Hornady match ammo OAL

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tcoz

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I picked up a couple boxes of Hornady 168gr HPBT Match to shoot through my new Savage 10 FCP-SR. Since this is my first .308 bolt gun I wanted to establish some baselines before starting to handload for it using the same bullets.

All things considered I thought the results were pretty good considering who was behind the trigger (me). Going through the first box, five shot groups were an easy 1 to 1-1/4" with no flyers.

I figured I would first establish my load using the same ogive to base measurement as the commercial ammo as a starting point and after finding the load, I would then fine tune the OAL to my rifle. Using the Hornady bullet comparator, I matched my ogive to base to the same 2.170" as the Hornady and I loaded a number of test rounds at seven different charges which I'm going to shoot today.

After loading them I picked up an RCBS Precision Mic and I was really surprised to find that my rifle is 2.250" to the lands which means that the commercial match ammo has a .080" jump which I wouldn't think would be very conducive to good accuracy. I know that commercial ammo is loaded to run in any gun which includes autoloaders so the tolerances can't be tight but I'm just surprised that a bullet jump that long could produce 1 MOA accuracy.

Obviously, I went about it backwards and should have bought the gauge and checked before loading in which case I would've loaded for a .030-.040 jump but I'm thinking that maybe the Hornady HPBT Match bullet isn't all that sensitive to jump. It's a secant ogive so in theory it should be more sensitive and if so, I'm pretty stoked to see what I can do with it after playing around a bit with the seating depth.

I'm curious to hear what others who use this bullet have found.
 
Most good bullets in good commercial ammo will test under sub-MOA through 800 yards in good barrels fit right to actions in good rifles as bullet jump to rifling increases .060" or more of throat erosion. I've observed that happening over 3000 rounds of best accuracy life of a few 308 barrel chambers.

Only thing I don't like about Hornady's 308 match ammo is the case mouths are now crimped into their very good bullets. A sure cause of reduced accuracy. Federal and Black Hills doesn't crimp theirs. Hornady 308 match ammo was first made without crimped in bullets and it shot as accurate as Federal and my own hand loads. Then Hornady caved in to ignorant customer demands to crimp bullets in.
 
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Chasing the lands in factory chambers with match bullets designed to make that jump is counterproductive for the most part. Worry about other things.
 
That's pretty much what I was thinking Walkalong. I wasn't even going to worry about jump but since I picked up the Precision Mic for shoulder setback and it comes with an OAL gauge, I thought I'd try it out and see. If I'm satisfied with my OCW testing, and I think I will be, maybe I'll do as you recommend and worry about other things.................like how I'm gonna come up with the funds to buy an M1A which is on my bucket list ;)
 
You'll get best accuracy in your M1A with new cases. Two military teams tried reloading fired cases from their match winning, record setting M14NM's and personal M1A rebuilt precision semiautos that tested almost half MOA at 600 yards with new cases hand loaded or commercial 308 Win match ammo. Those reloads were hard pressed to shoot MOA at 600 yards. Replacing the Arsenal 172-gr. match bullet in M118 match ammo with a Sierra 168 or 180 HPMK bullet did as well as commercial match.

Bolt faces in those semiauto rifles were never squared up. Fired case heads were flattened out of square. Resizing them doesn't square them up. Their slamming at different places around the bolt face perimeter makes the barrel wiggle in different directions while bullets go through it. They leave in different directions. Accuracy degrades a half MOA or more. Typically in the 1 to 7 o'clock axis, 90 degrees from bolt lug axis from 4 to 10 o'clock.
 
I always knew that the M1A rifles were accurate but it's only recently that I've begun to realize just how accurate they can be. It's surprising to me for a semiauto.
 
I have the Savage Hog Hunter, Threaded Bull Barrel. I load mine 0.010 off the Lands & Grooves. Results in pretty accurate shots.
 
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