Finally bit the bullet

[Lawnboi]

Great choices on equipment! Just keep tinkering, I like to load 10rds per load and move in .5gr increment. Don’t worry about velocity so much but find a low ES/SD.

Don't be afraid to also test seating increments from .01 -.1 off.

I think next go round I’ll start .010 off the lands. Worried about going any closer without completely restarting development. I burned a lot of powder getting to where I am now with the 223 going in .2 grain increments.

I got some single digit SDs but they were at 2620fps, a little lower than I’m willing to accept for this 223. Anything over 2800 gave me really high SD, and some pretty high ES. FWIW this is a 22.5” 8 twist tikka. My go to factory load has been 73eldms going 2820, but those also had some very high Es/SD numbers.

Having good equipment, and seeing consistent results on the calipers definitely makes me more comfortable.

 

[tdhanses]

I think next go round I’ll start .010 off the lands. Worried about going any closer without completely restarting development. I burned a lot of powder getting to where I am now with the 223 going in .2 grain increments.

I got some single digit SDs but they were at 2620fps, a little lower than I’m willing to accept for this 223. Anything over 2800 gave me really high SD, and some pretty high ES. FWIW this is a 22.5” 8 twist tikka. My go to factory load has been 73eldms going 2820, but those also had some very high Es/SD numbers.

Having good equipment, and seeing consistent results on the calipers definitely makes me more comfortable.

Welcome to the sickness of reloading, you are well on your way and start buying powder in 8lb jugs, you’ll burn through it

 

[Lawnboi]

Doing some seating depth testing. Got 10 to shoot tomorrow .030 off the lands. Super easy with the Wilson micrometer. No guessing lt and right back to .02 off the lands like it never moved.

Also have 250 75 eldm enroute. I’m thinking I’m going to burn up these 600 pieces of hornady I have first before I even mess with the Lapua. Coyote hunting in the snow is probably going to mean a lot of missing brass.

Picked up some some Berger factory 140 hybrid creedmoor ammo for the brass. First group went .6” for 5 shots. I think I’m just going to copy this round instead of playing with anything.

 

[Lawnboi]

Time for some mass production at .020 off the lands.

Cant ask for much more considering my reticle covers the whole 3/4” square
This Rifle is awesome. Havnt touched zero since I put on the scope last fall. Now I just need to get my higher power guns to do the same.

Oh yea 500 rounds now with not a patch down the barrel!

 

[Lawnboi]

More new stuff. Sold the giraud tri way, as my drill chuck is slightly bent, so it was not giving me a consistent trim/chamfer/debur. You could see the case where half was trimmed more, and half less. Thinking this may have accounted for some of the horizontal stringing I was seeing? Who knows.

Anyways I needed to trim 6.5 creed as well, and can’t swing the big daddy giraud right now. So I grabbed this Wilson micrometer trimmer on sale off midway for 135$.
Much more consistent now. Taking longer, but every piece of brass is balls on to the thousandth.

LE Wilson makes some good stuff. Everything I got now from them screams quality.

 

[Lawnboi]

All the bthp are loaded. Ready to move on to 75 eldm. Quite a bit sleeker

 

[Lawnboi]

Scored more bang buttons today. Small rifle primers are getting impossible to find around here. CCI 450s are nowhere to be found.

This should keep me running through the winter. I promise to never be caught with my pants down again if the primer and powder gods are listening.

In about to do some load development with the 75 eldm. Going to run the Lapua brass. No reason not to.

Waiting to close on a house till I grab 100 124g hammer hunters to try in the creedmoor.

 

[Lawnboi]

Scratching my head on this one. So Iv got a Wilson micrometer seater and arbor press. The die in question is a 223 rem die. Iv loaded hundreds of rounds on it.... with hornady brass.

Today I went to load some with Lapua brass. Brand new Lapua brass. Neck expanded with Sinclair expander, imperial neck lube used and left in the case. Vld chamfer and debur. The bullets are taking way too much force to seat, leaving rings on the bullets. Enough pressure that it’s almost too much for an arbor press.
I can’t figure out where it’s going wrong. The die is building pressure in it as well, after seating it is suctioned together after forcefully seating a bullet.
I have....
-Measured against hornady brass, headspace is within a thou.
-Length is within spec, little longer than my hornady trim length
-Lapua brass fits in chamber gauge that came with the die, and shows as satisfactory in the go/no go cuts
-NOT a neck tension issue. Measure loaded and unloaded my neck tension is .0015.
-Thought it may be body diameter, ran it through my full length sizer, didn’t do anything
-No oil in die die. Cleaned the die. Tried some lube in the die. Cleaned the die again. Nothing
-Lubed the bullet, still nothing.
-Contacted LE Wilson, their answer was to send it in, which I don’t want to do because I’m still loading hornady brass on it on a regular basis
-Tried vld seating stem and regular seating stem, nothing different.

All said and done it took so much force to seat that not only did it dent the bullets, but CBTO was all over the place.

So I stopped. Decided to try the hornady brass with the same bullets. Proceeded to load up a powder charge test, which went as normal. CBTO all within a thou, seating force was light as to be expected with .002 neck tension. Everything went smooth.

I’m at a loss here. I’m considering grabbing a normal press mounted seater and seeing what the heck is going on. Or buying a Wilson die blank and sending them a piece of Lapua brass

Anyways Iv got a powder charge test made up with hornady brass, that went along without a hitch. .010 off the lands. I thought tikkas had long throats, this one does not appear to be terribly long. Even with the 75s .010 off the lands I’m looking at 2.4 coal. Still too long for a stock tikka mag but perfect in the Mountain tactical

 

[tdhanses]

Check your neck thickness, may need to size them less, I’ve had similar issues with new brass, once it’s fired and I size the necks I’ve had less issues. I also keep a few different neck bushings in stock just for this.

 

[Lawnboi]

Check your neck thickness, may need to size them less, I’ve had similar issues with new brass, once it’s fired and I size the necks I’ve had less issues. I also keep a few different neck bushings in stock just for this.

I didn’t even size them. Just ran an expander mandrel through them. Checking neck tension off loaded rounds I’m at .0015. Off inside of the case I’m getting same numbers.

I also posted this on a few other shooting forums and was recommended and read a few older threads, to give a lee collet neck sizer a try, and for 20 bucks I’ll give it a go. I feel like I’ve tried about everything I can with the equipment Iv got.

The Lapua necks are definitely thicker than the hornady I’m currently running. Strange that I go from one set of brass to another, with same dimensions or darn near and have this much difference in seating force.

There goes my idea of fire forming and developing a load at the same time. I think I’ll load up some cheap bullets and generic charges of Varget and blast away.

I just don’t want to wreck anymore brass.

The good news is almost 400 rounds in and I still have once fired factory hornady to size and shoot. Dont know how long the hornady brass will last but if it gives me another firing I’ll be happy.

 

[tdhanses]

I’ve had this happen with ADG, Bertram, Lapua and Norma brass, cheap stuff never seems to do it. not sure why but it‘s always when it’s new. Bertram was the worst I’ve had with this when new, similar to what your experiencing.

 

[Lawnboi]

I’ve had this happen with ADG, Bertram, Lapua and Norma brass, cheap stuff never seems to do it. not sure why but it‘s always when it’s new. Bertram was the worst I’ve had with this when new, similar to what your experiencing.

Pretty much what Iv been terrain researching this a bit. Do you use your first firing as a sacrificial fire forming load then go from there?

And while I got you here, are you using the Wilson seater for 6.5 cm? Vld stem or no? With the 223 it hasn’t reallu mattered yet, even on the long 75 eldm.

 

[wind gypsy]

Very odd, I'm stumped. My only thought was excessive neck tension but if expanded with the same mandrel as hornady brass that cant be it..

 

[tdhanses]

I have had to sacrifice some good bullets on the the first loading, I still believe some brass just comes tight from the factory, I usually load 50rds and then keep reloading them till the brass is done vs trying to load up every piece of new brass.

I went to the Wilson Full length seating dies for everything after I got my MEC, that thing just produces very consistent accurate load after load, I’ve been very impressed with it, just using the stem that came with it for 6.5cm and 300wsm.

For my 270wsm I did always use the vld stem, I ordered it when I picked up the die.

 

[tdhanses]

Very odd, I'm stumped. My only thought was excessive neck tension but if expanded with the same mandrel as hornady brass that cant be it..

My thinking is it’s springing back being virgin brass.

 

[wind gypsy]

My thinking is it’s springing back being virgin brass.

It’s factory annealed, I wouldn’t think spring back would be significant.

 

[Lawnboi]

I don’t think it’s a spring back issue as the brass inside the neck measures .225-.223. I’m going to try the collet, also have some 60 grain TMKs coming to try, they were cheap, and I think they will be perfect for coyotes here at home if I can get them moving 3200 FPS.

I went out and shot my charge test with the 75eldm, .010 off the lands. Velocities mirrored the 75 BTHP, no signs of pressure at 24.6 grains of Varget, I’d keep going but I’m already compressed. I’m stumped on where to go from here. My low ES/SD loads are all slow, slower than I want, all single digit SD, and ES under 25. As pressure increases groups all remained pretty similar, probably my shooting ability holding them back more so than the load. ES remained at around 25 for the rest of the loads, besides 24.4 which I had one out in outer space, as you can see in the group.

Again I had a couple flat primers, no cratering, no other signs of pressure, no heavy bolt lift. I’d like to keep the bullet moving at 2800+, but don’t want to be at pressure as this is a volume gun, that will get shot hot/cold/sun/snow/rain. The way it looks there really isn’t a node, they all kind of shoot. Only two groups went over 1”. And at the end of the day, I’ll be happy if I can make an honest 10 shot 1.5moa group as this is a 300 and in coyote gun, and most plinking will be done sub 600 yards. ES in the 25 range does
Also worth noting, my factory load for this gun, which shot about the same albeit higher ES/SD numbers, was a 73eldm going 2820 with significant cratering, but no other pressure signs.

Going to load up 5 at 23.8, 24, and 24.6.
23.8 was right at 2800, 24.6 was at 2884, going to try 3 at 24.8 if I can get it seated without too much crunch.

 

[Lawnboi]

Loaded some more and ran out. Still don’t know what to go with. Looking for some advice on where to go from here. 23.8 shot lights out again, but the velocity numbers were thrown by 1 shot. 24 grains had a decent group, great numbers, don’t know what the heck happened on 24.6. 24.8 is definitely the max I can stuff in the case. I was getting pressure rings seating, also it was beginning to crater primers, being only 73 today in the shade I’ll stay away from any hotter. Shooting was done off a


Now I’m thinking best bet is to load 10 at 23.8, and 10 at 24, and see what happens. Seem like a good plan or are you guys seeing something I’m not?

I’m also keeping in mind this is mixed lot cheap brass. I can already tell a difference I’ll have ironed out next loading, half the brass was match and half was black, looking in the necks the match is black, like my Varget loads look, the black cases are almost clean in the necks.

Another option would be to go grab some xbr and chase a higher node.

 

[tdhanses]

Don’t chase velocity, it’s fun but I’d take a slower more accurate load then super hot, sounds like you won’t get to another node do to lack of space. I’d back it off and stick there, you aren’t shooting elk with this so it’ll still be plenty good out to distance on yotes.

I would try 23.8 once more but 24 looks like your load.

Group size is just one data point but not the main one, I always pick lowest ES and SD over best group I shot that day.

For example, worst load I had had the best group.


Now here is my final load, seated .02 further and .2grs more then my worst load above yet made a huge diff..

 

[wind gypsy]

23.8 or 23.9 and have fun trying to burn that barrel out.