Is 2525fps fast enough to start a 143 ELD-X?

[Mike Islander]

^^^ Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. 1800 fps at 600 is a good idea.

 

[rtaylor]

I've got a 20 inch 6.5 Creed and getting almost exactly the same speed as you. I've not killed anything out to 600 but I have shot a couple of antelope over 300 yards and the bullet performed excellent. I'd not think twice about going to 600 if I had the skill to do it (which I don't).

 

[SDHNTR]

It's possible that his crono is reading incorrectly but it sounds like he got first round hits out to 600 with the muzzle velocity he indicated so I'd guess it's reading accurately.

There's a lot more variables that effect muzzle velocity than just barrel length. Just the difference in reamer that was used from Browning to your Christensen can cause that much of a difference.

Please explain this to me. How can the cut of the reamer change velocity?

I’d also like to know how a barrel speeds up over time and after so many shots.

 

[BAKPAKR]

Here is a 143 ELDX I recovered at an estimated 1640 fps (ironically close to what you quoted here) impact velocity. Muzzle velocity was 2850 fps out of the 6.5 CM.

As you can see it didn't expand at all when it entered the grizzly bear.

On the plus side those that like weight retention will be impressed.

That said I still like and use ELDX bullets (or the ELDM variant) I just don't go with the suggested 1600 fps min velocity Hornady suggests (I admit its silly to do this on my one and only sample point but I figure better to play it safe) and use 1800 min velocity instead.

Regardless, given the velocity you laid out you're still slightly above even 1800 fps at 600 so I would use have no problems using it for that application even if the barrel doesn't speed up or the chronograph is correct and that is your true velocity, if you're getting good accuracy rock on.

If I decide to shoot a grizzly at long range with my Creedmoor, I will have to remember to run a line of super glue around the little plastic tip in an effort to increase weight retention.

 

[Journeyman]

Please explain this to me. How can the cut of the reamer change velocity?

I’d also like to know how a barrel speeds up over time and after so many shots.

Broz can do a better job of explaining this than me but I'll try my best. While it's true that there are standards for every caliber in the way the reamer is spec'd, gunsmiths and manufacturer's can tweak the specs of the way their reamer is ground. The most common tweak is to the free-bore which is typically based off which bullet you plan to shoot. If you plan to shoot a heavier bullet (longer) you'll want a longer free-bore so as to not reduce case capacity.

With production rifles they don't know what bullet you plan to shoot so they typically spec their reamers/chambers with enough free-bore so that you can shoot any bullet you like. This is part of the reason why it is often difficult to seat to the lands in a production rifle and remain short enough to fit inside the magazine.

These larger chambers often result in lower pressures and lower pressure normally means less speed. There's a lot more variables that effect the internal ballistics such as metallurgy, twist rate, number grooves, etc. But the chamber has a lot to do with it. If you happen to have a particularly fast production barrel, it could be your barrel was cut with a worn out reamer. A worn out reamer will cut a smaller chamber, smaller chamber normally means more pressure, more pressure = more speed with all other things being equal.

As far as barrels speeding up, there is absolutely no hard and fast rule as to when it happens or how much it will speed up but it does typically happen as the bullets being shot smooth out any imperfections or tooling marks and the carbon from firing the cartridges lubricates the chamber. Maybe @Broz can chime in and offer better explanations than my simple ass understandings of these things.

 

[Broz]

As far as barrels speeding up, there is absolutely no hard and fast rule as to when it happens or how much it will speed up but it does typically happen as the bullets being shot smooth out any imperfections or tooling marks and the carbon from firing the cartridges lubricates the chamber. Maybe @Broz can chime in and offer better explanations than my simple ass understandings of these things.

I think you pretty much nailed it in layman terms. I am not expert either, but agree with your post. Allowing a longer seating OAL, from a reamer with a longer throat, moves the bullet out of the powder column and does two things, dependent of powder burn rate and percentage of case fill. One it allows typically for a greater charge weight before max pressure. Two it can aid in getting the bullet started before pressure spikes when it is introduced to the lands.

Barrels do typically speed up. I agree with what you stated of the barrel smoothing and reduction of machine marks. Also the application / or burnishing of the lands changing the coefficient. This usually happens from 80 to 150 rounds. I have a rifle now that picked up 50 pfs and it was at about 120. Another rifle has just picked up 20 fps and is at 100 rounds, I expect it will gain a bit more before it settles into its final velocity.

 

[mcseal2]

I had a buck with a broken front leg come over the hill night before last. A look through the binos showed his broken leg was covered in blood. I got him ranged and the 6.5 dialed to finish him off at 330 yards. He stopped right before hitting the main timber with a little window to his guts. It was to far back for an ethical shot under normal circumstances but this was an already wounded buck about to escape for good. I took the shot and heard it hit. I walked down and could hear the buck in the thick brush but couldn't see him and light was about gone, Rather than make a bad situation worse, I backed out until morning. He was less than 50 yards from where I had shot him and judging from the blood trail he had to be about done when I walked down there. I checked with the neighbors and found the one who had originally hit him, they helped me get him out and took him home. Nice mid 150's whitetail. The bullet did well from what I could see. Exited with a 1.5" exit wound hitting no bone. Now I need to find a bigger one for myself!

 

[wind gypsy]

Nice mid 150's whitetail. ... Now I need to find a bigger one for myself!

damn Missouri folks and their big whitetails

 

[mcseal2]

Love western game, but whitetail are pretty cool too!

 

[EastMT]

Love western game, but whitetail are pretty cool too!

I was born in MO, havent hunted WT in a lot of years. I’ve been jonesing to go to the family farm and get one here lately, I need to get back and do it!


I have yet to be begin to procrastinate.

 

[mcseal2]

Well I tried some other factory ammo. Accuracy was excellent, speeds are still slow. I checked my chronograph with another rifle I know the velocity on to verify it is accurate. It was reading right.

Fiocchi factory 130gr Swift Scirocco ammunition
Avg 2622fps for 3 shots, 4.7fps SD. Shot 3 groups of 3 shots each that were under .5"

130gr HSM loaded Sierra Gamechanger ammunition
2645, 2632fps. Avg 2638. Didn't shoot more, the shots were .7" apart but not faster than the above load that shot even better.

Hornady 129gr Superformance SST ammo
3 shots avg 2820fps. 31fps SD. First 3 shot group went 1 MOA but they were the first shots fired after a thorough cleaning. Second group went into a ragged hole.

The rifle is beyond my expectations for accuracy, but it seems to be a slow barrel. I think the Swift bullet looks the best for my needs at this time. Accuracy and SD are excellent. The BC is enough better than the faster Hornady load that the 500 yard drop is only 4" different with both zeroed at 225 yards according to Hornady's ballistic calculator. Swift's website shows expansion down to 1750fps on the Scirocco, and that gets me to 600 yards.

A buddy borrowed my Creed to shoot his buck with and used the 143gr ELD-X Precision Hunter ammo. He took out the near side shoulder blade at 200 yards and what was left of the bullet ended up in the offside shoulder blade. There were fragments scattered through the area. The bullet killed the buck in it's tracks, it wasn't a bullet failure, but it also isn't quite what I want from a bullet. With a 2253fps impact velocity I'd have hoped for a bit less fragmentation.

Anyway that's my thoughts as of now. I will shoot some more later, ran out of light tonight.

 

[264win]

It’s Not uncommon to have a factory barrel that just runs slow. Years ago Tikka factory barrels were frequently 50-100 FPS slower than most. Even custom barrels can be faster and slower from one to the next.
It will very likely pick up 50-75fps in the first 120 rounds or so.

 

[mcseal2]

I'm hoping it does. I have about 75 rounds down it now, I'm not going to order any turrets for it until I have reached that 120 round count. I'm thinking that I will get a sticker to put over the factory click count turret on the Huskemaw to start with. It will have MOA marks on the bottom of the turret with larger yardage marks above for times I take a mid-range shot but don't have time to run the ballistics program on my phone. That broken legged buck was nearly lost because I had to check my chart before dialing. I had a spare turret sticker from my 300 win mag on that scope set up with MOA on the bottom and yardage marks for my 300 on top. With my faster rifles I am more familiar with I could have shot 330 yards without dialing, but being new to the Creed and it's velocity it took me a bit longer. It still worked, just took a bit longer.

The stickers from customturretsystems.com have worked well for me. A buddy had one on his Swaro Z5 that survived all the wet of our Alaska trip and is still on his scope. Especially protected under the cap on my Huskemaw I think it will be a good fit until I have my final load decided on. I really like the MOA and yardage on the same turret for a mix of speed and precision.

I've seen factory ammo be far slower than advertised several times before. I had a Ultramax 223 50gr V max load that was supposed to run 3200fps if I remember right clock at 2750 from a pair of 20" barreled bolt actions. I tried to find a factory ammo for my 25-06 that approached advertised speeds for a 100gr bullet and everything I tried was between 3000 and 3080fps. Advertised speeds were 3200fps plus on all of them. It has a cryo-accurized Montana 24" barrel, the same length as the stated test barrels on several of the ammo types. Other rifles like my 243's seem to match advertised speeds or at least come close with a 22" or 23" barrel. Every barrel is different I guess. Those rifles were all well past 120 rounds before I got a chronograph.

 

[Hornseeker]

Here is a 143 ELDX I recovered at an estimated 1640 fps (ironically close to what you quoted here) impact velocity. Muzzle velocity was 2850 fps out of the 6.5 CM.

As you can see it didn't expand at all when it entered the grizzly bear.

On the plus side those that like weight retention will be impressed.

That said I still like and use ELDX bullets (or the ELDM variant) I just don't go with the suggested 1600 fps min velocity Hornady suggests (I admit its silly to do this on my one and only sample point but I figure better to play it safe) and use 1800 min velocity instead.

Regardless, given the velocity you laid out you're still slightly above even 1800 fps at 600 so I would use have no problems using it for that application even if the barrel doesn't speed up or the chronograph is correct and that is your true velocity, if you're getting good accuracy rock on.

Luke, How did the Grizzly respond to that hit/bullet performance? Was it a one shot kill? Quick kill?

Thanks!

 

[mcseal2]

Very happy with the first test of the 130gr Swift Scirocco bullet. I filled my antlerless whitetail tag on a doe tonight at just under 300 yards. I took her through the shoulders on purpose. I usually avoid bone on antlerless tags, but I really wanted to see how this bullet is going to hold up. It did great, punched through both and exited. She dropped in her tracks without a twitch. It is pretty cool watching the deer drop through the scope at 20x, the little 6.5 with the brake just doesn't jump on the shot. Meat damage was minimal, a 1" exit and a wound channel about the same size.

If it keeps performing like this I think it will be my new rifle for muleys and antlerless whitetail. It is much lighter than my 264 win mag. I think I'll have to keep using the 264 for whitetail buck hunting and antelope though, it's been good to me and I can't retire that rifle completely. I might have to try this bullet in the 264 also.

 

[mt100gr.]

Very happy with the first test of the 130gr Swift Scirocco bullet. I filled my antlerless whitetail tag on a doe tonight at just under 300 yards. I took her through the shoulders on purpose. I usually avoid bone on antlerless tags, but I really wanted to see how this bullet is going to hold up. It did great, punched through both and exited. She dropped in her tracks without a twitch. It is pretty cool watching the deer drop through the scope at 20x, the little 6.5 with the brake just doesn't jump on the shot. Meat damage was minimal, a 1" exit and a wound channel about the same size.

If it keeps performing like this I think it will be my new rifle for muleys and antlerless whitetail. It is much lighter than my 264 win mag. I think I'll have to keep using the 264 for whitetail buck hunting and antelope though, it's been good to me and I can't retire that rifle completely. I might have to try this bullet in the 264 also.

I have had great results with the 180grain .308 scirocco.

Did you have a chance to chrono your new load? Also, I have heard that the scirocco bullets can be finicky - any magic recipe you followed on seating depth?

 

[mcseal2]

My post from the 18th has that info.

 

[Glory]

Did you contact browning CS and see if they would stick a new barrel on it? I would not be happy with a slow barrel like that.

 

[mcseal2]

I have not. Accuracy is excellent, just velocity is low. I don’t know that warranty would cover that.

Has anyone ever got a new barrel for a velocity issue?

 

[tdhanses]

I have not. Accuracy is excellent, just velocity is low. I don’t know that warranty would cover that.

Has anyone ever got a new barrel for a velocity issue?

Doubt it, never seen a velocity guarantee. I bet they would laugh at you if you said “hey I have this very accurate rifle but it’s velocity is slow, what will you do?”