Gary in MD
Well-Known Member
My tikka shoots that 140 Berger EH good enough for most of my uses. Mine is a 6.5 prc though.
Difficulties reloading Berger 140 EH for 6.5 Creed
- Thread starter dstancu
- Start date
I run 41.5 in lapua with federal 210's. 140 EH about .050 off lands or so. Almost max mag length in a no binder plate mag. 2760fps and it hammers in a 22" proof barrel. Haven't shot a group over .5" yet.
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I think you meant to respond to the OP. I have no issues loading Berger bullets.
Whoops.. you're right!
Just me...but I'd definitely seat deeper...2.80 and give em a try...only takes 5 RDS to confirm or deny ....and try 41.5 gr of H4350...
imyourhuckleberry
Well-Known Member
What I've done in the past when the magazine is the limiting factor is I just begin to seat the bullet deeper. Eventually I will find a node that the rifle likes with that seating depth. Just remember that pressures will increase and if you are already loading close to max loads back off a little on the powder. At times it is a juggling act.
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Thanks Skipglo, got it.
Going deeper in the case should help me find a secondary (or tertiary) seating depth node. Someone smarter than me said that the first node is the most accurate (but also narrower), the others further from the jam are usually wider.
Thanks 22Kreedmire.
On a note, just to muddy the waters, the Berger loading page you posted (published online for 6.5CM for hunting, for the 140 EH) shows for H4350 a max load of 42.3, while the manual page that Feenix posted called for a H4350 max load of 40.7 (for a 140 hybrid, which is almost identical with the 140 EH)... That's quite a substantial difference!
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CoSniper66
Well-Known Member
My MPA 6.5CM likes 40.8 Gr H4350, .050 jump 140 ELD M. 2735 fps 26" barrel..5 MOA all the time.Thanks FEENIX, I am at about 60 thou from jam.
Of course, seating depth matters, I do that as a standard development step in all my cartridges. That usually shaves anywhere from 0.2MOA to 0.4MOA on groups at 100m. I also have an extra step of tuning (I use EC Tuners), after I find the best seating depth. That too further tightens the group, in most cases by about 0.1 MOA.
My problem is that 1.0-1.5 MOA groups at 100m are quite catastrophic, basically non starters. I am reluctant to spend time and resources trying to improve maybe, to 0.5MOA at best at these loads (over 41.8gr H4350).
From what I hear from most responders (and manuals too), I am still too hot at 41.8gr H4350. Lack of pressure signs means nothing if the bullets go all over the place...
I will go further down, maybe all the way to 40.5gr of H4350.
I guess it was just a pipe dream trying to squeeze higher velocities from this bullet in a 6.5 Creed, into the early territory of 6.5 PRC
Hello everyone, as promised I am reporting back with my further trials and results.
I mentioned before that 42.3 gr of H4350 had very low SD (between 2 and 5) for multiple groups of 5 shots, good speed of around 2765fps, and still almost .5gr under any pressure sign, so I wanted to see if I can still make it shoot.
I decided to run the Berger advice for "How to Load a Hybrid Bullet" (they also have guidance for VLD bullets).
It's calling for test intervals of 15 thousands (!), groups of 6 cartridges shot in double subsets of 3 to level heating patterns.
Instead of Jam (or Lands), my limiting factor is the mag, to allow for easy feeding from it. I loaded 6 cartridges for each of these CBTO/COAL:
CBTO COAL
2.015 2.775
2.030 2.790
2.045 2.805
2.060 2.820
Shot 3 for each load (the top row), then the remaining 3 for each load (bottom row). These were the results:
I could clearly see a pattern, with 2.030 and 2.060 showing good promise, in both the first and the second string (the squares on the paper have 1" sides).
Now, I will load around those two promising depths, this time in 0.003" increments. I am quite confident at this point that I can get a good load.
Thanks everyone for your help and support!
I mentioned before that 42.3 gr of H4350 had very low SD (between 2 and 5) for multiple groups of 5 shots, good speed of around 2765fps, and still almost .5gr under any pressure sign, so I wanted to see if I can still make it shoot.
I decided to run the Berger advice for "How to Load a Hybrid Bullet" (they also have guidance for VLD bullets).
It's calling for test intervals of 15 thousands (!), groups of 6 cartridges shot in double subsets of 3 to level heating patterns.
Instead of Jam (or Lands), my limiting factor is the mag, to allow for easy feeding from it. I loaded 6 cartridges for each of these CBTO/COAL:
CBTO COAL
2.015 2.775
2.030 2.790
2.045 2.805
2.060 2.820
Shot 3 for each load (the top row), then the remaining 3 for each load (bottom row). These were the results:
I could clearly see a pattern, with 2.030 and 2.060 showing good promise, in both the first and the second string (the squares on the paper have 1" sides).
Now, I will load around those two promising depths, this time in 0.003" increments. I am quite confident at this point that I can get a good load.
Thanks everyone for your help and support!
Sorry, I assumed you knew that already.
Feenix, I did know that already... and used it before.
But I skipped that (important) step to save on components and went straight to the 0.003 increments around a 0.015 seating depth that made sense to me... except that depth was right in the middle of a "bad" area, so even if I tested 5 depths in the 0.003 increments (going as far as 0.006 on each side), none went close enough to the seating depth of an acceptable good "node".
In the past 5-6 load developments, I got away skipping the 0.015 increments, and got good results, although the risk of completely missing a good area was always there.
Lesson learned: cut corners at your own risk, Murphy's Law is always there...:)
PopNFresh
Well-Known Member
the 135 classic hunter wasn't as picky about seating as the 130`s for me and it's been faster than some factory 6.5prc I've shot at the same session. probably won't get a bunch of loads out of the brass but it does it's job great
Berger manual talks about really moving those seating depths during seating tests, no little .005 & .010" bumps
Berger manual talks about really moving those seating depths during seating tests, no little .005 & .010" bumps
