AusVarmint

Finally got around to doing some testing with the Tikka with some mixed results.

I switched from Winchester brass to Lapua early on in the load development stage and found that I had to run a grain less powder due to the lower case capacity of the Lapua brass. I was using 165gr SST's and 165gr Speer Hot cors.

The SST loads all shot rather poorly with a group size average of around 2moa. Just to confirm I hadn't missed something with my handloads, I ran some Superformance ammo with the exact same results. Seems my Tikka doesn't like the SST's.

The Hot cors on the other hand preformed quite well. Using 44gr of 2208, I averaged just under 1moa over 5 groups. The average velocity was 2643fps. I tried some 44.5gr loads and found they shot just a fraction smaller groups with an average of 2656fps. So I'm getting an extra 13fps for my extra half a grain of powder.

I've referenced some manuals with conflicting data being given so I was curious if anyone has chrony'd their 165gr loads and what they were doing?

For anyone interested, the Superformance SST factories averaged 2864fps. An extra 200fps plus of my handloads.

Lowndsie I loaded the 165 SSts in the son in laws Howa (because I had them left over from my 2008 visit to Dr G) half a grain below the ADI max with 2206h and we got 3 shots in one hole and the 300m gong at the Missedathon every shot (3 shooters) sorry, didnt chrony it.

trevort wrote:Lowndsie I loaded the 165 SSts in the son in laws Howa (because I had them left over from my 2008 visit to Dr G) half a grain below the ADI max with 2206h and we got 3 shots in one hole and the 300m gong at the Missedathon every shot (3 shooters) sorry, didnt chrony it.

Have you played with the 155gn HPBT pills interested if anyone has I loaded 1gn light of top load and flattened out primers and found the bolt hard to lift

no sorry. He's gone to 125gn nbts, same sort of accuracy, his rifle hated some 150gn hornady soft points we tried. The 125gn made one of the messiest rabbits I've ever seen