Have a Bartlein heavy taper barrel 1/8 .236 bore at .830 at a little less than 28". Barrel is threaded to a Stiller Tac 30 with .473 boltface. Action is bedded in a Manners T4 stock with a pound of lead in the butt. Rail and scope rings are Seekins precision. Scope is an older Nightforce 5.5-22. Loads were shot off bipods over the hood of my trusty 89 Chev.
During a very long load development ordeal I came across a load that would group vertical. Load was 41.76gr VV-160 with Federal 205M and Berger 105 Hybrids. I tried tuning up and down with seating depth, tried different bushing tension, and CCI-450 primers and could not take care of it. I never shot the group further but had ES and SD under 15fps. Wanted to really make this load work as I have healthier supplies of this powder. I tried Berger 115gr VLDs to see if the would group/stabilize, same powder, at 40.5 grains and have nice round acceptable groups at 100.
I finally settled on a load of 105 Berger Hybrids, 40.5grs H4350, and 205M primer for and average of 3175fps, with ES and SD under 15 FPS. Leaned towards H4350 for slightly better temperature stability and because I was tired of trying to make a powder shoot that likely was not going to shoot given the temperature I had developed loads at.
All this load development was at around 10C so I am wondering if VV-160 would be worth revisiting as it warms? Anyone ever see a vertical group at shorter range fix itself at longer ranges? I was always of the theory if it is not good at 100 it is certainly going to get worse as distance increases. Now that I have a load to go back to I want to do some more testing of the VV-160 load at longer ranges.
600 yard pictures, too lazy to set up some flags, missed some changes.
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During a very long load development ordeal I came across a load that would group vertical. Load was 41.76gr VV-160 with Federal 205M and Berger 105 Hybrids. I tried tuning up and down with seating depth, tried different bushing tension, and CCI-450 primers and could not take care of it. I never shot the group further but had ES and SD under 15fps. Wanted to really make this load work as I have healthier supplies of this powder. I tried Berger 115gr VLDs to see if the would group/stabilize, same powder, at 40.5 grains and have nice round acceptable groups at 100.
I finally settled on a load of 105 Berger Hybrids, 40.5grs H4350, and 205M primer for and average of 3175fps, with ES and SD under 15 FPS. Leaned towards H4350 for slightly better temperature stability and because I was tired of trying to make a powder shoot that likely was not going to shoot given the temperature I had developed loads at.
All this load development was at around 10C so I am wondering if VV-160 would be worth revisiting as it warms? Anyone ever see a vertical group at shorter range fix itself at longer ranges? I was always of the theory if it is not good at 100 it is certainly going to get worse as distance increases. Now that I have a load to go back to I want to do some more testing of the VV-160 load at longer ranges.
600 yard pictures, too lazy to set up some flags, missed some changes.
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