Ok, so I am about to hit the range for my first real session of load development for my .223, and I have a few questions which I am hoping to have answered. Please forgive me if some of these questions are quite "noobish", but I need to know exactly what I am doing prior to heading out.
1. I am loading .224 80gr AMax over Varget ranging from the lowest charge in my manual right up to the highest, in .2gr increments. Is it safe to say that five rounds of each charge will be sufficient to obtain results worthy of relying on?
Shooting five of each won't give you final, definitive results, but it will start to tell you something worthwhile.
If a particular load has a poor group size, two reasonable explanations are:
- maybe you made a mistake with one of the shots
- maybe that load is no good.
If a particular load has a good group size, that doesn't necessarily mean that that is a good load, but you can fairly deduce that it is worth exploring that a bit more (fire another group of two using the same load).
2. I am looking to do my shooting at 300m to test my loads; should I decrease to 200m?
3. As I am shooting with a new scope mounted on my rifle (Sightron SIII 6-24x50), will I be ok sighting in with factory Winchester 45gr or 50gr ammo at 300m and then switching to my reloads to begin testing, or should I reload a bunch of "mid range" loads to use in order to sight in at 300m?
4. Any advice/hints/tips anyone care to offer to help out on this venture?
Thanks in advance for any help; I look forward to posting results and picks!
Shooting at 100 is probably just as good or perhaps an even better way to start. Whatever wind effects you have when you are doing your testing, will be *much* smaller at 100 than at 300.
Do you have experience shooting a rifle off a bench with a scope? Have you consistently or reasonably consistently been able to shoot good groups with some other scope/rifle/ammo combination? It's not terribly difficult but it is an acquired skill (especially, the ability to be able to self-assess your shooting and to be able to say fairly confidently "I shot all five shots in that group well", or "I am pretty sure I broke shot #4 poorly"). Analysing your ammunition/rifle performance will be a lot quicker if you can eliminate some variables from the equation.
80 Amax are very high performance bullets. If you are able to get these to shoot accurately and if you are able to load them up to near max levels, you will have a wonderfully capable 1000-yard rifle.
A drawback of Amaxes are that they are somewhat fussy. Have you been able to measure your chamber and determine the overall length needed in order to have the bullet just touch the lands? In addition to determining a safe charge weight, there's a good chance you'll have to play with the bullet seating depth a bit too.
Before you fire a shot it is worthwhile to boresight your new scope. A couple of methods:
- at the range, take the bolt out and set up your rifle on a rest and sandbags. Look through the bore and line it up so the bore is pointing at your target. Adust your scope knobs until the reticle is also pointing at the target
- alternately, stick an optical collimator in the muzzle. Look through the scope and turn the knobs until the reticle is pointing at the middle of the collimator's projected grid.
Boresighting will usually put your 100y point of impact within a few inches of your point of aim. Saves a lot of ammo.
Another technique that saves a lot of time and ammo and helps you work up a load quicky is to load your ammo at the range, not at home. Take a box (or more) of primed brass to the range, plus your powder measure, your press and your seating die. Fasten things to a bench (I use a C-clamp). Throw a powder charge, seat a bullet, shoot and see. If/as you need more ammo to shoot, make it; if something is promising, make more ammo; if something isn't working, try something else.
I think I know who you are BTW; are you a member at Springfield range? Contact me offline if you're interested and maybe we can meet at the range or you could drop by my place on the way to the range and we could boresight your rifle with my collimator...
