Precision ammo for a factory rifle

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Jul 31, 2016
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So I have been reloading for a short time, and have really been falling down the rabbit hole of trying this and that and watching how it affects my groups.
My question is how much does concentricty matter if your rifle is just facatory made. Is there just certain point where my gun is going to plateau no matter how much tweaking and fiddling I do with my handloads, when a match barrel custom job is going to really start shining?
Without investing in neck turning and concentricity gauges I’m getting 1/2” moa groups out of my factory model 70. This is just a hunting rifle and I’m no long range shooter (yet) but I’m just having fun seeing what I can do.
 
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There really isn't much difference between a factory rifle and a custom in load developement IMO. If it is shooting the bullet you want to use at .5 MOA and with consistent enough velocity I'd call it good and spend time saved on further load developement getting more proficient positional shooting and nailing down your dope.

Now if only I'd take my own advice...
 

LaHunter

WKR
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It's hard to know what your factory rifle is capable of, even with further investment and precision in your reloading process.
.5 MOA is good for a factory hunting rifle. Wind gypsy gives good advise above. Spend more time, effort, and $$ practicing. .5 MOA at 100 yards is a lot different than .5 MOA at 500 yards and beyond. With most of us, the shooter is usually the limiting factor anyway, so you may not be able to shoot .25 MOA, even if your rifle/ammo are capable of it.

Good luck
 
Joined
Sep 11, 2016
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Depends on how far you plan on shooting. Consistency leads to accuracy. The more consistent your loads are with OAL, brass prep, concentricity, components an velocity the “easier” it will tell you how much better your rifle can or cant do. Shoot beyond and 100 yards and see how well you rifle groups. That will tell you alot about your shooting ability, ammo, and rifle.


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OP
skaldugwas
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Depends on how far you plan on shooting. Consistency leads to accuracy. The more consistent your loads are with OAL, brass prep, concentricity, components an velocity the “easier” it will tell you how much better your rifle can or cant do. Shoot beyond and 100 yards and see how well you rifle groups. That will tell you alot about your shooting ability, ammo, and rifle.


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Well, I took my favorite loads so far out to 200 hundred yards and was appalled. The groups opened up to about 6 -8 moa with considerable drop when they were grouping beautiful at 100.

I kept this thread in mind and wanted to know if it was my lousy shooting or my lousy reloads at play here. So I grabbed my guns favorite round (super cheap prvi pspbt’s in a 165 grains) and resighted it in for that load and started over at two hundred, then moved out to to 300.
The group on the left is three hundred the two on the right are at two hundred.
All from a $14 a box ammo. Although I always let my barrel cool down between groups, my gun likes these so much I can fire ten in a row with out much change where as after 3 shots of any other bullet I have tried it starts spitting them all over the paper.

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I just wish I could fiddle with accubonds enough to get them to shoot like this.

So knowing this cartridge is my guns favorite, where would be a good starting point to duplicate these results but with a stronger bullet that I could use on elk. Or are these good enough for big critters and I should just sell all my reloading stuff and buy a flat of prvi ppu 165 pspbt’s snd do my best to try and never think about it again?


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ckleeves

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It kinda odd for a group to open up that much at 200 vs 100.

I can’t say I have ever seen anything quite like that unless I was WAY off on twist rate for the bullet I was shooting. Even then I haven’t seen a sub-moa load at 100 go to 8” at 200.

What is your load and rifle that this is happening in?


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OP
skaldugwas
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It kinda odd for a group to open up that much at 200 vs 100.

I can’t say I have ever seen anything quite like that unless I was WAY off on twist rate for the bullet I was shooting. Even then I haven’t seen a sub-moa load at 100 go to 8” at 200.

What is your load and rifle that this is happening in?


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The gun is a win m70 ew in 30-06, 1:10 twist, 22” bbl.
The load is 55.5gn of IMR4350 with 180gn accubonds, fireformed nosler brass, federal primers.

This gun has always been extremely picky about ammo. Besides the beautifully shooting prvi’s it would shoot factory nosler 165 grain accubonds just Ok enough for hunting, every thing else I have tried shot horrible, and I tried almost a dozen different types of ammo before I tried the prvi.


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I read through you post to make sure I understand everything. Your cheap load is 165's and you trying to load 180's. First, Im assuming that youre following the step by step process of good handloading. This means case trim length the same, full length resizing, trickled or electric dispensed powder charges for accuracy and OAL all the same. The preferred method for measuring OAL is off the ogive, but you can go cartridge head to bullet tip if thats the only method you have. The twist rate will work for 180's, but you rifle may simply not like then. 165 might be the sweet spot for that rifle. I would give those a try. If your set on 180's go with a different bullet and I would also switch powders. IMR's powders are too temp sensitive in general. BUT IMR4350 is a good powder. What made you pick that charge weight? Was it dyno at 100yards?
 
OP
skaldugwas
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Washington
I read through you post to make sure I understand everything. Your cheap load is 165's and you trying to load 180's. First, Im assuming that youre following the step by step process of good handloading. This means case trim length the same, full length resizing, trickled or electric dispensed powder charges for accuracy and OAL all the same. The preferred method for measuring OAL is off the ogive, but you can go cartridge head to bullet tip if thats the only method you have. The twist rate will work for 180's, but you rifle may simply not like then. 165 might be the sweet spot for that rifle. I would give those a try. If your set on 180's go with a different bullet and I would also switch powders. IMR's powders are too temp sensitive in general. BUT IMR4350 is a good powder. What made you pick that charge weight? Was it dyno at 100yards?

I’m strictly following the manual, measuring every powder charge with a hornady digital scale that I calibrate before each reloading session and because I’m paranoid I check it against another digital scale I have before i get going. I am also measuring off the ogive with a comparator tool, taking the measurements for every bullet should I change which one I’m loading. I’m pretty sure my process is good unless I’m overlooking something along the way?

I picked that charge weight the normal way of working up a load, with .5 gn increments. 55.5gn’s shot so well at 100 yards I didn’t break it down any further and just played with seating depth after that.
Only thing I can think of is I loaded them in a pretty cool area at night and the next day it was in the low 90’s when I went shooting. I made sure to keep them out of the sun. I tried to keep my barrel cool with an air pump I rigged up and only shooting 4or5 rounds with an excruciatingly long wait for cooling between shooting groups.
Maybe the heat made everything cattywompus if you are saying IMR4350 is heat sensitive.


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Everything sounds find. Next question would be how did you determine your OAL? Manual? Or length to lands and adjusting from there? Adjusting seating depth might help your groups.

So some ideas would be:

Adjusting seating depth

Different bullet weight

Different 180 bullet

Different powder.

You already said it was finicky, so handloading may not get you want you want for that rifle.


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