I shot my first handloaded rounds this morning at the gun range. These rounds are for my Savage Long Range Precision .260 rem. I have only been shooting a rifle for about 3 months so I am also learning how to shoot a rifle accurately. My first longer term goal is to qualify to shoot with the longe range group at the local gun club (field match shooting (prone/offhand), not bench-rest).
The first 20 rounds I made were 'test of concept/process' rounds. These were all Hornady A-MAX 140gr with 37.7 gr of Alliant RL-17 powder (92% of max load). At 100 yds my LRP 260 cold bore shot is always 1.25" left and 0.5" high but I forgot to rezero my scope from its last range trip so it was set to 300m range and therefore the cold bore shot (top left corner) was left 1.25" (expected) and about 2" 'high'.
My next group #1 was where I was relearning how to shoot the LRP 260 (after shooting AR, Mosin, and Marlin 336 last time at the range). Groups #2, #3 were not bad (less than 3/4") and my last group #4 was the best group I have ever shot (~ 1/3").
Next I did two powder load ladder tests at 300 meters using Hodgdon H-4350. One with the Hornady A-MAX 140 and one with the Barnes MatchBurner 140 bullets. The manufacturer spec BCs of these bullets are almost identical (0.585, 0.586) and being the same weight I used the same powder loads for both tests. I made two rounds for each load weight for each bullet type. The 7 powder loads I used were 40.5, 40.8, 41.1, 41.4, 41.7, 42.0, and 42.3. Therefore I had 2x2x7 = 28 rounds total. I also made 6 of the 40.5gr MatchBurner 140s for sighting/zeroing at 300m.
Because there were 3 other people shooting/bouncing the bench while I was trying to perform the ladder tests I knew that a couple of the shots were 'not good' and based upon the small overall group size I wasn't sure if there would be any meaningful data produced.
Last night I made two beautiful ladder test targets with black sharpies and rulers. Of course I left them at home this morning when I went to the gun range :banghead: At the range I used a ball point pen to scribble target diamonds on the back of two of my normal paper targets. Nice....
My ignorant newbie analysis of the ladder test targets is that there are no discernable 'nodes'. The only pattern that jumps out is that both of the 42.0gr loads were very consistent.
Do any of the more experienced guys here see any discernable pattern/nodes?
All in all, it was a beautiful 72 degree sunny day at the range and I got to shoot a Barrett 50BMG as a bonus. Not bad for a January 12 trip to the range.
Link to my Barrett 50BMG video (note there is _a_ bad word (not from me) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePl52db5PLo
The first 20 rounds I made were 'test of concept/process' rounds. These were all Hornady A-MAX 140gr with 37.7 gr of Alliant RL-17 powder (92% of max load). At 100 yds my LRP 260 cold bore shot is always 1.25" left and 0.5" high but I forgot to rezero my scope from its last range trip so it was set to 300m range and therefore the cold bore shot (top left corner) was left 1.25" (expected) and about 2" 'high'.
My next group #1 was where I was relearning how to shoot the LRP 260 (after shooting AR, Mosin, and Marlin 336 last time at the range). Groups #2, #3 were not bad (less than 3/4") and my last group #4 was the best group I have ever shot (~ 1/3").
Next I did two powder load ladder tests at 300 meters using Hodgdon H-4350. One with the Hornady A-MAX 140 and one with the Barnes MatchBurner 140 bullets. The manufacturer spec BCs of these bullets are almost identical (0.585, 0.586) and being the same weight I used the same powder loads for both tests. I made two rounds for each load weight for each bullet type. The 7 powder loads I used were 40.5, 40.8, 41.1, 41.4, 41.7, 42.0, and 42.3. Therefore I had 2x2x7 = 28 rounds total. I also made 6 of the 40.5gr MatchBurner 140s for sighting/zeroing at 300m.
Because there were 3 other people shooting/bouncing the bench while I was trying to perform the ladder tests I knew that a couple of the shots were 'not good' and based upon the small overall group size I wasn't sure if there would be any meaningful data produced.
Last night I made two beautiful ladder test targets with black sharpies and rulers. Of course I left them at home this morning when I went to the gun range :banghead: At the range I used a ball point pen to scribble target diamonds on the back of two of my normal paper targets. Nice....
My ignorant newbie analysis of the ladder test targets is that there are no discernable 'nodes'. The only pattern that jumps out is that both of the 42.0gr loads were very consistent.
Do any of the more experienced guys here see any discernable pattern/nodes?
All in all, it was a beautiful 72 degree sunny day at the range and I got to shoot a Barrett 50BMG as a bonus. Not bad for a January 12 trip to the range.
Link to my Barrett 50BMG video (note there is _a_ bad word (not from me) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePl52db5PLo
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