Load Development Help

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personal_aviator

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I'm going to start reloading for the .338 Lapua. The rifle is the Savage 110BA, 26" barrel, 1 in 9 twist. I'm thinking I am going to start with some Sierra 250gr SBT or some Sierra 300gr HPBT match, haven't decided yet. Powder is going to be H1000 or US869 if I can find it, i've heard good results about the US869, I've heard Retumbo is quite dirty. Primers I am not sure what I should use yet. I plan on a 200yd zero and some practice at around 500yd. Now my Sierra book lists H1000 (I don't have the book with me now so i'm just going off memory so I dont have exact numbers) with the 250gr and 300gr starting at around 88gr and going up to around 101gr. What increments should I split the loads up into? Should I do 88, 88.5, 89.... etc, or should I do 88, 89, 90... etc or should I spread it out in 1.5gr increments. Either way I spread out the increments, once I find the best grouping I will split the increment even further to say half a grain, and then even further to .1gr after that. I only have 20 rounds of factory Hornady brass but I do plan on getting some once fired Lapua brass very soon and the loads will be all done with the Lapua brass, the Hornady factory rounds will be for the break in only.

My second question, is what range should I do the load work up at, or does range even matter? When doing a load work up, am I just looking for grouping patters at such a range that they won't all bunch up together or does the work up need to be done at a specific and constant range, since this is probably going to be a couple day event. When I zero the rifle I will zero at 200yd again after I find the optimal load. I've read up on doing the ladder test and after I find the best grouping, i'm going to do another ladder test to find the best COAL.

I'd like to get opinions on what increments I should start out at powder wise, what primer I should use, and what range I should do the testing at if a specific range even matters.

Thanks in advance
 
Hi. You ever work up loads before? If so, work up the .338 the same way you do anything else. If not, do this.
Pick your bullet and powder. (I've found that using whatever powder is given in your manual for the accuracy load works well.). Then;
Beginning with the starting load given in your manual, load 5 rounds only(A mag load if your rifle holds less than 5). Go up by half a grain of powder, loading 5(mag load) of each keeping them separate until you get to the max load in your manual.
Then go shooting. Shoot at 100 yards(less of a hike to change targets), for group only, slowly and deliberately off a solid bench.
Change targets between strings of 5(mag load) and allow time for the barrel to cool.
When you find the best group, sight in.
Once you've found the best load, you can fiddle with the OAL if you want.
 
Thanks guys, those are good reads. My concern was that from 88-100 grains, with 5 rounds per load that's 60 rounds made if I were to go .5 grains per 5 shot load. By doing 3 shots per load will make only 36 shots so that's better. Our range here is 200yd max but I can go elsewhere and shoot out further. Would 200yd be suffecient for a test with this caliber?
 
personal_aviator said:
Thanks guys, those are good reads. My concern was that from 88-100 grains, with 5 rounds per load that's 60 rounds made if I were to go .5 grains per 5 shot load. By doing 3 shots per load will make only 36 shots so that's better. Our range here is 200yd max but I can go elsewhere and shoot out further. Would 200yd be suffecient for a test with this caliber?
Click to expand...

The effect of velocity on vertical is proportional to the square of the distance. So using 200 yards would be 4 times as much as 100 yards, and 300 yards 9 times that of 100.

To cut down on the number of rounds I would go to as large as a 1% increment between loads or 0.9 grains. When you find a probable sweet spot then you can do a finer more limited range test in that area only.
 
To cut down on the number of rounds I would go to as large as a 1% increment between loads or 0.9 grains. When you find a probable sweet spot then you can do a finer more limited range test in that area only.
Click to expand...


That is what I had planed in the first place. To do 1gr increments to find a group, say I found a group at 94gr, than I would make some loads from 92-96gr in .5gr increments. Once I found that group i'd make some more at .1 or .3gr etc...
 
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