Savage 111 LRH 6.5-284 Loading Questions

[MachV]

Like you I have the bad habit of starting with max loads and going higher=Bad Idea with cirtain lots of powders.....H1000,Retumbo and R22 are noted for not being as iniform as we would like!
My Shaw barrel and lot of Retumbo maxed out @ 57.5! I had to pull everything above it and start lower trying to find accuracy. Got some 140 grain Amaxes loaded up and will go out shortly to check results.
Basicly your getting more velocity than is common, if the accuracy load of Retumbo ends up between 2925 and 3000 your good to go. You cant miss them fast enough and they aint giveing Bergers,powder or primers away these days. I usually figure an MOA group @ 100 will get it done to 600 so if the group is 3/4" all the better.

 

[Nimrodmar10]

You cant miss them fast enough and they aint giveing Bergers,powder or primers away these days. I usually figure an MOA group @ 100 will get it done to 600 so if the group is 3/4" all the better.

What you say is true. But being an old Bench Rest shooter, it's hard for me to call it good until it's shooting one hole groups.

 

[BrentM]

I found 54 gr of 4831h and 50 gr of 4350h to be on the high end for my rifle. At 52 4831 pressure was noticed and speed was down to 2850. At 57.5 Retumbo pressure was fine. Just a few of my observations.

 

[ShootnMathews]

I just bought this same gun. LRH 6.5 284. I have 2 boxes of 140 vld hunting bergers and 2 pounds of 4831sc. Lapua brass match fed primers. Hope I can get it to shoot well with that. Speed is nice but I want .5 Moa or better. Will keep adjusting til I get it. Will start loading next weekend. Any help with these ingredients will be appreciated. Think I've decided my first test group to be .040 off lands 51 grains. Thoughts??

 

[BrentM]

That sounds like a good place to start to me. How much bullet is the neck might dictate your starting depth. At .050 I was marginal. .075 is about right for a hunting safe load.

 

[Sargesniper]

At 3000 fps your barrel won't last 1000 rounds i'm afraid. Mine went out around 780 rounds. A 30" F-Class Savage. I rebarreld with a 260 Rem. 30" Bartlein. Hoping to get 5K out of this one. I loaded the 260 up to 2980 to see what it would do but quickly backed it down. It holds better at much lower vel. Good luck. ........SEMPER FI

 

[ShootnMathews]

Well I'm more concerned about accuracy than speed. I want to have shooting 1/2 moa or better. Speed does not bother me. The bullet will get there eventually. I just want it to hit my mark when it's there. I have not measured the throat or anything yet so I'm not sure how much will be in the case yet. Hopefully it all works out. I want to get it set up for deer to 1000. I know these barrels aren't known for life, especially at 3000 fps so if it's the most accurate in the high 28's - 2900 would probably be a lot better for life

 

[95huskers]

Nimrod is the HSM load RL22 perhaps? The grains you listed and the velocities you're getting match up with the load I use in my Savage. The only difference is my OAL is much shorter than yours. I'm only able to load at about 3.105 which is .05 off the lands in my rifle. What I've found with the VLDs in this round is that first find a powder that safely gets you your desired velocity and then mess with seating depth to get your accuracy. I noticed a big difference when changing even .02" with the same powder. I'm no professional but this is what worked for me.

 

[BrentM]

Speed has less effect than the actual pressure you have to generate to get it there. HV 100 is a powder that might also give higher speeds without pressure issues. Might look into that powder at some point.

 

[BrentM]

I was thinking about this and so far I have talked to read about 5 different savage owners and all seem to be prefering .070- .085 off the lands. Yours may be different though. My thoughts were simply to ensure the bullet seating depth was going to work for hunting conditions and start from there. I really don't want my bullets being knocked out of alignment while magazine feeding, etc. I also noticed considerably more consistency with the concentricity guage when seating deeper. If at 040 off you have plenty of bullet in the neck then by all means try it. If not, just jump to 075 and work from there. 075 100 125. Somewhere you find a good set up I would imagine. Later, once wolf hunting is over, I will mess around with fine tuning the seating depth and neck sized cases. I have about 20 more unfired cases I am working with and would imagine this rifle is going to tighten up the groups even more.

 

[ShootnMathews]

Apparently my savage lrh 6.5x284 throat is much shorter than everyone else's. measures 3.02" to the lands. So I loads some test groups at 3", 2.98", and 2.95" with 50 and 51 grains of 4831sc. Haven't had time to shoot them yet. Getting way too much snow.

 

[Greyfox]

Apparently my savage lrh 6.5x284 throat is much shorter than everyone else's. measures 3.02" to the lands. So I loads some test groups at 3", 2.98", and 2.95" with 50 and 51 grains of 4831sc. Haven't had time to shoot them yet. Getting way too much snow.

That's surprising, most are 3.19"

 

[Sargesniper]

Well I'm more concerned about accuracy than speed. I want to have shooting 1/2 moa or better. Speed does not bother me. The bullet will get there eventually. I just want it to hit my mark when it's there. I have not measured the throat or anything yet so I'm not sure how much will be in the case yet. Hopefully it all works out. I want to get it set up for deer to 1000. I know these barrels aren't known for life, especially at 3000 fps so if it's the most accurate in the high 28's - 2900 would probably be a lot better for life

Well i would imagine a 139 gr. Lapua or 142 gr. SMK with h-4350,H-4831 or RE-19 is about as far as you want to look. those two bullets and those three powders served me 1/2" to 1/4" 5 shot groups @ 100 yds. I seriously doubt you will get more than 1200 rds. of accuracy life out of the 6.5x284. If you get to that point,(and you will), take a look at rebarreling to the 260 Rem. 5000-6000 accuracy is possible. I recomend BARTLEIN Barrels with no less than 8.5 twist and 28-30" long. You will get the velocity you are striving for and the accuracy. Good luck and good shooting. ............SEMPER FI!

 

[ShootnMathews]

I appreciate the help. Don't believe I'll ever wear the barrel out. I'm figuring could be as many as 300 shots to get it shooting the way I want and lined up. And I'll shoot it some for fun. Probably 50 rounds a year. At that rate it should last a pretty good while. When its burned out ill probably just by a whole new gun cuz it'll prob be beat up from years of use. We hunt a lot here with not a lot of shooting. Eastern totes are hard to call so maybe 10 yote shots a year. 5 deer. 40-50 fun shooting. That's many years of use to hit 1000 rounds.