cwinner
Well-Known Member
I need some help understanding what I'm seeing here, I ran out this afternoon and shot a ladder test in my stock barreled Mk-V accumark .30-378 with 230gr Berger OTM and various charges of H1000 starting at 94.6 gr through 99gr of powder backed by Fed 215Match primers. I shot a total of 28 rounds at 200 yds, starting with three fouling shots into just over 1MOA then proceded to fire 25 rounds on a fresh target ( see below). I fired in four shot groups with ample time between to cool with a target on my bench to mark the hit locations and number them, then after every 4 shots I would go down to the target to mark numbers on it ( add 3 to the numbers on the target to see the corresponding shot on the chrony tape) and really give things time to cool down.( got my walking in for the evening!). The target has grid lines every 1" with the diamond 1" as well....I had a tailwind 4-6oClock gusting sometimes to 10mh which was effectively a 3 mph crosswind at best but most times was relatively calm....what was puzzling to me was all the horizontal stringing I was seeing with most of the shots falling into a 1 MOA band through most of the test. I did not start to get out of this vertical band until shots 18-25. You can see the numbers next to the holes ( I know I pulled #4&23 but 13 felt good) and the corresponding charge & velocity from my Ohler 35 chrony....my Nosler manual shows 98.5gr as max but I was still getting velocity increases and no pressure signs at 99gr. One interesting outcome was a 50fps SD across all the shots. Did I not do big enough charge weight increases? My shooting elevation is just under 5,000ft with temps in the low 70's.
Im looking for anyone with experience with this type of test to give me some thoughts on what I have here.....I think I run another one with some Retumbo powder this weekend and will update this thread with those results as well, but in the meantimeplease give me some thoughts, I'm not too sure I'm happy with this load combination at the moment but need some second oppinions.
Thanks in advance!!
Im looking for anyone with experience with this type of test to give me some thoughts on what I have here.....I think I run another one with some Retumbo powder this weekend and will update this thread with those results as well, but in the meantimeplease give me some thoughts, I'm not too sure I'm happy with this load combination at the moment but need some second oppinions.
Thanks in advance!!