Like many on here I've been reloading for quite a awhile. Over the years you vett and adopt practices that reliably produce consistent results, but every now and then things happen and humbly remind you why you sometimes have to do all the things.
Old Dog Same Tricks- Brass, Powder Charges, Seating Depths, and Broken Scopes
- Thread starter Chase723
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And......?
My phone glitched and published this before I finished writing and then deleted everything I wrote…painful. I'll finish the write up tomorrow. It's been a saga with a 338 Edge barrel that I had made…seems to be shooting wonderful now but holy cow. Hopefully it'll be somewhat insightful/helpful.
Hopefully, this will work and not get deleted before I can post it this time. It's long but hopefully informative to people just getting into this and maybe some of you guys can relate. As I was saying, like many on here I've been reloading for quite a awhile. Over the years you vett and adopt practices that reliably produce consistent results, but every now and then things happen and humbly remind you why you sometimes have to do all the things.
For the past couple of years I've been shooting 500-~1400 yards on a relatively routine basis. I've recently had the opportunity to start shooting out to 2850, but since it's not something that I'll do but maybe 2-3x per year I didn't really want to build a whole new rifle on either a Lapua or Cheytac based action. I crunched some numbers and it looked like the 338 Edge shooting the 285gr Badlands ICBM2 stood a good chance of making it there before going subsonic. Serendipitously, it was also the largest cartridge I could shoot on a standard magnum bolt face in a short action that I could single feed in the port and eject a spent case. Perfect. So, I had LRI spin me up a 1:7 twist 32" K&P barrel for my TL3 short action and decided to give it a try.
Brass issues: As luck would have it, ADG had just made a bunch of 338 Edge brass so I bought 100 pieces. From everything I had heard & read about I thought they would work great. I measured my COAL to the lands and then started at 20 thou off. Quickload said I should be able to shoot up to 99gr N570. Given that ADG is thicker than most I decided to start at 86gr to shoot a pressure ladder. Right out of the gate it was a problem. While I had no other signs of pressure even at 86 grains I got bolt click. At 88 gr I started to get a stiff bolt lift and at 90gr it didn't want to eject a cartridge. What the heck. I thought maybe my chamber was a little too tight at ~ 200 from the base so I called LRI and sent it back with a couple pieces of brass. They put the reamer back in but it didn't cut any material so they polished the chamber again and were able to get it to shoot a 300gr Berger w/ 90gr H1000 and the bolt reportebly flipped right open. Upon receiving it back, I was able to now shoot up to 97gr before reaching max pressure. Little ejector mark. Slightly stiff bolt lift.
For the most part, I subscribe to the way Scott Satterlee does load development. I know it doesn't work for everyone but it's always worked for me. I've adopted a couple new things that he also does but with the equipment that I've used shooting velocity ladders has worked well. Usually I end up with something that will shoot 1/4-1/3 MOA in 15-20 rounds. So I shot a ladder, over my MagnetoSpeed V3 and then repeated it to see if what I was seeing was indeed repeatable, which it seemed to be. I had "flat spots" at 93.5gr, 95.5gr, and right near max at 96.9gr. I loaded 6 of each and went out and shot at 300...2-4 MOA for all groups. I wasn't expecting that at all. So, I shot a more refined ladder in .3gr increments. "Flat spots" were essentially the same but I honed in on what I thought again should be the "spot" to start and shot 3 more of each and again terrible. I'm used to a bad load being like 3/4- 1.5 MOA, but 4 seemed unbelievable. I also noticed this time though I that started to get a firm bolt lift at 95.5gr. No ejector mark though..weird. I started to think maybe I had a bad barrel (or at least one that doesn't like monos), maybe it was a seating depth issue, maybe my brass was bad, or maybe my scope was broken...or maybe it was a combination thereof. I wrote off the scope being broken for now since it's a ZCO and they're incredible. I cleaned the barrel and then loaded up some 230gr ELDX w/ 90gr N570. The 230s shoot 1/3 MOA at 500 w/ my 338 SS so I knew that bullet shot well. Given the twist rate I was concerned that if I shot them too fast they might come apart which is why I arbitrarily started low at 90gr...well it shot a 1 hole group. The barrel could clearly shoot.
At this point I had shot a decent number of rounds through it so I cleaned it again just to be safe, annealed and prepped my brass and then loaded up those same charges at 40 thou off just to see if that would make a difference at all, good or bad to give me some direction. Well 93.5gr shot a ~1/3-1/2 MOA at 300. Looking good. However now I was getting a stiff bolt at 93.5gr? Could pushing it in 20 more thou really be the cause of that? I shot 1 round at 95.5 and had an incipient case head separation. Woah. I shot another of 93.5 and got another incipient case head separation. Uh oh. I loaded up and went home and checked my brass. After annealing my shoulder bump apparently went from 3 thou to 8-10 though. Never had that happen but it did this time. At this point I was eliminating variables and since I didn't trust the ADG brass anymore for safety reasons I trashed it and bought some Norma 300 RUM brass. Necked it up and got back to work.
Loaded up some more ladders and coincidentally got the same velocities at the same powder charges as before, which was reassuring. However, I immediately noticed that I was now starting to get classic presentation of pressure. Easy bolt lift, to partial ejector mark, to shiny ejector to stiff bolt. Much better. Brass issue solved.
Broken scope: I loaded up some more of the "flat spot" charges since I was now starting over and shot them...still terrible. But this time I noticed that terrible was extra terrible and my zero seemed to have shifted 1 mil to the right. What? Maybe it was my scope. I then unlocked my turrets and ran them up and down and back to where I started. I noticed that now that my ZCO was making a weird extra clicking noise which wasn't right. I shot another round. Didn't even hit steel. That settled that. Scope was not tracking or holding zero. I went home and put a Steiner M5xi on it and then went back to the range. This time I shot at 100 and the first 2 groups of 93.5gr I shot were 5/8 and 3/4 MOA. I can live with that as a place to start. I called Jeff Huber at ZCO, he sent me a prepaid shipping label, and unfortunately my ZCO is on it's way back to Idaho.
Seating depth: Now that my brass and scope issues were solved, I thought well, now is the time to test seating depth. I went back to shooting at 300 yards. Since 93.5gr had previously shot a fleeting ~1.5" group at 300 previously I decided to use that. I started at the lands and worked back in increments of 5 out to 20 thou. And then at 20 thou I worked back increments of 20 though. 0-5 were 1.5-2 MOA. 10 to 20 thou shot ~5/8-1 MOA. 40 thou was 1.5-2 MOA and then 60 thou shot ~1/2 MOA, 80 thou shot ~1/3 MOA, and 100 shot ~ 1MOA again. Alright, we're finally in business. Shot 2 more groups to confirm. Good to go.
Turns out even with good components, you can't take anything for granted and sometimes you just have to check all the things. However, it pays off when you do.
At the time I built this barrel, I didn't think seriously about the 375 RUM for one reason or another, however after shooting a 37XC I've gotten the itch to move up to the .375 sling a heavier bullet for bigger splashes, better trace, better wind deflection, etc and so after all of that, I've decided that I'm actually going to sell this barrel. If someone is interested, I've got dies, bullets, and load data. Lol. It'll be posted in the PX shortly.
For the past couple of years I've been shooting 500-~1400 yards on a relatively routine basis. I've recently had the opportunity to start shooting out to 2850, but since it's not something that I'll do but maybe 2-3x per year I didn't really want to build a whole new rifle on either a Lapua or Cheytac based action. I crunched some numbers and it looked like the 338 Edge shooting the 285gr Badlands ICBM2 stood a good chance of making it there before going subsonic. Serendipitously, it was also the largest cartridge I could shoot on a standard magnum bolt face in a short action that I could single feed in the port and eject a spent case. Perfect. So, I had LRI spin me up a 1:7 twist 32" K&P barrel for my TL3 short action and decided to give it a try.
Brass issues: As luck would have it, ADG had just made a bunch of 338 Edge brass so I bought 100 pieces. From everything I had heard & read about I thought they would work great. I measured my COAL to the lands and then started at 20 thou off. Quickload said I should be able to shoot up to 99gr N570. Given that ADG is thicker than most I decided to start at 86gr to shoot a pressure ladder. Right out of the gate it was a problem. While I had no other signs of pressure even at 86 grains I got bolt click. At 88 gr I started to get a stiff bolt lift and at 90gr it didn't want to eject a cartridge. What the heck. I thought maybe my chamber was a little too tight at ~ 200 from the base so I called LRI and sent it back with a couple pieces of brass. They put the reamer back in but it didn't cut any material so they polished the chamber again and were able to get it to shoot a 300gr Berger w/ 90gr H1000 and the bolt reportebly flipped right open. Upon receiving it back, I was able to now shoot up to 97gr before reaching max pressure. Little ejector mark. Slightly stiff bolt lift.
For the most part, I subscribe to the way Scott Satterlee does load development. I know it doesn't work for everyone but it's always worked for me. I've adopted a couple new things that he also does but with the equipment that I've used shooting velocity ladders has worked well. Usually I end up with something that will shoot 1/4-1/3 MOA in 15-20 rounds. So I shot a ladder, over my MagnetoSpeed V3 and then repeated it to see if what I was seeing was indeed repeatable, which it seemed to be. I had "flat spots" at 93.5gr, 95.5gr, and right near max at 96.9gr. I loaded 6 of each and went out and shot at 300...2-4 MOA for all groups. I wasn't expecting that at all. So, I shot a more refined ladder in .3gr increments. "Flat spots" were essentially the same but I honed in on what I thought again should be the "spot" to start and shot 3 more of each and again terrible. I'm used to a bad load being like 3/4- 1.5 MOA, but 4 seemed unbelievable. I also noticed this time though I that started to get a firm bolt lift at 95.5gr. No ejector mark though..weird. I started to think maybe I had a bad barrel (or at least one that doesn't like monos), maybe it was a seating depth issue, maybe my brass was bad, or maybe my scope was broken...or maybe it was a combination thereof. I wrote off the scope being broken for now since it's a ZCO and they're incredible. I cleaned the barrel and then loaded up some 230gr ELDX w/ 90gr N570. The 230s shoot 1/3 MOA at 500 w/ my 338 SS so I knew that bullet shot well. Given the twist rate I was concerned that if I shot them too fast they might come apart which is why I arbitrarily started low at 90gr...well it shot a 1 hole group. The barrel could clearly shoot.
At this point I had shot a decent number of rounds through it so I cleaned it again just to be safe, annealed and prepped my brass and then loaded up those same charges at 40 thou off just to see if that would make a difference at all, good or bad to give me some direction. Well 93.5gr shot a ~1/3-1/2 MOA at 300. Looking good. However now I was getting a stiff bolt at 93.5gr? Could pushing it in 20 more thou really be the cause of that? I shot 1 round at 95.5 and had an incipient case head separation. Woah. I shot another of 93.5 and got another incipient case head separation. Uh oh. I loaded up and went home and checked my brass. After annealing my shoulder bump apparently went from 3 thou to 8-10 though. Never had that happen but it did this time. At this point I was eliminating variables and since I didn't trust the ADG brass anymore for safety reasons I trashed it and bought some Norma 300 RUM brass. Necked it up and got back to work.
Loaded up some more ladders and coincidentally got the same velocities at the same powder charges as before, which was reassuring. However, I immediately noticed that I was now starting to get classic presentation of pressure. Easy bolt lift, to partial ejector mark, to shiny ejector to stiff bolt. Much better. Brass issue solved.
Broken scope: I loaded up some more of the "flat spot" charges since I was now starting over and shot them...still terrible. But this time I noticed that terrible was extra terrible and my zero seemed to have shifted 1 mil to the right. What? Maybe it was my scope. I then unlocked my turrets and ran them up and down and back to where I started. I noticed that now that my ZCO was making a weird extra clicking noise which wasn't right. I shot another round. Didn't even hit steel. That settled that. Scope was not tracking or holding zero. I went home and put a Steiner M5xi on it and then went back to the range. This time I shot at 100 and the first 2 groups of 93.5gr I shot were 5/8 and 3/4 MOA. I can live with that as a place to start. I called Jeff Huber at ZCO, he sent me a prepaid shipping label, and unfortunately my ZCO is on it's way back to Idaho.
Seating depth: Now that my brass and scope issues were solved, I thought well, now is the time to test seating depth. I went back to shooting at 300 yards. Since 93.5gr had previously shot a fleeting ~1.5" group at 300 previously I decided to use that. I started at the lands and worked back in increments of 5 out to 20 thou. And then at 20 thou I worked back increments of 20 though. 0-5 were 1.5-2 MOA. 10 to 20 thou shot ~5/8-1 MOA. 40 thou was 1.5-2 MOA and then 60 thou shot ~1/2 MOA, 80 thou shot ~1/3 MOA, and 100 shot ~ 1MOA again. Alright, we're finally in business. Shot 2 more groups to confirm. Good to go.
Turns out even with good components, you can't take anything for granted and sometimes you just have to check all the things. However, it pays off when you do.
At the time I built this barrel, I didn't think seriously about the 375 RUM for one reason or another, however after shooting a 37XC I've gotten the itch to move up to the .375 sling a heavier bullet for bigger splashes, better trace, better wind deflection, etc and so after all of that, I've decided that I'm actually going to sell this barrel. If someone is interested, I've got dies, bullets, and load data. Lol. It'll be posted in the PX shortly.
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Whew! Think I'd take a fishing vacation......
