Range Report, Sunday 06-13-2010

[BabaOriley]

Went out and shot some paper this morning. We've had rain every day lately, and it's forecast to rain through this week too. The ground was soggy and grass wet. I shot from about 8-12:30, trying to take things slow, I used a single shot follower in my AR-15. I think I'm convinced that I shoot better running this rifle semi-auto, because I don't have to reset my cheek weld to load another round and pull the charge handle. Typically, the single shot follower locks the bolt back after each shot, so I could probably learn to load the next round while keeping my cheek weld, but it's probably good practice having to reset for each shot anyway I guess.

This first result from this morning was probably the most productive. I hope it might be a good indicator for some of you on something, because it's pretty much worthless to me. Benchmark powder doesn't have enough ooomph to lock the bolt back after each shot. I thought the velocities were pretty consistent. I found this powder is great to work with while loading.
Benchmark Powder / 39gr Sierra Blitzking


I REALLY am liking Ramshot TAC powder. It meters awesome, and burns clean. It cycles my AR-15 perfectly, and is cheaper than most Hodgdon powders. It also loves pushing the 50 grain Berger. The velocity readings didn't look too good on these loads, but they'd been riding around in my Jeep since about January, freezing/thawing, absorbing humidity... I wanted to shoot these last 6 just to free up the container for South Dakota prairie dog loads. I was pleasantly surprised with this group! (I did shoot this group semi-auto, in about 20 seconds.)


These were the highlights from this range trip, but it started raining again today at 1pm. I made it a point to shoot the (3) ladder tests I had loaded up with Benchmark today, and have (7) ladders ready to shoot. Those consist of Varget pushing the 50gr Berger, 40gr Nosler BT, and 39gr Blitzking, and H4895 pushing the 50gr Berger, 40gr Nosler BT, 39gr Blitzking, and 34gr Dogtown/Varmint Nightmare. Those will have to wait until I get back from SD now. Should be dryer and warmer out there after this week.

This one was 10 shots of 28.3gr TAC pushing the 32gr V-Max at 100 yards this morning, shot pretty much rapid fire. I don't know what I did on the flyer. I think it was the 2nd shot.

[Jim White]

Even when it rains its fun. I started playing with different types of testing starting with one called OCW (optimal Charge Weight) with my 6mm and thus far it seems to work quite well. Here's a link if you're interested;

http://optimalchargeweight.embarqspace.com/

One question though, I couldn't help but notice that the loads you listed were under the recommended charge weight for a 40 grain bullet (based on the load data under "Hodgdon" listed at the top of this page). I'm going to the range today and retesting some "Benchmark" and I had to do a recheck to make I wasn't over charged.

JIm

[BabaOriley]

...the loads you listed were under the recommended charge weight for a 40 grain bullet

Sorry, and thanks or catching that Jim. I transposed the charges from the wrong part of the same spreadsheet I had a ladder for the 50 grain Berger on. Those charge weights were for the 50 grain ladder test. I've now corrected the numbers in the graphic above.

I have to get to bed here, but will read that link you posted. Thanks



One thing I should have posted, and why I didn't post results of all 3 ladder tests I shot yesterday, was I think the 5-10 variable breeze from my 8:00 during the whole session made the results pretty much unusable. I never paused to wait for the wind. I just shot. I showed up to the range with ladder tests loaded for Benchmark, Varget, and H4895. I only shot the Benchmark because I knew my AR-15 won't cycle using it anyway. I expect the Varget and H4895 ladders to be much more fruitful, because I know my rifle likes them. I also wait for a day when I'm not feeling in a hurry to beat the rain, and maybe shoot at 6-7am while the wind is calm.

One thing I'd say after shooting those 30 rounds using Benchmark, is it's fairly dirty in my AR. Maybe my charges weren't strong enough. Recommended max for the 40 grain is 25.7, and the max I shot was 26.3. Seems like I've read pressure ramps up fairly quickly with this powder like BL-C(2) or H4198, so didn't want to push it too hard.

[TD-Max]

I'm not a AR guy, but I get tempted now and then. I can't say enough good about Reloader 10x. Yes it makes soot, but copper foulings is preetty much non existent.

One thing to consider when doing range work in potentially questionable conditions is try a known good combo in a different gun. This way if the known good one shoots crap you know what you are up against. When I was working my 22-250 I questioned the wind, but the 204 shot single hole 9 out of 10 rounds from a cold, clean barrel with a very novice shooter.

Looks like your velocities are a bit slow, but again no AR experience.