of the brass that shot lousy and measure the case capacity. Actually case volume. I suggest at least 5 of each and get an average. This assumes all the brass was trimmed the same and loaded identical. Next you may want to measure case neck thickness because assuming the same sizing die and loading if the case necks are not identical in thickness the neck tension will not be the same.

A Google of Measuring Rifle Case Volume will bring up a dozen how to hits including a video. I use the water method.

Ron

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The LC is between .0165" and .0170" and the Hornady varies from .0165" to .0195" depending on where I measure. I always wanted an outside neck turner.

I have reloaded for some other cartridges extensively with commercial brass. My Remington .270 gives spectacular accuracy with certain combinations of bullet/powder/primer using casings from Winchester, PMC, and Remington. I can mix and match and it doesn't really care. Most of my .22-250 brass is from Winchester, but I have some Federal, and my Savage 12FV doesn't really care. My Tikka .223 loves LC, Winchester, and Federal brass. I just have never seen a rifle that was so sensitive to brass. I have not had a single loading for this Ruger .308 that went over 2" with LC brass, and now with the exact same recipes, except substituting Hornady brass for LC, it sprays 6"+ groups. Maybe something has gone wrong with the scope or scope mount or action screws. Next time I go out I will shoot back to back groups with LC and Hornady and see if the pattern of poor accuracy with Hornady brass holds.

OK, I think I know what has happened. Last time I took this gun to the range, it fell out of the truck onto the barrel in an asphalt driveway. It left a little smudge at the outside of the end of the barrel. I am guessing that I deformed the end of the barrel slightly and that is making the shots spray all over the place. Hopefully a re-crown job will fix it.

I had someone look at it and they found that the front scope ring had become loose. When it fell out of the truck, the scope must have been knocked loose. I went and shot it again yesterday and found no real difference between LC and Hornady brass.