6.5mm Voodoo -Unveiled

[Buffalobob]

Just a few words for those new people or people who do not remember. Oliver has some track record of credibility. The below reference record was witnessed by at least two of us forum members.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f17/oliveralan-60772/

The record is the junior F-T/R High power rifle long range, Palma course record. 15shots 800, 15 at 900 and 15 at 1000.

I am not saying the chrono is accurate nor that the steel was actually as claimed. My point is that some of his accomplishments are documented.

 

[CHARLIEDUECE65]

I am amazed that a 17 year old kid can afford custom rifles, scopes, reloading equiptment, accessories, and can shoot them multiple times a week. I and I'm sure many others wish they could of at that age. Sounds like you're an accomplished shooter for your age and I am impressed by that. Curious as to why you named the round VOODOO as it's not a new round. gun)

 

[Akiona]

Awesome rig Oliveralan. It may not be new and your right, hows about, Black magic, 6.5-300win? A friend of mine built his about three years ago with very similarities to Oliveralan's results.

Maybe theres somekind of witch craft going on.

Anyhow, awesome rig and accomplishments. Keep it up.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

I have been watching this thread with great interest and my first comment is well done to those who have kept it on the high road.

I believe Oliver has a great deal of credibility as well as his friend and witness, trebark... and I also believe LTLR, Kirby and others who have expressed reservations also have a great deal of credibility and what they say makes complete sense... so I find this to be a big mystery.

I know I have occasionally seen some whacked out numbers come across my chrony but not a string of them.

Fast barrel? Quirky chrony? Overpressure? Bad steel? Some, or all of the above?

It looks like oliver has a lot of evidence and eyewitness accounts which can be easily be verified. The steel can be inspected and shot with some other chamberings. The loads can be run through another chrony.

I am very interested in knowing the conclusion of this.

Keep up the excellent work Oliver... and be careful... just in case...

-Mark

 

[Fiftydriver]

Again, I am in no way saying your not getting those numbers, I am only saying you SHOULD NOT BE getting those numbers. There is no way you can get that level of velocity without pushing the pressures very hard.

Fast barrel, yes they happen from time to time but for a barrel to produce 100 fps more velocity then average with same loads is VERY off. 50 fps maybe.

Now combine a fast barrel with excessive pressures and you will get more velocity, is that the right way to do it, NOPE.

As far as reading pressure signs, when I started building rifles for the 257 STW there were wild claims of 4100 fps with 100 gr bullet weights(which your medium sized VooDoo should be able to do also, at least from the 140 gr velocity results). I built two of these for two brothers. THese two were very experienced handloaders and shooters. They took their rifles and started load development. A week later they called me and said they were getting 4100 fps with fine accuracy, very happy. Bolt lift was effortless, extraction perfect, no ejector ring of any kind, nice rounded primers, no primer cratering. Perfect. It appeared the claims were right on the money.

The next day I got a call from one of the brothers, he was less then happy, he had just finished up sizing 50 cases that he had used for load development, everyone of them had the primer pockets blown completely out. How could this be, must be something wrong with the rifle as there was absolutely no pressure signs of any kind.

The reason I bring this up is simple, just because you do not see any pressure signs does not mean your not WAY over pressured. The best way to estimate pressures is with a chronograph, especially in a custom built rifle because the chambers are tight and usually the receivers are accurized and squared.

As far as your experience level and what you have done to this point, congrats, your on your way and have a hell of a jump on what most of us have done at your age.

That said, it would not matter one bit who posted this information I would respond exactly the same way. Hell, if David Tubbs himself posted these results I would still post to warn about this level of performance.

Kind of curious how you think the VV powder would get you more velocity. Its much bulkier then US869 so you will not be able to get nearly as powder into the case so I do not think you will be real happy with the results.

My point still stands, your WAY over pressure to get those velocities from this case capacity. We have had dozens of these debates and it usually always comes down to over pressured loads.

As far as the steel plate, How thick was it? I assume 3/8" which is pretty standard. If it was 1/4" or less, maybe but I have never seen this type of plate used for steel targets.

Again, My main and only point, for the capacity you are using, you should be shooting for 3300 fps with 140 gr bullets and thats it. I would also like to hear about some of your long range groups, not 100 yard, but more like 800 yard plus, that will tell us if the Bergers are holding up to this velocity.

When I was testing the VLDs I found that often accuracy was very good at 100 yards at high velocity but at long range the accuracay went to hell.

I am not attacking you because of your age in any way. I commend your passion for our sport but with age comes experience. I was where you are not about 20 years ago. Speed was everything, did not care about pressures, just wanted shear velocity. The more I learned, the more I realized that life is much better using a larger "engine" to get high velocity then pushing a smaller "engine" to red line to get high velocity.

Not only does brass last longer but rifles are stessed less.

Using that Savage stainless receiver, keep a VERY close eye on bolt lift effort. The Savage receivers can have a tendency to be a bit soft, especially the stainless ones. I have seen several that after a few hundred firings had significant bolt lug set back into the reciever. Watch out for this or it will turn out very bad, believe me.

Do what you want, if you think your safe, by all means go for it. Maybe you just have one of those magical rifles which I have heard of. BUT, keep your eyes open, if you start seeing anything odd, get the hell off the throttle before you find yourself in serious trouble.

The big ammo makers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars pressure testing ammo. All the big bullet makers have also done this same pressure testing with all their bullets. Every one of them are screaming at you that your WAY Over pressured.

I would recommend listening to them just a little bit.

 

[Fiftydriver]

Oliveralan,

I reread your post. I can half way see you getting 3440 fps with somewhat acceptable pressures but thats still 160 fps lower then you said you can get with this combo.

Again, I believe that 3300 fps is about what you should be getting. Add, 75 fps for a fast barrel and another 50 fps for using some higher chamber pressures and your right in that low 3400 fps range. That is a far cry from 3600 fps what was originally posted.

Let me offer a story about when I was developing loads for the first time for my 7mm Allen Magnum. The test rifle was built on a Nesika Bay Model M receiver with a 30" Lilja barrel. Very strong receiver, long barrel. I started with the 160 gr Accubond. I started with an upper end load for the 7mm RUM at 100.0 grains of surplus WC-872. This was before Hodgdon came out with their US-869.

Muzzle velocity was right at 3300 fps. So a starting load was right there with the fastest 7mm RUM loads, I was very happy and excited. Chamber pressures were extremely comfortable. I increased the powder charge two grains at a time until 110.0 gr which averaged 3510 fps. Still no pressure signs at all. I was a solid 200 fps over where conventional wisdom says the RUM would top out, VERY excited. From there I increased the powder charge one grain at a time and tested.

111.0 gr gave me 3532 fps, 112.0 gr produced 3560 fps, 113.0 gr was 3587 fps, 114.0 gr was 3621 fps, 115 grains was 3644 fps.

Still no pressure signs of any kind. Primer pockets were still very tight, bolt lift was effortless, no ejector ring, no primer flattening of any kind but as I set there I started thinking to myself, my case design has around 12% more capacity then the 7mm RUM, how an I getting nearly 350 fps more velocity, I was very happy but the more I looked at the numbers, I started to get a bit concerned.

The next day I formed up 20 test cases using Norma brand 338 Lapua brass. This brass is very similiar to Remington RUM brass in hardness and strength. I wanted to see what this brass would support as far as velocity. I knew the Lapua brand brass was extremely strong and I was just not getting any pressure signs and the more I thought about the results I was getting, the more it started to weigh on me that I probably should have been.

Loaded up the Norma formed brass and repeated the test. Each given load produced around 15-20 fps less velocity compared to the Lapua brand brass. This was simply because the Norma bras had much thinner sidewalls and thinner head for increased case volume which resulted in the lower velocity with same loads compared to the Lapua brand cases.

With the Lapua cases I went clear to 115 grains of WC-872 and had no pressure signs. With the Norma brand brass, at 108.0 gr I started seeing pressure signs such as ejector rings, and loosening primer pockets. Bolt lift never did increase which is not uncommon with a full custom rifle. At 110.0 gr of WC-872, the norma brand brass was telling me your in the 65,000 to 68,000 psi range, similiar to top loaded 7mm RUM loads with similiar pressure signs. At that powder charge the rifle averaged right at 3510 fps with the 160 gr Accubond. Rather anemic compared to the near 3650 fps with the Lapua brand brass but much more in line with what I had been expecting to gain over the RUM. Basically I was expecting to get 150 fps over the RUM, turned out it was in that 150 to 200 fps range but that made much more sense to me from a pressure to velocity stand point.

With that testing done, and having proven to myself that the 7mm AM would produce +3500 fps with a 65K to 68K chamber pressure, I now had my velocity data developed and then went back to the Lapua brand case. It took one grain more powder to get the same velocity but obviously this was a very mild load.

Another test was also done at the same time, this was with my personal rifle, a lightweight 7mm AM based on a fully accurized Rem 700 chrome moly receiver and Lilja 26" barrel. At the end of the day testing for top velocity with that rifle and Norma brass, I got 3435 fps with 108.0 gr at a max working load. The weaker receiver would not allow the heavier powder charges to be used and the shorter barrel length limited velocity slightly.

Had I done the pressure testing with the lapua brand brass in my Rem 700 based rifle, I easily would have taken the chamber pressures far over what this receiver should be subjected to.

Point being, pressure signs mean very little in some situations, common sense is far more valuable at times then trying to predict chamber pressures from what you see on a fired case.

As far as you sending me the rifle. I can tell you exactly how that would go. I would start at a safe starting point, probably around 80 grains of powder and increase one grain at a time. I would read the chrono readings as they ticked up with the different loads and once I saw them getting over 3300 fps I would start to get a bit cautious. At 3400 fps I would really be cautious and at 3450 I would simply stop pushing things harder. I would never even get remotely close to your 3600 fps level before stopping, I would have never broke 3500 fps simply because from my experience, I know that for that case capacity to get over 3400 fps, you would be getting some serious chamber pressure weither you could see it on the fired cases of not. It is never wise to push things to the limits of its design. Bad things happen. Yes you can learn some by doing this but its really not useful knowledge. Its far more important to know when to stop then to know exactly how many FPS can be squeezed from a case at its max limits.

Again, it would do no good to send your rifle to me, I would never push it to the velocity levels you have done. I would have shot it to 3400 to possibly 3450 fps and called it good, especially with that Savage receiver. That would not have impressed anyone but thats exactly where it should be at, in fact, 3400-3450 fps is still extremely fast for that case capacity. That is not opinion, thats been proven many times over with many different 6.5mm chamberings.

You may have a combination that produces alot of speed but I would still say 3450 fps should be your absolute max working load, nothing would change my mind on that, not even having the rifle in my own hands and shooting it myself.

If you take a quick look at the Hodgdon load data for the 300 Win Mag, shooting a 130 gr bullet weight, it will never break 3450 fps. Their 300 RUM data with 140 gr bullets will never break 3500 fps. Yes this is fired in a shorter barrel length but even adding 25 fps per inch of barrel length would still put the 300 RUM with 140 gr bullet weight in the same class as your 6.5mm VooDoo with same bullet weight.

Just look at the numbers, your to high when compared to other established, FULLY PRESSURE TESTED chamberings. Even though you do not have pressure signs, your WAY over where you should be. You just can not get something for nothing, back things off and be happy, as you said yourself, the rifle shoots much better at lower velocities, that should be a sign right there to listen to. That is all I am saying. Look around and see whats already out there and then ask yourself HOW is this wildcat getting this level of velocity, its not because of case design, not because of barrel design, not throat design and a fast barrel will not account for this level if velocity increase. It comes down to one thing, pressure and alot of it.

Your obviously a smart kid, just look around and compare numbers and you will see your WAY over velocity of where your case capacity should be.

 

[Franklin]

What I want to know is, how the hell is his primer pockets still tight after 4 firings at this supposed pressure? Also, at super high pressure, I've never seen brass not start flowing and I don't care what kind it is. It doesn't make any sense??? Are you sure you have riflings in the barrel.

 

[Oliveralan]

Kirby,

As for the speed, i believe there are a few key differences in on what we have both gathered data.

1. So far you have posted velocities based on the 142 SMK, not 140 berger VLD, and in my experience in 30cal and 6.5, the berger always seems to go faster all other factors equal. Why exactly this is i can only speculate, so ill just leave it at that.

2. I am shooting a 1-9 twist, now maybe your rifles are 1-9 twists but i don't know, slower twist (as you know) flattens the pressure spike when the bullet hits the rifling as it meets less resistance. a 1-9 vs 1-8 means 12.5% less twist, i'm sure this has a significant influence on speed.

3. As for the primer pockets holding up, i have had very positive experiences with winchester brass. The primer pockets stay tight much longer than remington, federal, or nosler brass. I still don't believe that i am really having such excessive pressures, maybe high end, but not dangerously excessive. I do not want to seem ignorant, as a really do respect your's and other's advice, but from everything this rifle has given me as far as feedback, I am safe. After today i'm on the 5th firing on the batch i fired today and the pockets are still good, looser than when i started... but they've been fired 5 times so good enough for me!

I got a large gain in velocity trying VV-500 series powders in my 308 win and 300 ackley, from that i believe i can get more velocity. I have plenty of spare case capacity when using H-US869, so a bulkier powder wouldn't really be an issue. However i don't want to mess with the load. The rifle is in tune and i don't want to waste precious barrel life trying other powders when i'm more than satisfied as it is. Fired some groups today at 440yards and accuracy was just around 0.5 moa, however i was using my sighter bullet hole as an aiming point, which was less than ideal. Vertical is very tight and dope was slightly high on the target with 4.5moa up. 29.50 pressure 55degrees F 180ft alt, -1degree incline, 3441fps 140 VLD.
Long range groups to come, spring break starts next weekend and i have a ton of shooting planned. Actually have 4 possible matches to attend, one of which is a steel match where i may be able to shoot some groups, if not, will shoot some on a friend's farm, depending on conditions may set the gong up at 1 mile.

No worries, in no way do i feel have i been offended or attacked! I'm not that sensitive

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Reply to second post:

You state you would load up to 3400-3450 and let it be. This is exactly what i have done so i don't see what the critique or problem is. We seem to have done the same thing, new chambering (you with your neskia model M 7mm AM, my 6.5mm voodoo) and been too excited and kept going up because we weren't seeing pressure signs, then common sense caught up and we backed down. Seems pretty similar.
Also, im not changing my original statement, i did reach just shy of 3600fps but stopped because accuracy was getting worse rapidly. So i backed down to 3555 and shot that for a few days but it was developed in 30 degree weather and i knew it was upper limit so i moved to where the best accuracy was, at 83.3grains, which gave 3441 fps. That's where im now and intend to stay until i find a reason why this is unsafe, inaccurate, or otherwise bad...
You say 3400 to 3450 would not have impressed anyone... i beg to differ, so far everyone who has see, heard, or shot this rifle was extremely impressed. Considering it uses factory dies, cheap and plentiful bass, mag fed, theoretically accepted in most tactical matches as limit is 300 win mag, manageable recoil, and the whole project cost me less than the receiver for an allen magnum. Your chamberings are very impressive, but you definitely have to pay for it. This is a very economical platform with ballistics that beat just about anything else you can build on a standard long action.

Your hodgdon load data is probably in standard 1-10 twist 300 win mag rifles, with hodgon powders. A 300 varminter (slow twist richard franklin 300wsm) will shoot 125 ballistic tips to 3800-4000fps depending on the receiver with VV-N550. Now increase capacity to 300 win mag size, neck down to 6.5, and shoot 140s, 3450 does not sound too crazy any more. Article about 300 Varminter can be found here: http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2007/09/franklins-4000fps-30-cal-varminter-a-hit-with-hunters/

Oliver

 

[Coyboy]

As far as shooting thru the steel;
My neighbor made me some steel pigs a few years ago, I think he said it was T1 steal, and that I would not shoot thru it. He was right I shot those pigs alot and it dusted the paint off was about it.

Funny thing was one day I shot my 243AI with a 12T 3 groove and a 85 grain game king at 3600 fps and it zipped right thru. Actually zipped thru 3 times. go figure.

 

[blipelt]

Where you shot through it, was there a weld behind it. Passing through the steel amazes me. I think there is a reason it happened. Maybe a bad spot in the target, excessive heat at that point. I would love to hear if you have passed through any other targets. Keep on doing what you are doing CURIOSITY LEADS TO INNOVATION

Jim I would have never thought it would have passed through


Brent

 

[trebark]

Where you shot through it, was there a weld behind it. Passing through the steel amazes me. I think there is a reason it happened. Maybe a bad spot in the target, excessive heat at that point. I would love to hear if you have passed through any other targets. Keep on doing what you are doing CURIOSITY LEADS TO INNOVATION

Jim I would have never thought it would have passed through


Brent

Although I did not see the back of the plate to know if there was a weld there, my sense is that the plate had to be defective in some way. Whatever they do to treat the steel, they must have missed a small spot and then oliver hit it juuuuuuust right

 

[lovdasnow]

hard to say. maybe at certain speeds bullets and steel act different together???

i would like to see it happen again. video time

 

[Apex Custom Rifles]

Maybe it hit a Node in the steel of the target!lightbulb

 

[pitbull320]

I will post my video tomorrow of my test and yes you can put a hole in ar 500 you will be very surprised on the caliber that does it