I was lucky enough to find five boxes of factory Remington 250 Savage from the same lot for fire forming my 250 Savage AI. Accuracy was amazing and I took lost of ground hogs and two white tails during fire forming.
Need reloading help
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thwatson2
Well-Known Member
Get on Nosler website. They have load data with different powders and show best accuracy for each bullet weight. I find this to be a great starting point and Nosler bullets are very good choice.
Varmintnv
Well-Known Member
I have 4 different AI calibers. Find your max load, then try different bullets starting at .01" off the lands. All of mine shoot best at or very near max and most seem to like .01 jump or less. That's how I'd go about it.
Tex_Hunter
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Honestly... with a premium barrel inside of 300yds, you could probably just pick a random charge weight from the book and be accurate enough to hit vitals inside of that range. You are seriously overthinking this.
In all seriousness though, since range is short relatively speaking, just do a simple charge weight ladder centered on the Nosler book "most accurate" charge weight for the powder/bullet, load 1-2rds each in .3gr increments and shoot with the chrono on looking for velocity flat spots. This will identify the most accurate "node" for your rifle/bullet/powder combo. This may not immediately print the tightest group but should have the best SD/ES. The group can be tuned later with seating depth adjustments when you get back.
Once you have that decided, load enough to Chrono 5 and have enough leftover for zeroing the rifle and then hunting with.
When you get back and have more time, thats when you focus on fine tuning for seating depth and ultimate accuracy. Don't try and get it all done in limited time, you'll rush and be unhappy with the results.
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In a time crunch, I like to do at least the following.
Start at a 20 thou jump. Do a pressure workup test. I'd suggest .5 grains with the Magneto attached shooting at the same target with the same POA. Find max and the "safe max". You should see how the rounds group relative to the powder increments (at 100 yards).
For range day two, load 3 rounds at 0.3 grain increments several above and below the safe max. Shoot for best groups at 100 yards. Pick the best one and call it a day. I say this gets most of my guns shooting to 75% of their potential or better.
A third range day would be required to get drop data to confirm velocity.
Start at a 20 thou jump. Do a pressure workup test. I'd suggest .5 grains with the Magneto attached shooting at the same target with the same POA. Find max and the "safe max". You should see how the rounds group relative to the powder increments (at 100 yards).
For range day two, load 3 rounds at 0.3 grain increments several above and below the safe max. Shoot for best groups at 100 yards. Pick the best one and call it a day. I say this gets most of my guns shooting to 75% of their potential or better.
A third range day would be required to get drop data to confirm velocity.
Load in .5 increments min to max, 3 of each. Strap on the magneto speed, and shoot them at paper. Look for velocity flat spots (And ES), and group Size to a lesser extent. For all the rifles I load for, I get POI change with the MS, but group size still gives a pretty good representation. Pick the best of those, if it meets your needs, done. If not quite good enough, load .2 or .3 different in both directions. You could load enough of those at home and seat them at the long end, and only then just bring what you need to seat them deeper at the range If you need to tweak seating depth to get accuracy with your best powder charge. That should get it done in 2 trips.
I had to do this once. Reviewed "most accurate loads" in several manuals and worked up three rounds at each of 12 increments of 0.2 grains. 36 total rounds. Shot for groups, monitored velocities. Shot it "round robin," one string at a time and this narrowed it down really well. Had to tweak later of course but got the job done. Good luck!
Start with the fastest powder in the nosler book or the most accurate.... whichever you are interested in most , shoot a ladder to look fore nodes & find a safe max so you are learning something about the load while finding max. Then load what you need for your hunt at or rite close to max , maybe even rite in the middle of your highest node and go hunting . You could take the worst load you could probably find and still get the job done just fine out to a 300 yard max . So it shoots a 3-4" group instead of 1 1/2"-2" @ 300 yards w/a 40 FPS ES , o well , dead is dead .Don't put extra pressure on yourself to fine a complete load work up by then , I don't think it's necessary, focus on getting all the other details ironed out for your hunt and spend extra time practicing with new above load . Then continue with load development and seating testing when you get home !! Good luck !
redleg1013
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- Jun 23, 2012
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Shoot an Audette ladder, don't worry about the crony until you find your load.
Agree with this ^^^100% unless the OP has unlimited time to dedicate over the next 2 weeks. I've always gotten very frustrated with trying to do a load development on a time crunch. Reloading and rushing just don't mix well. Stay safe and good luck.
Tripodmvr7
Well-Known Member
I can try and help with Quick Load. Give me the following :-
1. Propellant and proposed charge
2. Bullet to be used
3. Barrel measured from muzzle to cocked bolt - cleaning rod works great - mm or inches.
4. Case capacity measured with water - weigh empty case and then fill with water to level with case mouth. Weight in grains and do about five to get average.
5. Planned COL and jump to the lands - with cup and core I suggest 1mm = 0.04inch. This ensures that the cartridge will chamber. With that COL will there be 0,8x.257 of the bullet touching the case neck and the third proviso is will it fit in the magazine.
Give me that info and I will propose a load. That needs to be shot over a chrony (5m from muzzle if normal light chrony). Speed and charge can then be used to calculate a node speed. That will mean another visit to the range to verify the new charge and speed.
1. Propellant and proposed charge
2. Bullet to be used
3. Barrel measured from muzzle to cocked bolt - cleaning rod works great - mm or inches.
4. Case capacity measured with water - weigh empty case and then fill with water to level with case mouth. Weight in grains and do about five to get average.
5. Planned COL and jump to the lands - with cup and core I suggest 1mm = 0.04inch. This ensures that the cartridge will chamber. With that COL will there be 0,8x.257 of the bullet touching the case neck and the third proviso is will it fit in the magazine.
Give me that info and I will propose a load. That needs to be shot over a chrony (5m from muzzle if normal light chrony). Speed and charge can then be used to calculate a node speed. That will mean another visit to the range to verify the new charge and speed.
IMHO, there is much good advice on this site. my preference is:
- I would establish 20 thou off of the lands
- Use Magneto speed to establish nodes with lowest ES-SD
- especially if you can find three loads with low and close ES-SD's, chose the middle one.
- this should give you stability in varying temps.
- once you find your load node
- tune with seating depth in .002-.003 increments.
- if you find three depths with groups you are pleased with,
- chose the closest depth closest to the lands
- the theory here is that if / as you realize throat erosion the next longer depths will still be accurate, or
- to retune you only have to re-seat to fine tune the accuracy seating depth.
- your powder load is still low ES-SD and that should not change.
dwinmeade
Well-Known Member
Lots of good advise, but many are time consuming, which you have a limit on. To me, simple is best when under a time constraint.
If it were me, I'd find me the best Hornady factory load I could find (or two) and start there. Most Hornady factory loads I've tried are at least 1" MOA or sometimes better.
For example...my 243 shoots a Hornady factory round less than 1/4"...(.1796" is the average from the last 3 groups) So why bother to reload this caliber, I said. I reload other calibers to order to get my goal of a 1/4" average, but not my 243.
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skotydontno
Member
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- May 8, 2015
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try the saterlee test, super quick results
