Quote:
Originally Posted by brando
The 155s were designed for Palma shoots, but are another good alternative for long range shooting if you can get them close to 3000fps (the 155 Scenar in particular).
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Another option in a similar vein is the Berger 155.5 FB. You will not get far north of 2700 fps out of a 20" barrel with these without cranking up the pressure beyond published maximums. I was able to get close to 2900 fps with a nominally unsafe load - 48 gr of 8208 and FGMM 210M primers - and plenty of bolt marks on the case head using Lapua brass, a bit of primer cratering, but no bolt stickiness. QuickLoad shows ~71k PSI peak pressure here - I don't recommend that!
That is well past the load I ended up going with for a precision rifle class recently - 44.1 gr 8208 with the Berger 155.5 FB, closer to 54.5k PSI. Great accuracy, and worked well enough out to 1000 yards at the density altitudes of 900 - 1800 ft we were shooting at those days. We didn't have much wind to speak of so I can't compare to the 175 SMKs.
All that said, not cheaper than the SMKs.