I've been reloading quite a while, so I have some partial boxes of lots of different components.
I have a 223 varmint rifle, and the best shooting ammunition I have found is a 55 grain pointed soft point. For a while, I wasn't able to make any hand loads better than the store-bought stuff. And longer term, I wanted to use 62, 65, 69 grain range of bullets. 1/9 barrel.
Then I had a stupid idea. Why not let the RIFLE choose the bullet? I took 5 different bullets, made five cartridges each. I used primer/ powder and a midrange charge weight that is widely used successfully... One that comes up all the time in "my favorite load" discussions. And yeah, of course I did all the due diligence to make sure it wasn't near Max or something stupid.
I got groups of 1.75/1.45/1.20/0.62/0.49. I'm not going after my PhD, so I just cooked up 10 more cartridges each of the two best loads. It just so happened one was a PSPBT, and one OTM. I expected those two bullets to perform well, but not by that margin.
Then I punched two 10 shot groups with those cartridges and they were both less than 0.85 inch. And statistically a 10 shot group 1.5 times the size of a five shot group kind of makes a little sense So now I can play maybe a little with optimal charge weight and load length if I feel like it. I might be able to squeeze them down just a little bit.
I couldn't help but think how frustrating it could have been to just pick a bullet and try to make it work. I do have one or two other rifles that categorically refuse to shoot certain bullets well. I beat my head against the wall with some of them! Even bought new powder and primers! There are lots of good bullets out there now. Sometimes it pays to be at least somewhat bullet agnostic.
I ended up with a 65 grain expanding bullet at 3000 fps and a 69 grain match bullet at 2960. The trajectories basically match to 400 yards Same powder charge, same OAL, same primer same case.
Even a blind pig can occasionally find a peanut.
I have a 223 varmint rifle, and the best shooting ammunition I have found is a 55 grain pointed soft point. For a while, I wasn't able to make any hand loads better than the store-bought stuff. And longer term, I wanted to use 62, 65, 69 grain range of bullets. 1/9 barrel.
Then I had a stupid idea. Why not let the RIFLE choose the bullet? I took 5 different bullets, made five cartridges each. I used primer/ powder and a midrange charge weight that is widely used successfully... One that comes up all the time in "my favorite load" discussions. And yeah, of course I did all the due diligence to make sure it wasn't near Max or something stupid.
I got groups of 1.75/1.45/1.20/0.62/0.49. I'm not going after my PhD, so I just cooked up 10 more cartridges each of the two best loads. It just so happened one was a PSPBT, and one OTM. I expected those two bullets to perform well, but not by that margin.
Then I punched two 10 shot groups with those cartridges and they were both less than 0.85 inch. And statistically a 10 shot group 1.5 times the size of a five shot group kind of makes a little sense So now I can play maybe a little with optimal charge weight and load length if I feel like it. I might be able to squeeze them down just a little bit.
I couldn't help but think how frustrating it could have been to just pick a bullet and try to make it work. I do have one or two other rifles that categorically refuse to shoot certain bullets well. I beat my head against the wall with some of them! Even bought new powder and primers! There are lots of good bullets out there now. Sometimes it pays to be at least somewhat bullet agnostic.
I ended up with a 65 grain expanding bullet at 3000 fps and a 69 grain match bullet at 2960. The trajectories basically match to 400 yards Same powder charge, same OAL, same primer same case.
Even a blind pig can occasionally find a peanut.