Is it me or does my gun not like my reloads?

Don't go the bore scope route, until you know what to look for.

A good copper solvent, Wipe Out, will let you know if there is any copper fouling left in the bore.

Use a "loose" patch, soaked with Wipe Out, and run it through your bore. Leave it sit for an hour, then run a tight clean patch through the bore.

This patch will be completely "blue" in color.

Run another "loose" patch through the bore, soaked with Wipe Out, Leave it for another hour, then run a tight patch through the bore.

There should be much less color on your patches.

Repeat the above until the patches come through clean. Don't worry if you get some "grey" fouling.
 
I found that after I glass bed my rifles they become much easier to reload for. Seems like everything I try produces a good group. I can’t find any loads that my rifle “just doesn’t like”. Still see the difference with accurate components and good reloading practices.
 
redneck09 said:
I found that after I glass bed my rifles they become much easier to reload for. Seems like everything I try produces a good group. I can’t find any loads that my rifle “just doesn’t like”. Still see the difference with accurate components and good reloading practices.
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That's called "Luck of the draw." It's good advice, but most often, it's only a "good place to start."
 
Put some Varget or IMR4064 in that 308 case with those weight of bullets. Load them to the same length as your Sako rounds that shoot great, and it will get you started off on the right track.
I haven't had either of those two powders ever shoot bad groups in any 308, with any bullet from 110-180 grains.
 
Dogleg said:
Good rifles are supposed to shoot, you shouldn’t have to conduct a witch craft ceremony to get them to. A good bullet, with powders well known for excellence in that caliber, in a properly chambered quality barrel with a little meat in it, fitted tight and straight into an action with all its lugs touching, and bedded properly into a solid stock and fitted with rock solid mounts and optics damn well better shoot. If it doesn’t try a different bullet or two, and if that doesn’t work the scope and barrel should start being viewed with suspision. An argument can even be made for not using an unknown scope on an unknown rifle because at that point you don’t know if the problem is scope, rifle or loads.

Mostly that isn’t what happens, people shoot hundreds of rounds trying to make their barrel wiggle right, hoping to cure gun problems on the reloading bench😄
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This is the best advice in the thread.
 
g3arhead said:
So, I’m a newbie reloader. Currently loading up 308 win and 6.5 creedmoor. The 308 I’m shooting out of is a TikkaT3 Battue. I’m looking to develop my own hunting loads, with cup/core bullets and N140. I use CCI BR2 primers. Federal cases.

I’ve tried Speer 150 and 165gn Hot-cor, Hornady Interlock 150. Every group is 1.5ish in or greater. I’ve also shot 5 shot groups (3 times) to add more to the sample size.

The gun is capable of a .4in group with factory Sako 150gn hunting ammo.

With the 6.5 Creed I’m shooting this out of a Weatherby Vanguard. No hunting loads; Barnes Match Burner 120gn with N555, Sako cases and white river primers . Groups are sub MOA.

Question is, what am I doing wrong with the 308? Am I just #### at reloading ?

Or is this more so, my gun being picky about bullets ?
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Sometimes a rifle just doesn’t like a killer or powder. If you have some Varget or 3130, give them a try. Also, I believe the barrel is quite short on the Battue, right? Do you have unburned powder in the bore after shooting?
 
starvin said:
I always appreciate doglegs posts, but sometimes they make my brain hurt.
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I’m sorry for the headache, really I am. It’s actually simple math, and maybe if I show you how I did it the headache will go away.

When you are picking 3 shot possibilties out of a 10 shot group the first of your picks has 10 possibilities, the second pick has 9
Possibilities because there are 9 left and the 3rd has 8 possibilities because there are 8
left. No matter what you do it has to be that way, 10, 9 and 8.

10x9x8=720 Thats if you care what order they hit. I don’t, because its too big a number which makes my head hurt.

Since I want to minimize the headache I decide not care. To reduce it, I calculate that you can arrange 3 of anything 6 different ways. That is done that same way. For the first choice you have 3 choices, for the the second 2 options and since there is only one left the last one picks itself. 3x2x1= 6, thats were that number comes from.

720 divided by 6=126 possibilities which sounds better until you realize that it still doesn’t help much.

So, what does help? The best group? Sorry, but the best one has exactly zero chance of predicting the total outcome. You don’t even need math for that one; just the existence of bigger groups is total proof the best group predicts nothing.

You can try averaging the group sizes, which will give answer that is closer to right but still 100% sure to be wrong. You don’t need math for that one either, just the existence of a bigger group is proof that all of the smaller ones are wrong. The average is just the average of all the wrong answers and one that at least has a mathematical possibility of being right but probably isn’t.

At this point whats left to look at? Its hard to get excited about our worst groups but possible is better than impossible as a prediction tool. Maybe is better than no. Trouble you don’t even know its the worst one if you are looking at a few groups trying to predict something. Its really easy picking the worst one out of an already shot 10 shot group, because there are 8 3 shot groups out of the 126 possibilities that are tied for worst, which is the right answer. Course it doesn’t matter anymore because you are no longer trying to predict the result of 10 with a sample of 3. You can just measure the result and put the calculator away.😄
 
Canuck65 said:
Sometimes a rifle just doesn’t like a killer or powder. If you have some Varget or 3130, give them a try. Also, I believe the barrel is quite short on the Battue, right? Do you have unburned powder in the bore after shooting?
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Yeah, will try Varget out with the same bullets. Frankly I didn’t really want to because right now, Varget is harder to get and it’s more expensive.

Trying to use components I can readily get.
 
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Have you had your rifle apart (action out of stock) since shooting those good groups with the factory ammo?

I once damaged a tikka aluminum recoil lug putting the stock back together and thought that I was a crappy reloader.

wrong or loose action torque will do it too.
 
redneck09 said:
Have you had your rifle apart (action out of stock) since shooting those good groups with the factory ammo?

I once damaged a tikka aluminum recoil lug putting the stock back together and thought that I was a crappy reloader.

wrong or loose action torque will do it too.
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I recently took it apart, found my recoil lug dented(flipped it around so the dented side was not facing the recoil lug).

Also cleaned the barrel, including copper solvent.

Retorqued the scope bases to dovetail. 35ft/lb.

Torqued action to stock to 50ft lb, max on my torque wrench.

Shot the sako ammo at that point. I probably have 50 shots down the barrel since then.
 
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