Harvey Manfrenjensenden
Member
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
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,
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
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,