Swift
Member
Hi guys! New to the forum here. Have been reading for a couple of weeks and decided to jump on board with some questions. I load primarily for rifles at the moment. .220 Swift, .243 Winchester and 22-250. I don't shoot as much as I would like, but am trying to find more time to do it. I've been invited on a prairrie dog hunt in a couple of weeks so I'm trying to load up enough ammo for the Swift as I'm pretty sure I won't be able to find any factory ammo if I run short. I've had my pet load using CCI 200 primers, 42.5 grains of H380, and 50 grain Hornady V-Max bullets. I let my primer supply get low and bought some CCI Br 2 primers thinking that would be as close as I could get for a while. I loaded a few rounds up with the Br 2 primers backing off the H380 to 39 grains and figured I'd work up from there. The cases are new Winchesters, the same as I've been shooting. I full length resized the new brass to start with. I typically neck size only and after a few loadings I have to full length size as they get too hard to eject. The 39 grain loads ejected quite easily but the primers are pretty obviously flattened. There are no extracter marks and the brass looks perfect. My groups aren't near as good as the full loads with the 200 primers. I know I'm pushing pretty hard at 42.5 grains as I believe the chrony was at 4100fps when I first developed the load. I tried three different bullets, three different powders, and worked the loads up to max in four steps. It just so happens that the most accurate load was also the fastest. I was hoping to slow it down a little and take it a little easier on the barrel, but with consistent 1/2" groups, I'll take my chances with the barrel. I haven't got the chrony out to know how hard I'm pushing things yet, but is it possible that benchrest primers are that much softer or are they building more pressure than the 200's? Do primers make that much difference in accuracy? Are flattened primers a sure sign of high pressure even when the cases extract easily? I want to be safe but I've never seen these signs before so I'm not sure how to interperet them. Thanks.
Greg
Greg