6.5 CM lower pressure/practice loads? Brass live?

Lead hammer said:
No, as the idea behind an OCW/OSD you are not looking for the best group per se, at least early on in testing. You look for an area that the bullets impact in the same location as their neighbors, or if you are expecting an increase in temp in the afternoon, you would be able to get away with a greater temp change. If I picked a bad OCW, that had a bad neighbor, it obviously won’t be consistent enough to shoot well.
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Here's my OCW test, with the 3 consecutive charge weights that gave the least impact variation (see below, won't let me add pics?) - stay tuned I'll edit**

Also the "Anti Node", 3 consecutive charge weights with the most impact variation

OCW test 100M

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I loaded up 30 rounds of OCW and Anti Node and fired them in 10 round strings at 200 meters, resulting in 30 round samples of each load

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I experienced basically the same result of both loads. Do nodes exist?
 
I think you need to finish the load completely before making that assumption. Get all the ducks in a row, go shoot 10 rounds of the final load, then 10 rounds of your worst combination of OCW and OSD.
 
Here was my first OCW for the 130’s. This target was not reading very good, but I did not want to go past 42.5gr and the poi from the 42.5 and 42.3 were kinda similar. I dug out my leftover 140’s to see if it was the wind and got 10 shots in probably 1/2”, and the last 7 of those rounds were nearly in the same hole. That 140 load was made in the same manner as the 130’s. My rifle is only a 1/2 moa rifle at best most times. Especially for 10 rounds. I should add I have a long ways to go with my abilities as well, but if I would have tried to determine a best and worst from this one test, it would have not been very good. My charge weight and especially seating was way off. Once you get the load close, trends are easier to see.
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Keeping the pressure down does help case life in some brass. I get 3 times as many loadings from federal 308 brass if I don't run max loads in it. The case body doesn't wear out, but the primer pocket will get loose.
 
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I'd be curious to see a bunch of 3 shot groups with 42.5grs H4350 and seating depth of 2.218 or 2.219 , to see how they vary on group size and POI shifting
 
Lead hammer said:
I think you need to finish the load completely before making that assumption. Get all the ducks in a row, go shoot 10 rounds of the final load, then 10 rounds of your worst combination of OCW and OSD.
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do you do optimal seating depth first, then follow that with optimal charge weight testing?
 
I always start with OCW, as I’m also looking for max pressure at the same time. Sometimes I use a chrono too but with this method you don’t really need one. Then OSD second but I always need to adjust both slightly at distance. I feel that if a first OCW is messy, then the OSD is likely way off, but I have not made up enough loads to verify that yet. Sometimes the rifle hates a certain bullet or powder or whatever.
This 130 load was going to be for hunting, and mid range target shooting as the 130’s used to be cheaper than 140’s. Now the are the same price, so only hunting rounds now.
 
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is testing six seating depths, varying .002" each, normally the range you'll be searching for the node in?

I think I'll start a new thread, so I don't derail Joel's thread on low PSI Creed loads
 
I usually go in 0.003” seating changes, when I shot 140 VLD’s, I would shoot until my load was not happy, ( barrel ) then I found I could simply load 0.006” longer and be back on track. I have not shot the ELDm’s for long enough to notice that, plus my Savage factory barrel is in pretty rough shape, really need a new barrel soon.
 
I’ve shot a ton of lighter loads in 6.5 creed for practice. Often in the 2600 fps range.
140 matchburners were a good shooting cheap bullet for me, with what ever cheap powder I could find, mostly Dominion powders.

I believe you would get longer brass and barrel life with lower loads, although I was always shooting old match barrels and old brass so it would be hard to know how much the lower loads would help. My 6.5 barrels would start to shoot poorly after ~4000 rounds but the first ~2500 were shot with full powder match loads. And my Alpha SPR (non OCD) brass has 15+ firings on it and Lapua brass 12+ and still going.

Shoot high quality SRP brass, with moderate loads and anneal. No reason why you can’t get 20+ reloads or way more.

I’m sure a guy could get way more than 4000 rounds out of a 6.5 barrel, but I definitely didn’t take it easy on those barrels especially when I had them on for practice
 
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