Reloading newbie needs advice

[xarcher]

I am a flatlander (PA resident) that has never had to shoot over 100 yards to kill anything until last year on a mulie hunt in eastern MT. I was unprepared last year but got hooked when I saw my buddy and MT resident put one in the kitchen at over 300 yards. My goal this year is to be confident out to 400 yards.

So I bought reloading manuals, an RCBS Rock Chucker, a chronograph, an OAL gage, etc. and read a ton of material on line. Thanks to LRH for some of the articles and info.

My gun is a Ruger M77 Mark II, 7mm Magnum (NIB but I won it several years ago in a raffle, so this is my "weapon of choice" by default). I have read that it is not the best out there, but it's all I got for now. Besides, I am not thinking about 600 or 700 yard shots. One must walk before one runs. One upgrade - a Timney trigger but otherwise it is stock. The chamber measures 3.290 inches.

I am shooting Barnes TSX 160 grain, WLRM primers, RE 22 powder to start at 100 yards. Here is where I am with a cartridge length of 3.280 inches. (I did the same with 3.270 COAL but the results are understandably worse) The stats below are for 4 shots in each group:

Powder/ AVG/ ES/ STD DEV/ MOA
57 gr/ 2566/ 57/ 24.0/ 1
58 gr/ 2610/ 8.0/ 3.3/ 0.75
59 gr/ 2648/ 40/ 18.8/ 1
60 gr/ 2697/ 30/ 13.5/ 1
61 gr/ 2738/ 22/ 9.3/ 0.75

I was expecting to see only one low standard deviation and spread point, but I have 2; one at 58 grains and one at 61 grains. The Barnes manual allows a max load of 63 grains so my inclination is to keep going up in powder and see if I can at least match the performance at 58 grains. All else considered equal, I figure faster is better, provided I can match the accuracy at the higher velocity.

Any comments or suggestions otherwise? Also, if the numbers continue to improve as I get to 63 grains, the obvious temptation is to continue to go higher. I suspect that although the manual says to not go above the max load, there has got to be some margin there. I have read that some of the signs of going to high are ballooned cartridges and tough-to-eject cartridges. Anything else I should look for?

Thanks for any and all comments. Positive or negative.

Jeff

 

[AJ Peacock]

Nothing wrong with the Ruger, if you can't get it to shoot better, bed the action.

Load the 160gr bullets to around 3000fps in a 24" barrel (a little faster in a 26" barrel).

I've had better accuracy with non-magnum primers in the 7mm Rem Mag. Now adays, you'll be using whatever primers you can find though.

AJ

 

[xarcher]

Nothing wrong with the Ruger, if you can't get it to shoot better, bed the action.

Load the 160gr bullets to around 3000fps in a 24" barrel (a little faster in a 26" barrel).

I've had better accuracy with non-magnum primers in the 7mm Rem Mag. Now adays, you'll be using whatever primers you can find though.

AJ

Thanks for the quick response AJ. So you would not be afraid to push the load above the recommended max? I misspoke before. Barnes says the max is 61 grains with RL 22, and the resultant velocity is 2858. I am still 120 fps below that @ 61 grains. If the numbers improve beyond 61 grains, how will I know when enough is enough?