Switching between hornady HPBT and A-max

Ed82

Ed82

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I'm fairly new to reloading and I'm wondering if I can switch between the hpbt and the a-max using the same charge weight or do I need to start over again with the OCW test.
I'm loading for a sps varmint in .243 win, remington brass, federal 210 primers and IMR4831.
I found a pretty good node around 41.6 grains with no pressure signs using the hpbt and if I'm curious if I can use the same load data to get the same results with the a-max if I'm not able to get my hands on the hpbt. Any help and advice would be appreciated.
 
You would likely start by measuring the COAL to make sure the bullets are seated at the same depth, this is assuming they are the same weight and length to the Ogive.
I have found my .308 shoots pretty much the same groups with bulk hpbt's as it does with the Amax's.
 
No need to work up again for safety. You load for the bullet weight, not the maker or bullet construction. However, you may see a change in accuracy. May be better may not be.
Those 105's? Neither Hornady 105 grain bullet is a deer sized game hunting bullet. Assuming deer hunting is the plan. Same load with a 105 grain hunting bullet will do nicely. Been using Speer 105 SP's with IMR4350 for eons. They do astounding things to ground hogs.
 
Bullet construction (within the same wieght) can make a BIG difference in pressures developed!

Going from a standard cup and core bullet design, to a monolithic/single alloy bullet can produce significant pressure increases!

Any "experienced" reloader should know to caution new reloaders of this potential!

Always take the cautious route and drop a few grains of powder when trying a new bullet construction type.
 
If you are at or really close to a maximum load I'd back down a couple grains and work up from there.
If you are in the lower end or middle of the load range I'd just go ahead and swap them assuming they are the same weight.
If accuracy drops with the swap go a little in either direction. If that doesn't work you may have to start from scratch.

In my .308 I swap between 150gr FBSP, BTSP, and FMJBT all the time with the same load. Accuracy stays comparable and PoI remains pretty much the same.
I've swapped between 168gr BTHP and AMAX with no issue in the past in my .308 (Rem 700 VLS). I ended up finding a whole pile of BTHP's from the same batch # so I use those almost exclusively for now but the most accurate load for the AMAX's turned out to be the most accurate load for the BTHP's as well. I don't know if that's rare or not but the same is true of the 150gr bullets I mentioned above so maybe this rifle just isn't picky.

If you are at max pressure (are getting max published velocity for that bullet/cartridge) then you will want to back down a bit when swapping components. Most of my loads are right near the starting loads and I recently started using Winchester magnum primers instead of CCI standard primers due to availability. Swapped primers, didn't change anything else, had to tweak my loads a little to find the best accuracy and my PoI changed by about 1" but otherwise absolutely nothing adverse happened.
 
The plan for these bullets is target shooting. I have a different load for 100 gn soft points for deer. Thanks for the help guys I'll see what happens with availability but I I need to I'll drop a couple grains and come back up. Doesn't take too much work to do that just takes time. Never seems to be enough of that these days
 
Ed82 said:
The plan for these bullets is target shooting. I have a different load for 100 gn soft points for deer. Thanks for the help guys I'll see what happens with availability but I I need to I'll drop a couple grains and come back up. Doesn't take too much work to do that just takes time. Never seems to be enough of that these days
Click to expand...

When it comes to reloading always find the time to do things right, don't rush anything
and as others have stated "always restart when changing anything"
BB
 
For bullets of the same weight, just make sure the new bullets are not jammed into the land. You might find that you may have to go up or down .5 gr and play with the seating depth a bit to get the same accuracy. However as stated if you are on the higher end as far a pressure goes back off a couple gr to start.
 
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