I have a new Fierce Carbon Rogue in 280AI. I’ve shot less than 60 rounds through it, but not happy with my grouping. Today, my five 3 shot groups at 100 yards ranged from .71 to 1.43" at 100 yards. Overall it was just under 1 MOA, but I can shoot better than that. I’m pretty new to reloading, so I’m trying to determine what to adjust. Should I increase the COL for less jump, adjust the powder, etc?
My load information:
Bullet - Hornady XLDX 150 Gr
Brass - Peterson - New…never shot before
Primer - Federal 210
Powder - H4350 54.6 grains (Max 55.6)
COAL - ~3.280 (what was used in the Hornady book)
Ogive - 2.6255 (typically within .0005)
Garmin numbers: I get better Spread and STD DEV with my 308
Hornady has said that the ELD line of bullets really is not very jump sensitive. You might be able to make a slight change by doing a seating depth adjustment. But if it’s a hunting rifle I wouldn’t want to get closer than 0.020 off the lands.
Only way to know though is to try.
If you’re really not happy and want to make a big change though, I would consider switching out to a different powder altogether, or different bullet
I haven’t measured the jump yet, but will in the next day or so. I struggled measuring the jump on my 308. The Hornady OAL tool was somewhat inconsistent. It has some play in it and can give inconsistent measurements.
Any recommendations for a different bullet or powder?
I had trouble at first with that Hornady tool also. I found it if I ignore the instructions and actually put a good bit of force into it, it really tightened up my measurements.
I’m running a 139 lrx over h 4350 with good results. I’ve got another gun that likes a 143 hammer with vv560
If the ELD line isn’t very jump sensitive would I have better luck reducing the powder by .5 grains? I realize every gun is different, but just looking for a best guess before I go start buying different bullets or powder.
I had the best luck with my 308 when I picked the generic settings in the Nosler book with mid level powder. When I starting adjusting seating depth and increasing powder the accuracy got worse.
There are to many variable to play with. Not sure what typically works best.
I recommend switching powders to something with more fill and slightly faster burning. RL26, VV N160 or N555 would be ideal. Copper solids or a different manufacturer might get you more precision (something like a barnes 150gr or a berger). In general when you’re looking for accuracy switching out components works better than trying to fine-tune when something’s obviously not working (like having 1.5" or more ES).
Little Crow Gunworks has a video series that is EXTREMELY informative. I would recommend watching it for his explanation on loads. The part where he shows 100% powder burn was very interesting
Funny you should mention that youtube page. I found it last week and started to watch some videos, but they were so LONG. I’ll try to start carving out some time to watch them. I think the couple I looked at where over an hour + videos.
Its very long, very pedantic, and mostly filler. This is the relevant information from someone with more experience and who’s better at organizing their thoughts:
Thanks for the info. I heard about the GRT software but just wrote it off. Just downloaded it. I appears to have a learning curve, but I bet there are some good youtube tutorials.
Just watched a couple of his precision reloading videos. Those are much shorter than his 7MM series. Good information in them, so I’ll knock them all out over the next week or so. Thanks for the info.
GRT is pretty cool. It looks like I need a slower powder for my 22" barrel. The H4350 burns out all the powder at around 83% case fill and it reports pressure signs at 88%. It looks like my load is about 84.8% full.
N555 on the other hand looks to be a better powder for my gun. A load of 57.5 gets 100% powder burn and 95.1% case fill.
Do you usually have issues with seating depth at 95% case fill?
GRT calculates case fill % based on the case volume of H2O that you enter as well as the COAL that you set.
So if you just leave those two settings at the default, and you are using thicker brass (less volume), and/or seat deeper; then you may actually have a compressed load despite ot saying you are less than 100%.
But if you are truly 95% filled, that shouldn’t be any trouble. Many people like to have a slightly compressed load at 101-103% range.
I will say that on a recent Hornady podcast, the technical guys said they feel that measuring the case H2O is impossible for regular people and regular tools.
While technically that may be true if you require a high degree of precision, you can get a decent measurement using a powder scale and a syringe or something. Take the average of 5 cases and it’ll be closer than the default for your batch of brass. (GRT uses fired case volume)
Also bear in mind that powder fill depends on the density and that can vary greatly depending on a lot of factors. I can get a whole extra grain of most powders into a 308-sized case by using a drop tube.
