UPDATED: Head scratching day at the range

[floyd kittrell]

First, I would quit cleaning so much. I have found some rifles like up to 15 shots to properly refoul after a complete cleaning. I don't clean rifles until the groups open up or pressures climb (carbon ring). That may be @ 40 rounds, may be @ 400+.
Were your second day loads with virgin brass still? Or FL sized once fired?
Same lot powder and bullets?
What chrono are you using?
2969fps is not bad from a 24" with a 143 and H1000. 3150+ seems WAY hot with H1000. Maybe with RL26 run at its limits in a 26".

YES,Yes , Yes !! I had a Br0wning ABolt that shot bug holes but took 10-12 rounds to be fouled enough to do so! It loved a dirty barrel .

 

[JakeM300winnie]

I have the same pro Chrono brand. In my experience, direct bright sunlight, or the sun at an angle which shines on 1 lens of the Chrono can throw it off. Or just too dark.
A bright cloudy day, or in the shade if sunny works best for me. Mine reads 5-10 fps faster than my magnetospeed
As far as pressure signs, you seem right inline with what I see in my PRC. I'm at 59.0 gr. R26. With the 156 berger @3050 fps. And Hornady brass. I get light ejector marks,but that's the load it likes..5 moa.expect maybe 4 loadings at that high end of pressure before your primer pockets get loose.

 

[bamban]

I helped a friend develop a load for a .270win model 70. We came up with a dandy, loaded up 200 rounds and on the day we finally zeroed it in it was 80 degrees and overcast. We came back the next week, firing the same batch, all the same conditions, with 1/4 moa groups opening up to over 1 moa. The only difference being bright sunshine. The ammo was exposed to the sun and heated up. Changed things dramatically. Had nothing to do with the rifle, or the shooter, or actually none of the components, it was the environment that had changed. We had signs of over pressure too. There were 20 rounds left from the original loading session which we brought out several weeks later. We kept the ammo out of the sun, and went back to 1/4 moa groups. Just goes to show there is always something unexpected to bite you in the ***.

That would do it. Laying down prone in triple digit temp out in the open field shooting 600-1000 yards, we usually keep our ammo in a small insulated cooler, just retrieve one, chamber and shoot. No box, towel over ammo box with tip up, less mass to draw heat. If conditions changes before breaking the shot, unload and chamber a fresh one from the cooler, shoot.

 

[Chas1]

stop cleaning, your firearm will tell you when it wants to be cleaned. my 30-06 about every 50 rounds and carbon ring at 200 roun ds.

 

[Rosebud]

I've got a idea for your upcoming hunt, if you have a good load worked up with Virgin brass and still have Virgin brass load up enough for the hunt, sight in the rifle, go hunt. Worry about the rest of this crap another time. One of my best hunting rifles is set up same way. When all the brass has been fired it will be worked up again.

 

[bamban]

I've got a idea for your upcoming hunt, if you have a good load worked up with Virgin brass and still have Virgin brass load up enough for the hunt, sight in the rifle, go hunt. Worry about the rest of this crap another time. One of my best hunting rifles is set up same way. When all the brass has been fired it will be worked up again.

I like the idea

 

[JAYgs8163]

I've got a idea for your upcoming hunt, if you have a good load worked up with Virgin brass and still have Virgin brass load up enough for the hunt, sight in the rifle, go hunt. Worry about the rest of this crap another time. One of my best hunting rifles is set up same way. When all the brass has been fired it will be worked up again.

That one of the reasons I work in lots of 20-30 pieces at a time and when that brass is worn out I go back into my stockpile of new brass from the same lot. This is my process in my hunting rigs. I've loaded 50 hunting rounds in the past but then it takes me quite a bit of time to get through all of them. I'd rather have some fresher loads to shoot.

 

[Shootin4fun]

First, I would quit cleaning so much. I have found some rifles like up to 15 shots to properly refoul after a complete cleaning. I don't clean rifles until the groups open up or pressures climb (carbon ring). That may be @ 40 rounds, may be @ 400+.
Were your second day loads with virgin brass still? Or FL sized once fired?
Same lot powder and bullets?
What chrono are you using?
2969fps is not bad from a 24" with a 143 and H1000. 3150+ seems WAY hot with H1000. Maybe with RL26 run at its limits in a 26".

Yup! Cleaning between outings and the firing a few fouler rounds is not your friend.

Other items on lance's list are all important factors.

 

[Shootin4fun]

I am not a big fan of the ladder system. For the following reasons:

1) Your data point is a single round per load. A sub 20 fps extreme spread is not bad so consider you realy don't know whether shot 1 was at the bottom of its ES and shot 2 was at the top of its ES. So what looks like 5 fps could really be 25 fps.

2) Ladder's are typically done at 200 yards, if you have a 3/4 inch rifle (not bad) and two charge weights that look like they are 1/4" apart, the respective groups could generate groups centered 1.5" apart.

3) 200 yards introduces greater shooter error than 100 yards.

Try using Optimal Charge Weight Method at 100 yards and for that size case, I would go in .6 grain incrmenets. To cover all your bases load Load 1 = 57.6, 58.2, 58.8, 59.4, Load 5 = 60.0. Shoot them in a round robin order on 5 different aiming points; i.e, Shoot Load 1 thru 5, then Load 5 thru 1, then load 1 thru 5 each on its own repsective aiming point. You should find two loads with a very similar groups size and a very similar POI relative to POA. Split the difference between those two loads. See attached sample target below. On the target below, load 7 and 8 (upper right) are the optimal loads so the final load is then 46.2. In this case I used .4 increments becuase the base load is in the 40s.

I have found this method to be much more reliable and consistent than the ladder method.

+1. I decided a long time ago that the ladder test method was not for me. Unless you repeat the test many times and look for a trend in the results. It simply uses too small of a sample for me. I use a form of the OCW, find a stable node, and work the depth from there. Even when I develop bughole loads, I still shoot plenty of 5 shot groups at 100 that are not all 1 hole groups. so I can't depend on myself and external factors to tell me the truth with single shot samples.

 

[Eric Musgrove]

Did you use 2 different lots of powder?

no

 

[Eric Musgrove]

That would do it. Laying down prone in triple digit temp out in the open field shooting 600-1000 yards, we usually keep our ammo in a small insulated cooler, just retrieve one, chamber and shoot. No box, towel over ammo box with tip up, less mass to draw heat. If conditions changes before breaking the shot, unload and chamber a fresh one from the cooler, shoot.

Yeah those days are over for me

 

[Eric Musgrove]

YES,Yes , Yes !! I had a Br0wning ABolt that shot bug holes but took 10-12 rounds to be fouled enough to do so! It loved a dirty barrel .

lesson learned, I had more consistent realistic results today.

 

[Eric Musgrove]

I've got a idea for your upcoming hunt, if you have a good load worked up with Virgin brass and still have Virgin brass load up enough for the hunt, sight in the rifle, go hunt. Worry about the rest of this crap another time. One of my best hunting rifles is set up same way. When all the brass has been fired it will be worked up again.

I have no virgin brass left, but I have plenty of factory loaded I could just use. Hunt is still 3 months out though. When I got this rifle you couldn't get brass, the only thing I could do was buy the factory load, shot a few boxes to break it in and it didn't care much for the load, that gave me some brass to work with. I will look for some more and try that out, after today session I think I am almost there.

 

[Eric Musgrove]

I have the same pro Chrono brand. In my experience, direct bright sunlight, or the sun at an angle which shines on 1 lens of the Chrono can throw it off. Or just too dark.
A bright cloudy day, or in the shade if sunny works best for me. Mine reads 5-10 fps faster than my magnetospeed
As far as pressure signs, you seem right inline with what I see in my PRC. I'm at 59.0 gr. R26. With the 156 berger @3050 fps. And Hornady brass. I get light ejector marks,but that's the load it likes..5 moa.expect maybe 4 loadings at that high end of pressure before your primer pockets get loose.

Good info thanks, It was in the shade, if I get done by 1030 after that the suns starts to creep in on the back side. My 156 gr load is 59.5 H1000 @2936 24" barrel. Some others with a similar load said the brass was gone by the 3rd loading, that is why I was trying the 143Eldx. Looks like either way I might only get 3 loads out of them.