I'm terrible at rifle reloading! planning wise

[anothernewb]

Man, I can't figure myself out. I reload pistol and Rifle - but my process between the two couldn't be more opposed.

For some reason pistol has been super simple. with my 45. I went with 200 grain leead swc. and found 2 loads I love right away. very minimal play time. 3.9 gr bullseye, and 4 grains of 231. kinda one and done. then i have some 230 hardball that I run basically a factory duplicate load with BE.

38/357. same thing. I have a 148 wadcutter load, and a 158 SWC load. Found great powders for both. be-86 231 and trail boss. and of course 110 for the hot stuff. again, components were easy, and I found a sweet load within the first ladder.

9mm was even easier. oddly enough. my first test with Hs6 and 147s was my only test. got it in one. and with 124 grainers. I use N320.

Again, these seemed so simple. one bullet profile and done. mixed brass and different primers have had virtually no ill effects. load them by the hundreds for each one, and the loads seem very consistent across all my guns.

Now rifle.... gah, what a mess. maybe I am just over thinking things or it's just that much tougher (in my head?)

308 - I've been all over the place with powder and bullets, with nothing doing much better than off the shelf federal gold medal match. Best load I've made so far - equaled it, but never surpassed. there's like a bazillion different bullet makers of the same bullet weight, and a half a bazillion more profiles - each with different load characteristics. pistol seems like a 200 swc is a 200 swc - wherever I ordered from. they all look virtually identical.

now I'm getting into 223, and Ive buried myself again. its almost comical I have probably 10 boxes of different bullets, and about as many powders and brass up to here.

I just find it ironic when I look at my pistol stuff, and the rifle stuff. One is like a box of number 2 pencils and a piece of grid paper, the other looks like one of those 128 packs of crayola crayons and a color by number book by vincent van gogh. I feel like blind person teaching myself braille by reading war and peace. Just gotta laugh at myself some days :banghead:

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I think you are over thinking things. I can understand why you feel swamped because you bought so many different bullets and powders all before you started loading that cartridge.

IMO, start with one or two bullets and the powder most recommend for that cartridge. Once you find a good load you can then try different bullets and powders to see if you can improve on the load accuracy and consistency. Trying to do it all at once will overwhelm almost anyone, especially when first loading a new cartridge.

Just quick note, when I first loaded for the 30-06 I tried a 180gr Remington bullet and 4895. That combination worked well enough and so did other bullets over time. I eventually ended up with a 165/168gr bullet and 4350 which has been my standard for many years now. It's usually a 168gr Sierra or Hornady match bullet for range work and a 165gr Sierra GK, Nosler Partition or Nosler AccuBond bullet for game. I think I might have to try tge new Hornady ELD-X bullet but not because I'm not happy with what I'm now using but because I can lol.

 

[Axis II]

cant really help you because I'm new to this but I found out right away my 223 liked hornady v max so I decided to use that bullet in my reloads. if I can hit a quarter at 100yrds with factory stuff the possibilities are better IMo with reloads because I can play around with it in charges, etc.

try some factory stuff and see like I did.

 

[taliv]

youre right. there's a huge difference and there are a lot more things you need to pay attention to loading rifle. the two cartridges you mentioned are some of the easiest to load for. get into wildcats and secant ogives and such and it gets a lot more finicky

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I've been all over the place with powder and bullets, with nothing doing much better than off the shelf federal gold medal match.

What size are your groups with the Federal gold medal match rounds?

That is a premium bullet and with today's ammunition, most people can't do much better. Now I know that some are extremely meticulous and can. That, and some rifles are just picky about what they like and once you find that special load you can do much better than factory stuff.

But I would say that over half of reloaders can't do better than factory match grade ammo, accuracy wise.

For myself, with the wife's .243 I can load substantially better shooting ammo than factory. It shoots decent enough with factory loads (1.5-2 MOA) and we could deer hunt with it and be perfectly fine. However I have tweaked the handloads and gotten pretty darn close to MOA out of it.

On the other hand, my Weatherby Vanguard .30-06 shoots close to MOA with anything I've ever fed it. If I could find a rock that is .308" I believe I could load it in a case and it would be accurate. Just a fine shooting rifle.

So it depends. All I'm trying to say is that if you measure the accuracy of your handloads by comparing it to Federal's match grade stuff, the difference you see may not be a glaring one.

 

[anothernewb]

best I can average with fed gold medal is a little over an inch at 100 yards.

 

[hdwhit]

I think ArchAngelCD gave some really good advice.

The only thing I would add regarding the .223 is that in choosing a powder, look at the published burn rates and if you're going to shoot from a 16 or 18 inch barrel, pick one of the faster burning ones that you own and if you're going to shoot from a 22 or 24 inch barrel, pick one of the slower burning ones to start and go from there.

 

[zb338]

If you equaled Federal Gold Metal Match I would say you
are doing pretty damn good. The only way you are going
to do better is start using bench rest techniques. There are
books written on that if you are interested. Your rifle would
have to be up to it as well.
Zeke