Are these differences real?

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mugsie

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Last night I went down to the basement, my man cave, and began loading some .308. I was using Varget, but because of the difficulty in throwing consistant loads in my progressive, I decided to try some BLC-2 (picked up another pound of it the other day and couldn't believe the price - $30 and change at the local shop! Guess I'll be buying over the interned from now on - even with the phony hazmat fees it's cheaper). Anyway, I looked up the recipe's on the Hodgdon site for BLC-2 and 165g bullet, and they say 44 to 47.5 grains. I looked up the same info in my Speer reloading manual and it says 38 to 42 grains! Some difference. Is the speer manual that conservative? I'm using Fed 215 mag primers but for ball one should always use mag primers, so I don't see why such conservative numbers. I haven't tried these loads yet, 38 to 42, but the recoil will probably feel like a 22!
Is Speer super conservative? I'll try another 20 tonight with the higher Hodgdon recipes, 4 rounds each at 44, 45, 46, 47, 47.5 and see what happens if I find the lower charges not grouping correctly.
 
"Are these differences real?"

If you mean, did the book makers find that much difference when using different firearms, I suspect the answer is yes. Reloading isn't cooking, following loading data is not a "recipe" that insures virtually identical results.

That's why they all say to start low and only move up to (book) max IF you don't see any signs of overpressure. If you do, stop. No matter what the book says, stop right there because guns are different. They didn't have yours nor each others to test so the results are different too. It's up to you to be safe with yours.
 
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