stabilizing 160-168 gr bullets with 11 twist barrell

jfreeman

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Jul 15, 2015
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When I built my rifle I was in to speed. I went with a lighter bullet, 140 gr and 11 twist barrell. I'd like to shoot some of the bigger vld bullets.

Anybody tried and had luck with that slow of a twist?
 
I never really did well with better than 140 nos bt's with the 10" twist I had in the last bbl. in 7stw... Depending on conditions it would do either .25" at 100 or 3" at 100 with the 171 barnes match burner... I went back to 140 nos with rl25 pushing it and all was well in the world...
I went with an 8" twist this time and my 7stw is still being a bit difficult with the heavy bullets... I would go with a 140 nos ab or 150 ct and call it a day with your current twist... My 9" twist 7rum does very well with the 168 berger vld match and 180 sierra though...
 
I've always shot the 140bt. That has always been the load. I've killed more animals with this gun then I can count. I'm loading some 140 accubonds now but can't find anymore at this time.

I'm going on an aoudad hunt in the mountains. Shots will probably be 300-500yds. The sheep are very tough so I wanted to shoot a heavier bullet. The 140 accubond shot 4/10 so that looks like what I'll be using.
 
Hunted Aoudad a couple of years ago in Texas. I did bring my own rifle for this hunt but the guide let hunter use his rifle if they didn't want to bring one. He used hornady 139 gr SST for his rifle. Said he had no problem killing them with this set up. Stick with what works best for you. A well placed bullet works best.
 
I went on Berger's website and ran a quick calculation. I used 4000ft, 45F, 3100fps with the 168 Classic Hunter and your 11 twist. It put it right at being just barely stable enough with an SG value of 1.52 (1.5 recommended minimum). With the same parameters and the 168/180 VLD you get into the gray area of being unstable.

If it's higher elevation, a faster MV, or warmer temp this will only help your case.

Might be a nice compromise to accomplish what you're looking for. If you want to try a few of them shoot me a PM and I'll mail you some for a couple bucks. I've been playing with them out of my STW and they are doing pretty well so far. Shot a nice group with them at 300 this weekend in horrible conditions (wind and mirage)
 
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