The ol Just When You Think You've Got it Figured Out: Turns Out you Don't

Salty

Salty

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
19   0   0
Location
East Fraser Valley BC
This one got me scratching my head, figured I would share it. In the past 6 months or so I bought a new Savage model 16 WW and a new Savage model 11 Lightweight Hunter both in 260. I know, that's kinda weird but I had some kind of justification at the time. lol Anyways I had had the 16 for a few months and just had time to put a load together before hunting season with 120gr ttsx. Shoots them like a house on fire... even got to take a deer with the combo. Then early in the new year I buy the little Lightweight Hunter. I get it home and zero the scope with some factory Federal Fusion stuff, it shot them quite well around MOA which as it turned out so did the model 16 previously. So kids don't try this at home... but I tried one of my ttsx handloads for the other rifle. Shooting over the chrony I find velocity in a very safe place so I fire two more. Nice! less than an inch kinda cool I thought.

So then I'm thinking two rifles same manufacturer same year of manufacture its not surprising that they'd have the same chamber specs. I decide to work on a load for both of them at the same time with Accubond long range 129gr. First I do a max OAL measurement for each rifles. I come up with a mere .002 inches between the two. OK, this is adding up. Next I take two empty cases one fired in each rifle. I slowly chamber each of them in the model 16. Takes them both just fine not much resistance brass looks great afterwards. Then I do the same in the other rifle, same deal. So now Im thinking just maybe the same accubond load will be happy in both rifles just like the same ttsx load was, only stands to reason right...

Wrong. The model 16 is spraying these things all over the place...ladder test and 3 shot same charge groups, like 3 inch groups! Ive played with OAL from 20 to 70 thou off the lands to try and find something respectable todays attempt were 5 inch groups FFS! Unreal, the little lightweight hunter is no worse than an inch and a quarter or so with one load a very respectable .75 inch. Like I say a real head scratcher everything being so close in all other measurements and tests I was sure the results here would be at least similar :confused: Thought I had everything cased and the answer before the test! Turns out, not so much. LOL
 
Is the rate of twist of the rifling the same in each rifle?
If you don't have a listing of the twist, check each rifle with a cleaning rood.
 
My family shoot Target Rifles in the same caliber. I own my own chamber reamer, so chambers are identical. I buy my barrels from a high quality custom barrel maker. Barrels come from the same batch of steel and are made consecutively.

The result? Each rifle shoots differently and has its own load preference. In 308, the identical load has a 150fps velocity difference in the fastest to slowest barrels.

Each rifle is unique. Deal with it.
 
scott585 and ganderite both hit the nail on the head

no two barrels will ever be the same, you can literally have one barrel made right after the other from the same lot, with the same tooling on the same machines and they wont shoot identical to each other, they may be close, but nothing more, so now you have 2 rilfes, 2 different models, 6 months apart... sure the chambers may be close to identical, but thats where the similarities end ..

sorry to say but youre going to have to develop a load for each one if you want them to be tack drivers
 
ultimate_monkey said:
sorry to say but youre going to have to develop a load for each one if you want them to be tack drivers
Click to expand...

Clearly. lol. I didn't think necessarily that I'd pull a rabbit out of a hat twice and match two different loads ideal for both rifles so I'm not complaining or anything. I just found it really strange that they'd be sooooo far apart. Moreover I think I'm just surprised that the 16 sprays these accubonds so bad its really impressed me till now seemed to be easy to please. I found it really interesting and a good example of how many things come to play primarily like you guys say.. harmonics. Hopefully it will redeem itself with amax' which I'll try next.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom