BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Says you. My take is that almost that needs to be done with a rifle can be done with 2 MOA accuracy. Striving for anything better is just self-gratification.
6.5x55mm, sacrificing 150-200fps for significant group savings?
- Thread starter Fox
- Start date
Says you. My take is that almost that needs to be done with a rifle can be done with 2 MOA accuracy. Striving for anything better is just self-gratification.
Almost nothing that needs to be done with rifle can be done with a 2 MOA rifle.
Fox, please remember that IMR4831 is one of the most temp sensitive powders. In the winter your speed will drop and with that your POI will probably change too.
If you are shooting from a tree stand at 50 yards, this will not make any difference. I would not bother developing loads if I aim for a mv of 2450 as all factory loads for 140 grains surpass this speed. I would not shoot a 140 bullet going at a mv of 2450 beyond 200 yards. My Tikka gives me 2800 fps with NP 140 and NABLR for a mpbr of around 290-295, and still carries tremendous energy at that distance.
2450fps? Damn...how did the old 30-30 kill stuff at 2000fps?
Cup n core bullets perform better slower, bullets give better penetration, better consistent expansion, don't separate, and do the job. Nothing wrong going fast, but use better bullets, bonded/partitions/copper solids.
Cup n core bullets perform better slower, bullets give better penetration, better consistent expansion, don't separate, and do the job. Nothing wrong going fast, but use better bullets, bonded/partitions/copper solids.
- Location
- Port Edward BC
And a most interesting and fun one it is.
143gr ELD-X, PPU Brass
4320 is not listed for the 6.5x55mm, I go by the book. I am shooting 143gr bullets, the reloading manuals start velocity in my particular rifle is completely wrong, at least to the Chronograph that I am using, which when tested against a pellet gun and 22LR get me right around the proper data. The problem with most 6.5x55mm data is that it is based on a 96 Mauser with a 29in barrel, some use shorter but a lot the full length. The PPU brass is also think, I can get higher velocities without getting pressure signs using remington brass but the groups are not there.
The 96 Mauser was designed for the RN bullet, the 38 Mauser has a shorter throat, mine will not chamber RN military ammo, it has a short throat by comparison. I load out to the max of the magazine.
Yes and no, all powders are temp sensitive. I shot this load at 34C and 15C and the groups were both very tight and the point of impact was not that much different. IMR 4831 is more stable than most ball powders and more stable than most Reloader powders. IMR 4831 on the charts shows about 1.10 fps/ deg F, which when you look at a maximum temp of 35C and a min temp of -20C you have a variation of 99deg F, which is about 110fps total variation. I will be sighting it in now, which is about half way between the two. Therefore my variation in temp to the hottest and coldest is about 55fps, my load has a spread of 58fps, so this variation is taken into account with the load. I agree that there is going to be some change but IMR 4895 is rated as the same for temp sensitivity as IMR 4831 and it is used all over the place. No, it is not H4831SC but it shoots great in this rifle so I am going to stick with it.
I just pulled up my chronograph data, this load was slightly faster in august and actually seemed to be about the same as that August load in January, so the variation of the Chronograph seems to have some impact.
Have you shot factory ammo over the chronograph? My rifle does not shoot factory ammo nearly as fast over my chronograph as what they claim, and 2800fps out of a 38 Mauser.
Are yours 96/38s? Mine is a Husqvarna, I have read in a few places that they had short throats that would not chamber the old ammo, this rifle was made in the 40s. I have not taken the scope mount off of the receiver to get the actual date though. It still sports a stepped barrel, I have it in the full military stock, but the barrel was cut down to 22in and a target crown put on it.
That's great. I do not use a 38. My rifle is a modern Tikka T3x. I developed all my loads as I was not happy with factory loads with the exception of S&B which shot sub moa in my rifle and gave around 2600 fps. You can easily have similar velocities as the one you described, using factory loads. The beauty of the Swede in a modern rifle though is that you can, with handloads, get much higher speeds than with factory loads.
From Steves Pages: 125gr to 130gr bullets, IMR-4320 From 36.0 grains to 44.0 grains. RL-15 From 32.4 grains to 41.0 grains
http://stevespages.com/264_9_125.html
IMR 4320 is a great powder, basically my favorite along with RL19. Stevespages.com lists IMR4320 loads for the 6.5 Swede projectiles ranging from 85gr up to 160gr. I am currently loading 90gr TNT's and 139gr SPBT bullets both with IMR4320, IMR7828 and RL19 with great results.
Select your caliber from Steve's caliber page: http://stevespages.com/page8a.htm and you will find many different loads for many projectile weights using many different powders, it's a great resource.
Ya, modern guns with this cartridge are something else. I thought it was going to be able to drive this bullet faster but IMR4831 is one of the lowest pressure powders, due to the long burn rate, and it is pretty obvious with extractor marks, brass swipes, flat primers and a stiff bolt lift (on a #### on close as well) that the limit that Hodgdon has for it is not the same as what the actual gun can safely do.
The crazy part is how little velocity it sheds, the ELD-X will open up down to 1600fps, which gets me past 500 yards and there is right around 1000ft lbs of energy out to 400 yards, which is amazing for such a slow muzzle velocity. I may play later but powder is almost impossible to get and even harder to get at a reasonable price right now, so my 3lbs of IMR4831 is going to keep me shooting for a while and maybe I can take a long range deer some day with it.
The factory PPU loads here are only 50fps over what this load runs for me, it seems like the barrel setup loves this spot, I know there is another node up at 43gr, I shot a bit at that level but one warm day I stuck the bolt and said that there was no way I was going to blow up this beautiful rifle for a couple 250fps.
I am pretty sure it was taken off the market, no wonder I could not find it.
I don't know what to tell you, ha ha, I have some military staked 156gr RN loads and they do not chamber, but I do not think there is any possibility of it being a replacement barrel.
I have to figure out a decent picture, maybe once the sun comes up tomorrow I can get some good light and take a pic of the rifle on the back deck.
I went back and looked at the 3 other times I shot that load, I have the chronograph close but maybe too close? The velocities before are about 100fps faster than what I recorded the other day, but the accuracy is the same.
Maybe it has something to do with how close the chronograph is set or it needs to be cleaned up.
I am new to the chrony
That's the beauty of long/heavy for diameter bullets.
Good for you on not pushing that M38. They're very strong but I've had one of mine blow off the receiver ring and seen a few others with similar failures.
My fault, with my rifle and the other rifles failed for similar reasons. The extra hundred fps isn't worth it.
I will admit, the rifle was pushed to the kaboom point, mostly as an experiment. It was from a batch of rifles that first came into Canada back in the late seventies. I bought them 50 at a time.
The Swedes sold of their best rifles first and followed with the mismatched pieces several years later.
The rifle I kaboomed, was in excellent condition, likely refurbed and put into long term storage immediately after.
The hotter I loaded it, the better it shot. I kept increasing the load with two different bullets, 160 grain, round nose, flat base and 140 grain flat base, spire point.
There was also another issue, at the time proper cases were next to impossible to get, unless you could find some old Dominion loaded commercial stuff sitting on dusty shelves. I fireformed IVI 7.62x51 brass, after sizing down the necks. This resulted in a cartridge with a neck about half as long as it was designed for.
Whether this had anything to do with the kaboom, I don't know. The South African Boers had a similar issue with some of their ammunition that had been remanufactured from a shorter cartridge case, with resulted in shorter necks.
My magic kaboom load was 55 grains of #44 powder (3031) over CCI 200 primers, under the 160 grain bullets.
The rifle was tied to an 18 inch tire when it failed. I was curious, the rifle was cheap, even for those days. 50 at a time cost $17 each, delivered. I was actually comparing it to a Type 38 Japanese carbine that had seen better days, with a ground off mum and lots of rust, with a poor bore.
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Thanks, I do love this rifle and do not plan on blowing it up.
I do think that the Chronograph has to be off though, I did shoot this load faster on 2 other occasions, I will check this again and make sure the windows are clean and the bullet goes through level.
Here is a photo, there is a short wood swivel stud in the stock for the bipod. The gun was drilled for mounts and the barrel cut before I got it, so this was an opening for my version of the swedish M38 sniper.
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