Nosler 129gr ABLR in a 6.5x55

rembolt

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On a recent sporting clays venture to NB I was able to stop at the Moncton cabelas .mission was to buy some Nosler 125 gr partition bullets for my T3 . no such luck non in stock . they did however have 120gr BT and the 129gr ablr . I left with 100 of each :cool: . so the 120 gr is no problem to seat 20thou off the lands and still have .264" of bullet length in the neck of the case . the 129 ablr not so much the case . in order to touch the lands the bullet is free of the case :p . I then measured .264" ahead of the boat tail this gives me an aocl of 3.030" . so any one else tried the 129 ablr 6.5x55 . the thing that kind of drew me to these . was the lower min impact velocity of 1300 fps .
 
I shoot them, they shoot great out of my HVA. I load them to OAL of 80mm, with H4831 and mag primers.



The 2 rounds touching groups are the accubonds when I was getting it zeroed. The lower right is a 140gr Speer HCSP, it shoots close enough that I'll use them interchangeably for hunting.
 
I load them to 3.100" for my Sako Bavarian Carbine, and accuracy is in the 1/2" to 5/8" range using R-22.

How much bullet ahead of the boat tail are you seating in the case . I like to maintain a length equal to the diameter of the bullet in the case excluding the boat tail . hoping to achieve a consistent neck pull .
 
How much bullet ahead of the boat tail are you seating in the case . I like to maintain a length equal to the diameter of the bullet in the case excluding the boat tail . hoping to achieve a consistent neck pull .

I am okay with around .200" of bullet shank contacting the case neck.
 
I have a tikka t3 lite , Lapua brass and I use IMR 7828ssc powder my AOL with the Ablr touching the lands is 3.253"

Here is my calculation if I want the surface bearing of the bullet to contact the neck of the case by the equivalent of the caliber diameter :

case lenght + bullet lenght - ( boat tail lenght + bullet dia.) =

so 2.160" + 1.370" - ( 0.255" + 0.264" ) = 3.011" so a jump of .242 seem a little too much to me

I tried half of the bullet dia. so an AOL of 3.143" and it doesn't seem too bad but I have been out shooting it only a few time.

I have not chrony it yet but it group well @ 500y

Seb
 
Had a chance over the holiday to test these out . Loaded IMR 4831 starting at 46 gr increased by .3gr through to 47.2 with a aocl of 3.1" . 3 of the 5 four round test groups printed sub moa .46.3 gr printed a .541" group at avg velocity of 2805fps .
 
I run mine at around 3.150-3.170"

I use reloader 17 and am around 3000 fps with sub half moa three shot groups at 100 meters out of a tikka t3
 
Hit a large buck last November in the shoulder at around 300 meters. He fell over and died. DRT. The 129 ABLR exited and did substantial damage to both shoulders. No complaints from me.
 
I use 47gr /RE#22/130gr Scirocco II or 140gr Partitions /Win brass/Fed mag primers in T3............Harold
 
I just shot a moose with a 129 ABLR using a 260 rem (borrowed my regular big bore moose gun to a young lad I am mentoring)- 1/4 angle away - at 40yds, it went thru a rib, thru lungs (talk about mush - wow!), tore aorta off heart, thru brisket, and stuck in hide - as he started to stumble, i put another round just below the ear - it too was under the hide on the far side of skull. The chest shot had a real nice mushroom, the skull shot bullet did mushroom, but as expected going thru bone, it also fragmented pretty good. IMO, good performance.
Load was 43.2 H4350, seated to 2.81"
Will be my deer load this season too.
 
Thanks for the report, I was interested in hearing about performance at close range as it is ment to be a long range bullet. Glad to here it doesn't explode at close range.
 
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