Issues with rifle.. accuracy, speeds etc.

[fisherman983]

Had my rifle rebarreles early this summer. Bought all new brass, fancy expensive buck bushing Redding dies, powder etc.

Put 100 rounds down barrel to fire form before doing any load development.
Bumped shoulders back .002, started at .005 off the lands and loaded 2 rounds in .03 gr increments looking for speed nodes.
Found a node it liked and did a seating test. Both .010 and .025 showed good results and I went with .010
Bullet is 6.5 140 berger vld hunting
Cartridge is 264 wm, win brass and 215 primers. R26 powder
Everything was great, Sd was single digit, es under 20

At about 140 ish rounds barrel has sped up 50 fps, and load is no longer accurate. Sd and es were still good according to the chrono but accuracy at 100 yds was horrible for 1 group and great for the next. Stretched it to 1000 and my dope was 4-5 moa off.

Ballistics said 19 moa, fired to rounds way high. Adjusted down 4.5 moa, hit was touch low. Fired again and way high.

Any ideas on what's going on with my paper weight?

I'm very unsatisfied with the Smith work. I believe a well built rifle should be easy to shoot and easy to load for. I'm low at 208 rounds down the barrel and less than 30 days from opening day with no rifle to hunt with

 

[Barrelnut]

I would anneal the cases after each firing and switch to a faster powder. like RL22, or RL23. Maybe even H4350.
I have tried the RL26 in a 6.5 CM and a 300 WSM. All I can say is a lot of bullets, powder, and frustration down the barrel. Never did deliver the stellar accuracy and low SD that is always touted in the forums.

 

[tbrice23]

I'll say this again.
Everyone thinks RL26 is magic, sometimes it's great BUT NOT EVERY TIME, IN EVERY BARREL.
Reloder 25 gave me better accuracy, lower pressure and better case fill than Reloder26 in 264 WM.

 

[Greyfox]

I hunt/shoot a few 6.5x284's, using H4831sc and Retumbo(mostly). With all the fanfare with R26, I purchased 5 pounds to try in my rifles. I had very erratic results to say the least. Accuracy and velocity was inconsistent. One session it looked great, the next session I would have difficulty replicating former results. When I returned to my former load using Retumbo all was well. My loads were 52-54gr R26, Berger 140HVLD's, Fed210M primers . Figured I might have had a bad lot, or the 65-85F temps that I did my work-ups in was problematic. ....I ultimately decided that it wasn't worth pursuing any further, given the solid performance of my standard loads. Before making any decisions about the performance of the rifle, IMO, the OP should try some different loads. IMO.

 

[cjuve]

Are you sure it is the loads? By the sounds of it I think I would take a look at the optics before I got too carried away. I had similar situation with a rifle, ended up the rings were slipping on the rail. It was very difficult to tell until I removed the scope off of the rifle
and noticed the wear marks.

 

[jpd676]

I had a similar issue when I rebarrled a 7mm; it started out great but accuracy went way down. The gain in speed pushed me right out of the accuracy node. I dropped my powder charge and got it back to the same speed as before and the accuracy came back.

 

[L.Sherm]

I had a similar issue when I rebarrled a 7mm; it started out great but accuracy went way down. The gain in speed pushed me right out of the accuracy node. I dropped my powder charge and got it back to the same speed as before and the accuracy came back.

This

 

[lancetkenyon]

Yep, drop your charge weight, bring it back to your speed node.

 

[fisherman983]

Are you sure it is the loads? By the sounds of it I think I would take a look at the optics before I got too carried away. I had similar situation with a rifle, ended up the rings were slipping on the rail. It was very difficult to tell until I removed the scope off of the rifle
and noticed the wear marks.

nightforce 20 moa rail, Hawkins precision 34 mm rings and nightforce atacr 5-25 scope.

 

[cjuve]

nightforce 20 moa rail, Hawkins precision 34 mm rings and nightforce atacr 5-25 scope.

Does not matter how much you spent on it or how high of quality it is if it is installed wrong. A 4.5 MOA variance shot to shot would indicate troubles beyond the load.

 

[L.Sherm]

Dont think because it's a NF scope there cant be problems. Drop your load back to the speed that it shot well if that doesn't work I would be trying a proven scope next

 

[fisherman983]

I rechecked the throat this morning, started at .005 off the lands and loaded a few charges to shoot over the chrono. did not shoot for accuracy, just speed nodes
2.770, 140 vld
66 gr 3248 3280
65.7gr 3264 3267
65.4gr 3234 3252
65.1gr 3243 3248
64.8gr 3221 3234
64.5gr 3208 3207
64.1gr 3194 3180

curious as to what you guys would do? as much as I want an extra 40-60 fps, I think im gonna go with 64.5 gr as it looks like a good place to be?

 

[jpd676]

I wouldn't base anything off of a two round sample. I would load for accuracy and then see where the speed is. Remeber, you can't miss fast enough. 50 fps at those speeds doesn't mean much unless you shoot waaaaaaaaaaaay out there and even then you need to hit the target for it to matter.

 

[cjuve]

I rechecked the throat this morning, started at .005 off the lands and loaded a few charges to shoot over the chrono. did not shoot for accuracy, just speed nodes
2.770, 140 vld
66 gr 3248 3280
65.7gr 3264 3267
65.4gr 3234 3252
65.1gr 3243 3248
64.8gr 3221 3234
64.5gr 3208 3207
64.1gr 3194 3180

curious as to what you guys would do? as much as I want an extra 40-60 fps, I think im gonna go with 64.5 gr as it looks like a good place to be?

Did you run up until you hit pressure? I usually begin my load development by running a ladder to pressure and recording velocities. Once
I have an idea where my top charge is I will back off 1 grain or so and then run bergers seating depth test for groups. Once I have the best seating depth then I shoot groups with different powder charges.

Here is an example of what just seating depths will do.
I started at .015 off then went to .050 off and finally .090 off.