I've made more than a few posts on this forum about my Kimber Talkeetna .375 H&H, all the upgrades I've done and some load development using the Barnes 250gr TTSX bullet but there's more! I carried the rifle close to 35 miles in 12" to 18" snow last year hunting elk and deer behind my house but didn't get to pull the trigger. It occurred to me today that I haven't shot the rifle for close to 2 years. The rifle shoots the 250gr TTSX into 5-shot sub .75" groups with relative ease, shoots 2" groups at 400 yards, and two years ago I used that bullet/load to take a mule deer at 465 yards with two shots and two hits. My experience with the mule deer left me wanting better expansion at longer range so I spoke with the folks at Barnes and settled on the 270gr LRX which has a larger cavity in the nose and supposedly expands at 1,600 fps compared to the 250gr TTSX that doesn't expand much below 1,900 fps.
Here's the rifle and an example of the 250gr TTSX load which uses 75.1gr of VihtaVuori N540 powder and a GM215M primer.
Earlier in the year I decided to bed the recoil lug so that the barreled action would always return to the "same" point after being removed and reinstalled in the stock to prevent a wandering zero. The lug fits the stock like a glove now.
Back in May I ordered 300 of the 270gr LRX bullets and finally got around to putting some loads together last night. In my haste during my lunch break I forgot to run a dry patch through the barrel and even though it looked clean there might have been some oil in the barrel which might account for the first shot which was low. Typically I get no POI shift with this rifle from a cold/clean bore to a fouled bore when following normal cleaning procedures, which for me means running an alcohol soaked patch through the barrel after cleaning with Wipe-Out. So after a two-year hiatus and bedding the rifle earlier in the year I finally got to shoot a group this afternoon. I was hoping for 2,600 fps and something in the 1-1/2" range. Discounting the first shot this bullet/powder combination looks very promising. I'm not concerned about the zero shift since I bedded the recoil lug and will correct that in good time.
So here's the one group that I shot during lunch. You can see the first low shot to the right of the group that's shown above, the group shot back in November of 2016! I looked at Barnes' load data along with VihtaVuori and decided to try 73.0gr of N540 with GM215M primers, a COAL of 3.580" and a neck crimp. Four shots into a touch over .8" right out of the gate is a good start.
Here's the shot data as recorded by LabRadar.
#1 - 2,721 fps
#2 - 2,714 fps
#3 - 2,712 fps
#4 - 2,721 fps
#5 - 2,707 fps
AVG: 2,715 fps
ES: 15 fps
SD: 6.3 fps
Barnes shows 73.5gr of Varget and 75.5gr of Reloder 15 giving 2,715 fps and 2,725 fps respectively from a 24" barrel but I cut my barrel back to 22". VihtaVuori shows a max charge of 73.4gr of N540 at 3.583" giving 2,667 fps from a 24-1/2" barrel so I feel good about the results.
I'm going to shoot 73.0gr again tomorrow along with 72.7gr and 73.3gr on Thursday without touching (cleaning) the barrel.
Here's the rifle and an example of the 250gr TTSX load which uses 75.1gr of VihtaVuori N540 powder and a GM215M primer.
Earlier in the year I decided to bed the recoil lug so that the barreled action would always return to the "same" point after being removed and reinstalled in the stock to prevent a wandering zero. The lug fits the stock like a glove now.
Back in May I ordered 300 of the 270gr LRX bullets and finally got around to putting some loads together last night. In my haste during my lunch break I forgot to run a dry patch through the barrel and even though it looked clean there might have been some oil in the barrel which might account for the first shot which was low. Typically I get no POI shift with this rifle from a cold/clean bore to a fouled bore when following normal cleaning procedures, which for me means running an alcohol soaked patch through the barrel after cleaning with Wipe-Out. So after a two-year hiatus and bedding the rifle earlier in the year I finally got to shoot a group this afternoon. I was hoping for 2,600 fps and something in the 1-1/2" range. Discounting the first shot this bullet/powder combination looks very promising. I'm not concerned about the zero shift since I bedded the recoil lug and will correct that in good time.
So here's the one group that I shot during lunch. You can see the first low shot to the right of the group that's shown above, the group shot back in November of 2016! I looked at Barnes' load data along with VihtaVuori and decided to try 73.0gr of N540 with GM215M primers, a COAL of 3.580" and a neck crimp. Four shots into a touch over .8" right out of the gate is a good start.
Here's the shot data as recorded by LabRadar.
#1 - 2,721 fps
#2 - 2,714 fps
#3 - 2,712 fps
#4 - 2,721 fps
#5 - 2,707 fps
AVG: 2,715 fps
ES: 15 fps
SD: 6.3 fps
Barnes shows 73.5gr of Varget and 75.5gr of Reloder 15 giving 2,715 fps and 2,725 fps respectively from a 24" barrel but I cut my barrel back to 22". VihtaVuori shows a max charge of 73.4gr of N540 at 3.583" giving 2,667 fps from a 24-1/2" barrel so I feel good about the results.
I'm going to shoot 73.0gr again tomorrow along with 72.7gr and 73.3gr on Thursday without touching (cleaning) the barrel.
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