Advice for Reloading for 270 Winchester

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Harvey Manfrenjensenden

Harvey Manfrenjensenden

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Hello all! I'm new to this forum, or any forum of this genre for that matter so I apologize for my 1st post being that of a technical assistance type. My name is Chris, and I'm a husband, father of a 7 year old girl, and 4 year old boy both of which enjoy shooting, archery, fishing, camping and Jeeping as much as I do. (I lucked out, for now anyways)

I've been reloading for a little over a year, and there has been much to learn. Up until this point I've only reloaded for .223, and being that my particular rifle is a 16" chrome lined bore, when I found a pet load that gave me 1-1.5" MOA I was happy. With my .270, I'd like to hone that down quite a bit more if possible. I welcome all advice and generally feel that I'm quite open to suggestions and comments while I'm learing this interesting hobby, so I thank you all in advance for taking the time to read this and offer any suggestions that you may have regarding this subject!

Here is what I need advice on. As of yesterday, I've fired off my 1st batch of reloaded .270 Winchester cartridges, and I'm a little curious about the results. Here are some of my technical details regarding my loads:

- Rifle is a Ruger American, .270. 22" Barrel, 1:10 twist. I've confirmed that the barrel is free-floating by having to remove some of the barrel channel material, but I have not bedded the action. I am not impressed with the plastic stock that it came with, so I'm saving the bedding project until my laminate Boyd's stock arrives. I know that the RA is not generally regarded as the bench shooters dream rifle, but it's what I have for now so I plan to make the most of it.

- Virgin Hornady .270 Winchester brass - all reloads were from the same lot
- Hornady Interlock 140 grain BTSP
- H4831sc
- CCI #200 Primers

I first FL resized all of by brass, and trimmed to a length of 2.535". I did have a little bit of variation in my shoulder measurements, of approximately 0.001-0.0013 and I think that was due to not properly lubing the inside of the case necks so the expander ball was tugging on them on extraction a little bit. But being that these were primarily to develop some fire-formed brass, and the variations were still under that of some other fire-formed Winchester/Remington brass that I had, I didn't worry about it. All of the brass weighed in within 1% of each other and the bullet was not crimped.

I found the distance from the base to the lands of my rifle using a Hornady OAL guage, and I took a sampling of 20 bullets and developed an average base-ogive height, then went 0.0018 shorter to play it on the safe side. I disregarded my manual(s) minimum OAL as I was seating off the lands and each round chambered nicely into my rifle. (This is absolutely an area that I could check into, with adjusting that seating distance off the lands) Bullets all weighed within 1% of each other as well.

Although this was new brass, I went ahead and deburred all the flash holes using a Redding uniforming tool, and checked the primer pockets for uniformity. They were pretty good.

All of my charges were hand done using manual methods on a digital scale, and coming up to my charge weight using a trickler, so I am in the 99.99% confidence range as far as the accuracy of my charges. I started at the minimum load using 3 reloading manuals as a reference, and loaded up to 0.5 grains under maximum in 0.5 grain increments

I then checked each round for bullet concentricity and made adjustments to about 10 out of the 40 that I had to get them within 0.0005 concentric.

When I fired these rounds, I had two misfires, which was disturbing for me. I haven't run into that yet so it got under my skin rather quickly. Both primers have a good size dimple in them, so I don't fully understand what happened.

I've attached a photo of my results, and we'll get to my point here. This was on a 62 degree afternoon, a very slight 2-3mph wind coming out of the SW. These were 4-shot groups fired in the 95% confidence range of my ability at 100yds. I say 95% because I did get on the range fairly late in the afternoon and they were about to close up, so I did feel a tiny bit rushed on a couple of these, but not nearly rushed enough for some of the results that you'll see in the photo. (Ignore the two shots with the red "x" on them. Those weren't part of these groups) I started off with 5 shots of some factory ammunition to warm and foul the barrel a little bit... Each group was marginally "okay" and a couple groups were very promising. That being said, each group for the most part has an absolute horrible flyer associated with it. At the end of my 100yd testing, for giggles I took the remainder of cartridges I had left over from my 4-shot groups and fired them at 200, 300 and 500 yds. I put each one of them on steel at that range, so I definitely think that I'm onto something here. Granted, those steel plates are about 24-30" in diameter, and I have no idea where the bullet actually hit on them :p

SO - (after my long winded rant) what do you guys think? Am I expecting too much of these reloads with the brass not being fire-formed, or am I just seeing the accuracy of this particular rifle in its current state here?

I thank you again for taking the time to read this and advising me on this.

Have a great day all,
 

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Load some more at the 55.5gr and start backing off the seating depth in .01 or .005 increments to see if it tightens the groups up. Its that or possibly one of the components the gun doesnt like? Im new to reloading but I would try playing with the seating depth before changing components. Someone with alot more experience can give a better idea.

The 2 misfires could be from faulty primers? I havent seen this yet. I seat all my primers to .005 depth.
 
Both primers have a good size dimple in them, so I don't fully understand what happened.
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That is almost certainly caused by not seating the primers to the bottom of the pocket.

The primer has to be seated all the way in the cup to preload the anvil against the primer compound.
Regardless of what that measurement is.

If it isn't seated fully, you will get misfires on the first primer hit.

rc
 
Thanks! I'll try that. My vote was for 55.5 or the 56 for sure, and yes. A component that my rifle doesn't agree with is most certainly a possibility. This post "may" be a little preemptive being that I haven't experimented with other components, but I felt I was off to a fairly good start with what I had but you never know with such limited data such as mine.

Based on my calcs, my primers should be right in there at the .005 depth but I will double check those two to see if I missed something. They had the same dimple as the other cartridges that fired, so being faulty is plausible.

What I may try to do as well is adjust the charge weight of those two in 0.1 increments as well to see if that tightens things up, but what really threw me off with the groups that had some promise was why each group had one flyer that was 1.5-2" out, that was just weird. 57.5 was looking really good and then that one went Southbound on a Northbound highway haha
 
Thank you rcmodel, I appreciate the avenue to look down. It "felt" like I seated them down to a stopping point, but I am not beyond that of making an error. I will pay a lot more attention to that on my next batch. I honestly did not know that. I've read a quite a bit on primer seating depths, and pocket uniforming but this is one of the primary reasons I'm now looking for the advice of those more knowledgeable than I.
 
I don't think those dud primers were seated too shallow. If the dent is at least .020" deep, that'll fire them. They have to be seated to touch the pocket bottom to dent that deep. This doesn't happen very often.

However, if the cases they're in were full length sized too much setting the fired case shoulder back too far and the chamber is near max head space along with the firing pin not sticking out of the bolt face at least .055", the primers may not have been dented enough.

They may have been contaminated by water or some other substance. Oil or case lube, for example.
 
All of the advice I can give on .270 win is to use 4350 and 130 gr bullets and never ever try anything else. Ever. NEVER.

Seriously, every rifle I have heard, read, seen, etc liked 4350 and 130 gr bullets. My rem 700 is around 2500 shots and it certainly likes that combination.

Looking at your loads you are definately onto something. I would be looking at each shot individually at this point since you have a pattern of a single flier. My guess would be that it's either the first or last shot of a string and thermal growth of the action and barrel and shifting it around.
 
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get some factory ammo and set a baseline for your group size. i would also switch to five shot groups to get a better idea which load is best.

murf
 
Thank you Bart, I've attached a photo of the two that did not fire. Let me know what you think after seeing them. The primers were set using an RCBS Rockchucker, and I generally try to give enough of a pull on the handle that leaves me very little uncertainty, but as I said before, I could have messed up somewhere along the line.
 

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That's a good idea Murf, I'll try a 5 shot group. Some say 3, others say 5 and I tend to go with averages, lol. As far as factory ammo goes, I've tried Remington and Winchester, in 130 & 150 grain and a couple variants of styles, all of which I could do no better than 1.5-2 MOA. This was over the course of about 100rds through this rifle. I don't have those targets anymore, but I do have the information written down in my reloading binder that I keep track of this stuff in. It's one of many things that piqued my curiousity with reloading. I just kept telling myself, "it's gotta have better capabilities than that" :)
 
Listen to Murph! Try factory ammo. See if it's your loads or
your rifle. The .270 is an accurate caliber. I have seen lots
of them shoot really well.

Zeke
 
Thanks Zeke, my last two posts above describe my personal experience with factory loads with what's commonly available around here. The two holes in my 1st pic with red x's on them show one brand of factory stuff. I can tell you that the brands/weights/styles I have tried come out around the same.
 
Harvey,

The .270 is a cartridge that I have found easy to load for. I load for my brother's Parker Hale, a friend's Ruger 77R, my Ruger #1 and my Tikka T3 lite - all are .270 Winchesters. All like IMR4831 and 140 grain bullets. Particularly Berger and Sierra.

First off, I will state that I know that all of the above rifles are properly bedded and all have free-floated barrels.

My load development regimen is slightly different than most, but it saves me a lot of money on components.
I like to start with the bullet manufacturer's manual.
First time around, I'll load 5 loads of a recipe in 1 grain increments starting with the manual's starting charge weight and with the recommended COL listed in the book. Two reasons for this: 1) this is what COL the loads in the manual were developed with, 2) I know it will fit in my gun's magazine.
I load seven rounds of each of these five loads and fire 2-three shot groups of each in a "Round Robin" exercise. - That is one three shot group of each load progressively, then do it again. Then measure the groups out-to-out, deduct the bullet diameter, and average the groups of each load. One or two loads will probably stand out. If there is considerable room by the manual's listed loads for hotter powder charges (at least 2 grains in my world) then ill do the same test again with the hotter loads on a different day.
Oh! the SEVENTH round, you ask? It is for sighting. I use a target for specifically proving to myself that the gun is zeroed for this test and shoot it before running the load groups. I shoot load #1, round #7. Adjust scope as necessary to center its impact. Fire load #2, round #7. Adjust windage as necessary only unless elevation is way out of line. I fire each of the remaining loads, rounds #7. Each time I fire a load's round #7, I carefully check for signs of excessive pressure. I.E. Sticky bolt lift, flattened primers, cratered primers, etc. Any sign of high pressure, and the remaining rounds at that level and above go home with me and get pulled.

When I have narrowed this recipe down to a single powder charge as the best and the one I want to use, I Then proceed into bullet seating depth using the same regimen. That is, 2-three round groups in a Round Robin but using the Berger Bullets' recommended procedure.
[http://www.bergerbullets.com/gettin...and-accuracy-from-vld-bullets-in-your-rifle/]
Chances are, by the end of this test, you will have your recipe locked down. I have always been able to find a load that will shoot MUCH better than MOA.

For what it is worth, my most accurate load (so far) for my Tikka in .270 is quite mild, but it will shoot 2-3/4" 5-shot groups at 500 meters. This is my load for Metallic Silhouette matches. Mild in recoil, but scary accurate for an out-of-the-box Tikka.
It is: Remington brass FL resized and fully prepped and trimmed to 2.540", 140 grain Berger VLD, 53.0 grains IMR4831, CCI-200 primer, COL: 3.272". NOTE: My COL is determined by how far off the lands the bullet is according to my RCBS Precision Mic. In my particular rifle, this distance is 0.140" as measured using the Precision Mic. (Once the brass had been fired in my gun, I adjusted my FL die so that the shoulder is set back 0.002" - 0.003" as measured with the PM.) I anneal the cases after every fourth firing to keep them from getting brittle.

After all the pieces come together, and it is much faster than it sounds, I will fire three ten-round groups over the chronograph allowing the barrel to cool between 5-round strings. The ten-round groups will give you a picture of your "worst case scenario" and the three ten-round strings over the chronograph will give an accurate snap-shot of the consistency of the load.

Some rifles prefer less jump than others. Some might prefer to have the bullet jammed into the lands slightly. Only experimentation will tell what your particular gun's preference is.

I hope this is helpful.

ETA: Something often overlooked when working up a load is the scope on the rifle. I prefer to use my 36x Weaver target scope when possible. (A heartbeat can become distracting, believe it or not.)
However, I have found a 14x or 16x scope to be adequate. A 3-9X variable just does not allow a body to see well enough to do his best shooting, even at 100 yards.
 
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I have had the best results with 130 gr. ballistic tips and 4350. My Remington likes H4350. I tried some AA4350 in my son's Ruger M77, and it was fantastic. 3 shots at 100 yards less than a half inch. Next time I will try it in my Remington.
 
I assume you meant to type that you were setting your bullets 0.018" off the lands instead of 0.0018". If so that is near where I usually start for my load workup too, once I find a promising powder load, I'll play with seating depth. That said, I've found that hornady bullets often like to be seated a little deeper, and I've had some loads that were ok tighten up a lot with a deeper seat. It's also worth mentioning that if you're not seeing pressure signs, you still have some headroom to move your charges up, as the max for that bullet /powder in the Hornady manual is 59.9 gr.

As Bart, said, you might be over sizing for your chamber if you're getting duds. Also, if you used a spray lube, you may not have given it enough time to evaporate before seating your primers.

If all else fails, 130gr SST's over 54.3 gr H4350 (work up to it) has given me great accuracy in a couple rifles, one would regularly shoot in the 0.5's for 5 shot groups with that load.
 
Hello GtScotty, your assumption is correct. Thanks. My books state 58 as a max load, but I've noticed that there is quite a bit of variance between manuals. It's a little frustrating sometimes. There's definitely a lot of room for play here and I'm probably going to have to mess around quite a bit until I find the load that works best in my rifle.

I don't "think" I'm oversizing my brass, they were only a few thousands shorter than my once-fired brass that I have on the shelf but maybe that few thousands makes a big difference?

I can positively tell you it wasn't the lube, I tumble all of my brass after lubing/resizing and trimming then they go through a drying regimen.

Let me ask you this, could handling of the primer with bare hands cause an issue? With my Lee press, I have a primer feed, and with my RCBS all I have is those primer tubes. The large primers didn't seem to want to work in the large tube, so I was hand placing them onto the primer plug for seating. My hands were clean and dry, but could that have a detrimental effect?
 
I have an older Savage and it likes Speer 130 grain Grand Slams and IMR 4350 best. Also good results with those bullets and Ramshot Hunter as well. Mine seems to shoot most accurately with 130 grain bullets in general.

If you try those two rounds that did not fire and they do fire on the second attempt the primer was not seated deep enough no matter what your measurements were.
 
I have a book that says 58gr as well, but when i was working up pretty much the same load as you, i was using a chrono, and didn't get up in the common published max velocity range for 140's until i got close to 60gr.

If you're only pushing back the shoulder 2-3 thou, you should be fine.

I have handled many primers, and never had one fail to go off that I could trace to that cause ( I've had still wet lube solution kill one, which is why i mentioned that) . Unless the anvil fell out while you were handling it, i don't think that's your cause.


Maybe i missed it, but how long did you wait between shots? Both of the .270's I've had heated barrels pretty quickly. If you're letting the barrel get hot, and the flyer tends to be on your last shot, that would be a good indicator that you need to let the gun cool more during groups.
 
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You mentioned you had free floated the bbl and not bedded the action pending the installation of a new stock. My limited experience with rugers is that free floating will tend to open groups up a bit. I've always tolerated that because I was using wood stocked rifles. Since wood moves with temperature and humidity, any bbl contact will move groups around because of pressure on the bbl. Free floating will open groups up, but they should be more consistent if the weather changes. I'm not sure about plastic or composite stocks and how they move with weather.

The bedding is another issue, i understand why you're waiting, but I'm not sure I'd do a bunch of load development until yo either bed you're current stock, or get the replacement stock.

How confident are you that the scope is mounted solidly? I swapped scopes on a rifle the other day that was shooting all over the page. Scope rings were tight, the ring to base screws were tight, the base screws were finger tight.
 
Got it Gtscotty, I do not have a chronograph, up until this point I've been basing my reloads off of pressure signs and accuracy. Based on what I'm reading by others as well as your advice, I think it may be worth the investment.

As I mentioned in my first post, I was a little rushed so I'm sure that the cooling period I was giving between group was not optimal. I had about an hour and some change to get through 40 rds, so I was only able to get roughly 5 minutes of cooling between groups. As far as each shot per group, I was cranking those out fairly quickly pretty much only taking time for target acquisition and relaxing prior to each shot to try and make each one count. By the time I got to my last group of 57.5, it was hard to see the target through the scope due to the heat waves coming of the barrel.

I have this feeling like the more I talk about this, I'm answering some of my own questions/concerns lol
 
Thanks John 3921, the RA comes from the factory "free-floated" but this composite stock is just junk. The entire left side of the barrel channel was touching the barrel, and you could move it away from the barrel with light thumb pressure from the right side. No matter how I would re-seat the action when torqueing the action screws, that left side kept touching so I had to widen the left side of the barrel channel a bit.

I was just thinking about that last night too! I may be wasting some of my time here with a substantial change pending with regards to my rifle. I may hold off as you suggested then come back after the new stock is on and implement the advice that I've been fortunate to receive from you guys.

As far as the scope, I'm pretty confident it's solid. I've lapped the scope rings, and every screw on the ring base, rings and scope mounts is torqued to 35 inch lbs, and have Loctite 242 (blue) on them. The scope is indexed to the rifle and I have witness marks on the scope body/rings that help to tell me if there is some movement. I'm not opposed to double checking though!
 
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