AusVarmint

My cousin Dougald brought his Rem700 VSSF .204 up to Yass this year to partake in some fur explosions. Due to work, selling & buying a house, and renovations he didn’t have time to do any reloading so just shot Hornady factory 32gn rounds.

Dougald has invested a bit in this rifle - jewel trigger, Bartlien barrel, Meopta 6-18x50 scope. It actually groups the factory fodder very well.

Playing around on the gongs at Yass was a cause of frustration with shots landing on POA at a selected distance but then to the left or right at shorter or distances. Group consensus was a canted scope reticle, and I offered to work on the setup when we got home.

First I checked the scope tracking. Adjustments were a little mushy but for a hunting rifle seemed to go OK:



Next I checked groups at 250m before and after rotating the scope in the rings a little by eye:



Then another slight rotation in the rings and the vertical line test at 200m. I should have just left it there (shots ‘A’) but mucked with it a bit more and ended chasing my tail a bit:



So we called it good at that.

Next up load development.

Marcus

For the loads I used what I had on the shelf - CCI BR primers, BM8208 and 32gn z-maxes. Loaded up two rounds at each powder charge increment and shot them over the Chrony at 200m, marking the shots for each increment as I went and watching for signed of pressure:







Ok but not setting the world on fire. Bolt lift was easy and primers looked good:



So kept loading heavier charges in the same increments. I also swapped from the bipod to a front bag. Over the bipod didn’t feel rock steady and I wondered wether I was getting a bit of bounce off the shooting bench:



It all came together with loads 3 to 5 of this set:



So consulted with Dougald and we have settled on load 4 - 29.4gn of BM8208 with a 32gn v-max for around 4,150fps



Marcus

Yep that will do it, amazing what happens when you have some time to double check things, he should be happy with that.
Gary

Looking good. Nice development work. Actually a great post for people to follow on scope setting and load work.
Cheers

Any reason not to use 40vmax

crackers17 wrote:Any reason not to use 40vmax

Shit bullets,

You will only know if you try them. They won’t group to normal 204 standard in some rifles if the twist rate isn’t spot on 1 in 12.

I used them exclusively in the 10 twist 204 I had and no complaints from any fox or rabbit I shot


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Camel wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:48 am

crackers17 wrote:Any reason not to use 40vmax

Shit bullets,

Yep and still go bang too..

crackers17 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 7:24 am Any reason not to use 40vmax

Didn't have any on the shelf.

Marcus