This is largely reposted from AHN, 'coz someone on here (*cough*Ron*cough*) isn't on there, and wanted to see the results. I shot these loads last week at Silverdale.
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I've returned from a rather successful day at Silverdale shooting off my first ever reloads at 100yds.
To say I was nervous chambering my first reload, you'd be right on the money. But I couldn't think of anything I'd done wrong, or not done, apart from maybe not enough neck tension in the cases, so I eased behind the .308, and fired it off! BANG! Vengence and furious anger from the rifle, a bit of recoil, look through the scope, and the shot's low to the right.
Next shot and, "where did that go??".
"Oh", as I looked at an oval hole, rather than a perfectly round hole. "Ok!".
I loaded up 20 rounds of 155grn SMK Matches, starting at 44grn of AR2208, and incrementing .5grns to 45.5gns, all seated 20thou off the lands. I also loaded 15 rounds of 130grn Hornady SP's, starting at 48grns of AR2208, and incrementing .5grns to 49.0grns, all seated 20thou off. These 130grn reloads were using once-fired cases, but not in this rifle.
I'd also loaded 15 rounds of 130grn Hornady SP's at 48.5grns seated .30thou off, to be used as foulers.
These are the resulting cards:
Bottom right is 5 rounds of 44grns of 155 SMK's. I was aiming dead centre of the target, with very little wind. I then made adjustments to the scope to hopefully get the next batch in the centre, which ended up not being so. The next lot shot off were 5 rounds of 44.5grns of 155 SMK's, again aiming dead centre.
Next to go were 5 rounds of 45grns of 155 SMK's, again aiming dead centre. After that were 5 rounds of 45.5grns of 155 SMK's, aiming at the bottom right outer corner of the box. I'm scratching my head as to the first shot in this group being a cm low.
I then moved on to the 130grn Hornady SP's. These were all seated 20thou out, apart from the last 7 "foulers" which were seated 30thou out. I'd originally started with 48grns of AR2208, but shot this on another target with foulers already through it, so didn't get an accurate picture of the group, so I changed target for the 48.5 and 49grn groups.
For the last detail of the day, I shot the final 7 "fouler" loads into the small target to the far right of the picture. Not a bad grouping at all.
In the end, I was pleased that I was forming nice groups with these reloads, and coming to grips with the recoil of this rifle. None of the reloads showed signs of pressure, so the next steps in this journey to a total "nirvanous" state would be to push the 155 SMKs up to 47 grns, and from there, pick a load and vary the jump in towards the lands a bit more.
