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I have been trying to reload a round that shoots well out of my rifle for months, and I've "wasted" a lot of rounds on loads that didn't perform well (I've since acquired a bullet puller). I have also learned a lot about the practice and techniques for precision reloading. One of the things that kept coming up was a velocity based "ladder test" (which is useful for me because the longest range I have access to is 200yds) where a series of rounds are reloaded in increments of 1% of the maximum load. Since I have a bunch of powder, I figured I would try out each of them (still waiting on Varget) with the data available on either the manufacturer's website or in the Hornady reloading manual. Previously I tried 168gr Hornady BTHPs, 168gr SMKs, and 165gr SGKs with reasonably poor results in terms of consistency.
On a whim I grabbed a box of Hornady ELD match (168gr) and that's what I used for this test. I'm using the Magnetospeed Sporter on the Wiser Precision mount.
I'm shooting a 22" Marlin XS7 in .308 Winchester, mounted in a Boyds AT-ONE Stock.
Here's how everything is graphing so far. I acknowledge that this was only one shot per load, but this is intentional to see how viable the 10 shot load development works before further refinement. I figured it's a decent way to get as much information as possible in the least amount of time. (Note: I shot the last 30 rounds on the 9th, thus different conditions)
Based on the data it looks like Reloader-15 is the best option, pending results of Varget.
But here are the other stats.
Is my conclusion reasonable? It looks like anything between 43.6 and 44.2 grains of Reloader 15 has the best likelihood for consistently good performance. Is the next step to load a series of cartridges in 0.1gr increments?
No obvious pressure signs or cratering on primers.
Link to all photos:https://imgur.com/a/4bmut1s
On a whim I grabbed a box of Hornady ELD match (168gr) and that's what I used for this test. I'm using the Magnetospeed Sporter on the Wiser Precision mount.
I'm shooting a 22" Marlin XS7 in .308 Winchester, mounted in a Boyds AT-ONE Stock.
Here's how everything is graphing so far. I acknowledge that this was only one shot per load, but this is intentional to see how viable the 10 shot load development works before further refinement. I figured it's a decent way to get as much information as possible in the least amount of time. (Note: I shot the last 30 rounds on the 9th, thus different conditions)
Based on the data it looks like Reloader-15 is the best option, pending results of Varget.
But here are the other stats.
Is my conclusion reasonable? It looks like anything between 43.6 and 44.2 grains of Reloader 15 has the best likelihood for consistently good performance. Is the next step to load a series of cartridges in 0.1gr increments?
No obvious pressure signs or cratering on primers.
Link to all photos:https://imgur.com/a/4bmut1s
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