Can anyone else not get Amax / Vmax to shoot as well as Ballistic Tips?

[tango2echo]

Yeah, but not with Lapua brass. I believe that 46.0gr load is with Winchester brass - big difference in case capacity.

Don

Don, I see very little if any difference between Winchester and Lapua brass in spite of the difference in case capacity with this load. My Lapua brass holds about 3/4 to 1 gr less of water than the Winchester cases. I have worked the loads up in the same rifle with the different brass and everything is nearly the same. In fact, velocity is within 10-20fps with the same load using the different brass.

It is a compressed load in the Lapua case where it is not in the Winchester case. I am getting 14-17 reloads out of the Lapua cases and the primer pockets are still tight and uniform. I do not think this load is anywhere near overpressure. I have worked it up in 4 different rifles with near identical results. I appreciate your caution and advise and will take it under consideration in the future.

I use the Winchester cases with the same load for hunting ammo and the Lapua cases for the super accurate bench stuff.

As always, work up slowly and carefully with any load and any change in the load.

t2e

 

[GJgo]

Well, looks like I'm about to eat my words! I've been working on loads for a Savage 308. It's been shooting 178 Amax & 200 SMKs pretty well, but I wanted to see if I could do better. (5 shot 100yd groups in the .75" range.) The Amax prints the same vertical & 2 MOA left of the SMK in this case.

I decided to try some 168 NBTs to see how they'd go. Holy crap. They print ~14 MOA left of and 5 MOA higher than the Amax @ 100! ***? ...and I say "about" because it's really more of a pattern- we're talking 3-4" groups, when I can actually find all the holes. I tried this with Varget & H4895, same. So, I guess I finally found a stick that shoots the Amax better then the Ballistic Tips. :O