Magnum primers....results posted

785 is a ball powder, right?

If so, a magnum primer is an excellent choice for it. Probably the best choice.

785 WAS a ball powder - an excellent ball powder.

Unfortunate that Winchester quit making it about 20 years ago and I only had a few cans.

See the odd can at guns shows but not enough of it around any more to be worth buying
 

very interesting! The test results of the Remington primers were a conundrum. I use Remington primers a lot, especially for .308. They are what my local gun store stocks. But they have a poor reputation among precision shooters. Depending on how things were measured in the test, they showed the most variation - but also the best group size. ??? I have come to the conclusion that what we measure is not always what is actually most important. And tiny variations in things like primers matter very little for most shooters anyway.
 
Ok so yesterday I finally got the chance to spend the afternoon at the range.
It was a beauty of a day, cool, just about no wind. and not a lot of bugs
I was testing out a new rifle that had been broken in as per Ganderite's instructions the week before - which worked very well I must say, and yes I could see the difference in the fouling.

The load was:
Once fired Hornady Gold cross Brass that I got in a sweet deal from BlackSheepBrass
The CCI 250 magnum primers I want to use up
Hodgdon BL-C(2) powder. The Speer and Lyman books both list starting at 41 going to 45 max, however the online Hodgdon manual lists 44 as starting going to 47 max
Not sure why this is but i started at the low end and worked up from there.
I decided to go from 41 grains to 45.7 grains in groups of 3

Edit - forgot the list the bullet - Sierra Match King BTHP 168 grain

The rifle is a new Remington 700 .308 in a Magpul stock I got for Christmas from Bullseye in London
The scope is a Vortex 6-24x50 I got used on EE

e2ItfbZ.jpg


N6E1TkS.jpg


None of the groups of 3 were terrible (first group was only 1 shot at 41gr and 2 shots at 42gr to check for pressure signs then worked up very slowly in 1/3 grain more or less

HIkR0Bs.jpg


This was the best one for sure - 3 shots touching.
44.1 grains powder - so I am going to load up 10-12 of these and see how it goes and if it stays the same then I'll stick with this load

PdzwZmn.jpg


Target was at 100 m. No wind, nice cool day.

Thanks for the help guys. Appreciate it
 
Last edited:
Except for the one possible flyer, (shooter error maybe?) at 44.4gr. 44.1 to 44.4 may have impacted the same elevation. I would load up 5 each at 43.8, 44.1, 44.4. 44.7 was not the same elevation. Try them at 300. Take the time to make your targets in one row across in a straight line, makes it easier to see if you are in a node. After that you could try seating depth at 300 as well. I have not looked at that load for pressure so I can't help you with that. Just trying to read your targets.
 
Back
Top Bottom