Just ordered some 138gr. Hammer HHT for my .308 Win

[FireFlyFishing]

Trigger pulled.

Which projectiles did you end up buying?

 

[Eric H]

Which projectiles did you end up buying?

138HHT

 

[jlarose85]

Nice. I ordered some of tge hybrid cases from American reloading. I'm going to lean on them a little and see what a 308 will do.

138HHT

What powder are you planning on trying? My pound of Benchmark should be here tomorrow. Hope to get some loaded up and tested in the next couple weeks.

 

[Eric H]

What powder are you planning on trying? My pound of Benchmark should be here tomorrow. Hope to get some loaded up and tested in the next couple weeks.

I have benchmark, varget and tac. Just looked at my powder inventory and currently have 43 different powders. I'll find something if neither of those work.

 

[Eric H]

I have benchmark, varget and tac. Just looked at my powder inventory and currently have 43 different powders. I'll find something if neither of those work.

May break open my SRP brass for this.

 

[DustThroughaFan]

What powder are you planning on trying? My pound of Benchmark should be here tomorrow. Hope to get some loaded up and tested in the next couple weeks.

I tried varget. I ended up at 45gr, which is about the norm for that combo. I loaded up to 48gr and really didn't see that much return on investment. 47gr was actually faster than 48 by 37 fps. I may revisit it with 155's. Anybody got a favorite recipe to share ?

I loaded 178 eld-m's this time around with varget, velocities listed below.
43gr- 2562fps
44gr- 2628
45gr-2696
46gr-2699
47gr-2755
48gr-2718

This was just loaded one round each to look for pressure. The steel case head obviously isn't going to show anything but the primers didn't really look bad at all at 48. No sticky or stiff bolt lift. This brass came primed, so I have no clue what primer it was. I liked where 45 landed on target so I loaded five more of them. Velocity averaged 2656.1, es-22.6,sd-8.1

Then I loaded five with the same load and br2's. I had a couple flyers in this group. One (shot #2) was on me but but shot #4, I'm not sure. Five shots averaged 2657.6, es- 28.7,sd- 10.3

I loaded twenty more with the br2's and shot 600 yards with that load on a crazy windy day. 5-18 mph right to left for the first 200 yards then at 600 it was blowing left to right. 14 moa to get on at 600. The sd from that group was actually better than the 10.3 from the first five the day before. Lost that data though due to the Garmin wigging out. Not sure what happened there.

As I'm looking over targets while I type this, I'm thinking I may revisit 47gr and see what happens. If it works, that would give me 100fps over what I'm getting now.

Rifle was my trued 700 with a 1:9 lilja finished at 20"
Everything was shot suppressed.

 

[jlarose85]

I tried varget. I ended up at 45gr, which is about the norm for that combo. I loaded up to 48gr and really didn't see that much return on investment. 47gr was actually faster than 48 by 37 fps. I may revisit it with 155's. Anybody got a favorite recipe to share ?

I loaded 178 eld-m's this time around with varget, velocities listed below.
43gr- 2562fps
44gr- 2628
45gr-2696
46gr-2699
47gr-2755
48gr-2718

This was just loaded one round each to look for pressure. The steel case head obviously isn't going to show anything but the primers didn't really look bad at all at 48. No sticky or stiff bolt lift. This brass came primed, so I have no clue what primer it was. I liked where 45 landed on target so I loaded five more of them. Velocity averaged 2656.1, es-22.6,sd-8.1

Then I loaded five with the same load and br2's. I had a couple flyers in this group. One (shot #2) was on me but but shot #4, I'm not sure. Five shots averaged 2657.6, es- 28.7,sd- 10.3

I loaded twenty more with the br2's and shot 600 yards with that load on a crazy windy day. 5-18 mph right to left for the first 200 yards then at 600 it was blowing left to right. 14 moa to get on at 600. The sd from that group was actually better than the 10.3 from the first five the day before. Lost that data though due to the Garmin wigging out. Not sure what happened there.

As I'm looking over targets while I type this, I'm thinking I may revisit 47gr and see what happens. If it works, that would give me 100fps over what I'm getting now.

Rifle was my trued 700 with a 1:9 lilja finished at 20"
Everything was shot suppressed.


View attachment 568394

On your tests with Varget, was it with the 138 HHT's? If so, what were your velocities with the charge weights you tried?

Good to see those kind of velocities on the 178's as well with a short barrel. My barrel is 17" and I need to start working on a load for Africa with 180 A-Frames. Hoping to get around 2550-2600fps out of those.

 

[DustThroughaFan]

On your tests with Varget, was it with the 138 HHT's? If so, what were your velocities with the charge weights you tried?

Good to see those kind of velocities on the 178's as well with a short barrel. My barrel is 17" and I need to start working on a load for Africa with 180 A-Frames. Hoping to get around 2550-2600fps out of those.

No, I've actually never shot hammers. Heard good things but never tried them. I'm actually not even sure how I ended up in this thread lol. I guess I wasn't paying attention. Sorry about the long post totally unrelated to the main topic.

 

[Eric H]

Well, went to the range and played with the 138HHTs. Don't remember the FPS but was around 2900. Running 45.9Gr of TAC in Federal Brass. The 20 inch barrel restricting speed. 12 twist.

 

[FireFlyFishing]

Well, went to the range and played with the 138HHTs. Don't remember the FPS but was around 2900. Running 45.9Gr of TAC in Federal Brass. The 20 inch barrel restricting speed. 12 twist.

Looks like a good hunting load to me!

 

[Eric H]

Looks like a good hunting load to me!

Yes indeed. Still need to go back and prove it. Used some old Federal brass to work up the load. Tempted to break open my 308 Palma brass.

 

[FireFlyFishing]

Yes indeed. Still need to go back and prove it. Used some old Federal brass to work up the load. Tempted to break open my 308 Palma brass.

Seems like no better time. I'm using Fed GMM brass as well.

 

[Eric H]

Seems like no better time. I'm using Fed GMM brass as well.

Yep, only have about 25 pieces.

 

[Rick Richard]

And Hammer has a 12% savings going on right now.