6.5x284 Issues! Help!

[stevotary]

I have a savage weather warrior that I worked up a load for that shoots clovers at 100 yards. Literally about .25 MOA. Throws darts at 200 yards. When I walk it out to 500, 700, 800 my groupings are all over the place. Zero wind. It's crazy! Can't understand how it can group good at close range, but not far. It's about 2moa+ groupings at long range if I'm lucky. Equipment: Savage Weather Warrior 6.5x284 with a Huskemaw scope. Hand loaded Bergers 140gr.

Anyone else ever experienced anything like this?

 

[Deleted member 46119]

Which Berger?
COAL and distance to lands

 

[stevotary]

Which Berger?
COAL and distance to lands

140 gr hunting vld I have them just barley off lands. Shoots clovers at 100 and about 14" group at 700. Makes no since. 0 wind

 

[Deleted member 46119]

Darn, it would be one I don't know well enough to say what I would do.
Perhaps it's time to work on the COAL.
You can follow Berger's guidelines on seating depth. It here as a sticky.

140 gr hunting vld I have them just barley off lands. Shoots clovers at 100 and about 14" group at 700. Makes no since. 0 wind

I was having this with my 300Wby but worked on very small steps in the charge and found it.

 

[Greyfox]

If your groups are tight at 200 yards, it is unlikely that your load is the problem. Make sure your scope is plum. Are you using a scope level? Also, make sure that your target acquisition at long range has your eye focused on the crosshair only. In my experience this is the most common cause of long range accuracy deterioration. Just some thoughts.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

If your groups are tight at 200 yards, it is unlikely that your load is the problem. Make sure your scope is plum. Are you using a scope level? Also, make sure that your target acquisition at long range has your eye focused on the crosshair only. In my experience this is the most common cause of long range accuracy deterioration. Just some thoughts.

Good on ya.
I forgot to ask about the obvious.

 

[RHC]

Just throwing ideas out there but is the rifle riding the bags like butter, not hopping around and out of place; and are the bags inline with the target? Second thought is, those bullets might be out of the node past 200 because it might be that the bullet "truly stabilizes around 325-350 yards.

My advice would be to work up a load at say 400-500 yards then go back to 100/200 and see how it does. That's just my $0.02.


PS-Also forgot, don't rule out copper fouling. In my experience, too much copper deposit can lead to lower precision. It all just depends on the barrel and the load.

 

[stomp442]

What powder are you using? I ran into this with R17. Grouped great at 100 - 200 but got way worse the farther I went out. Finally narrowed it down to the powder as my other two pet loads of H4831 and Retumbo ran fine out to 800 holding half moa or better.