I'm shooting a Savage with a #3 Brux barrel in a Boyd's thumbhole stock. Finally settled on 45.5 grains of H4350 for my load. The OAL was 2.865 touching the lands and it was a consistent 3/4 MOA performer. Decided to try adjusting seating depth to see if I could do any better. I tried to keep it simple and just screwed in the seating stem one turn and load three then screw in one more turn and load three etc. At 2.815" OAL the group opened up to 1 1/2". At 2.765" OAL the group was 1 1/4". At 2.715" OAL the group was 3/8". I wasn't really expecting that there would be that much difference by adjusting seating depth. Will load some more up at the 2.715" OAL and shoot them at 300yds and shoot over a chrono to get the velocity. I hoping this load will be consistent!!
260 Remington and 123 AMax results
- Thread starter Jumpalot
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captacademy
Well-Known Member
I did not know that the seating depth was that critical in such small amounts!
ZSteinle
Well-Known Member
I would keep messing with the depth of the load but only go 1/2 turn at most. I usually will do 15 thous at a time and once i find a length that shoots the best i will adjust it in and out 5 thous and so on until its perfect.
gillettehunter
Well-Known Member
For what it is worth my gunsmith tells me he only goes 3 thousanths between loads during load development. Bruce
i think if you do this you would shoot your barrel out before you find your accuracy node. not to mention waste a bunch of bullets. i follow bergers recomdations with all bullet brands. their method works very well.
Your results are pretty much out in left field according to benchrest theory, having 0.150" Jump and getting better accuracy that jammed... although many 204 rugers and weatherby's enjoy a good running sdtart before engaging the rifling.
Curious if your ammo has runout issues, although if the jammed didn't help, you may be good to go. I do know having poor quality dies can increase misalignment the further you seat a bullet, and sometimes partially starting a bullet, backing the ram off and rotating the case 1/4 turn can reduce runout.
Just some thoughts to consider, and I too would stay at the shorter OAL if she shoots that well.
Allen
Curious if your ammo has runout issues, although if the jammed didn't help, you may be good to go. I do know having poor quality dies can increase misalignment the further you seat a bullet, and sometimes partially starting a bullet, backing the ram off and rotating the case 1/4 turn can reduce runout.
Just some thoughts to consider, and I too would stay at the shorter OAL if she shoots that well.
Allen
I already rotate the shell while seating the bullet. It's been pretty consistent grouping from 3/8" to 1/2". I recently took the expander ball out to see if that would help. At the shortest OAL, it's still right at 3/8" and ES is 5 fps. I think I'll just leave as is. Velocity is 2957 fps. I can live with it since it's pretty much a truck gun and I'll use it mostly for coyotes.
