Working up a load ... Now what? Plz help

[pat fulghum]

Newbie working up my first load.
2" diameter targets at 100 yards.

6.5 creedmoor in ruger precision rifle, with 25x night force.
Shot off front rest, rear bag... Nice and steady Bench rest style.

H4350 powder with 140gr hornady ELD match

Col 2.820 (same as factory load)

Took my previously fired hornady brass, cleaned, full length sized (Forster) and trimmed with Wilson trimmer, Primer pockets cleaned and each load weighed individually. Bullet seated with Forster precision die.

I shot these round robin (37.5tr, 38gr, 38.0....). with 90 seconds between shots.
Barrel didn't get hot.

Hornady Data book says 40.0 is max load

No chrono available... not bug holes, but not terrible.

can't seem to make heads or tails of this....

37.5, 38, 39 look best...you can see slight upward trend as load is increased.

So now what? Any thoughts appreciated

 

[6BRinNZ]

Have a read of this - since you shot it at 100 yards you may as well read up on 100 yard load dev.

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/long-range-load-development-at-100-yards.3814361/

 

[amlevin]

Since you shot this Round Robin, the very first target looks like 4 shots touching and one flier. That's the load I'd be working on refining. Go up or down in smaller increments and then play with seating depth.

To me the only other charge weight that shows potential is the 40 gr one as it appears to have less vertical than the others.

 

[Hntndad]

Loads 39, 39.5 and 40 look good vertically. Even 40.5 doesn't look bad. The average height of the group looks consistent. It's bullet seating depth from here to tune it in tight. Perhaps pick 40gr. And ladder bullet seating depths in .005 increments

 

[Shynloco]

Since you shot this Round Robin, the very first target looks like 4 shots touching and one flier. That's the load I'd be working on refining. Go up or down in smaller increments and then play with seating depth......

+1. Go back to the load in the first 5 shots. Load enough for three 5 shots groups to confirm that load. After that, start seating @ SAMMI OAL and then move the bullet .010 CLOSER to "jam" for 2 three shot groups and see if your groups get tighter. If they look promising, move .010 closer to "jam". Keep doing that until the groups start spreading or you are touching the rifling. Load and shoot enough 3 shot groups to confirm better grouping. Once you have found THE LOAD, shoot 3 - 5 5shot groups to further confirm the load. Takes patience and perseverance but be diligent in your efforts.

Alex

 

[DHuffman]

Most 6.5 Creedmoor'sizing have a node in the low to mid 41 grain range and the low to mid 42 grain range. These weights obviously need to be worked up to but most rifles can get there safely.
My savage model 11 LRH shoots 42.4 comfortably even on hot days. That's with 142 smk's

 

[pat fulghum]

First off thanks for all the replies and I did read through the 100 pages of the OCW @100 thread. Very informative. But I'm still having trouble finding my "node".

For H4350 powder,

imrpowder.com lists 40.0 at 2660
but
the Hornady manual shows 40.9 @ 2650

I did some more target shooting at 100yrds.... those targets are 2" in diameter.

I measured my "jump" / Freebore in this rifle with the Hornady tool and a factory cartridge has .060 freebore. I decided to add .020 to my COL (jumping .040 instead of .060) and do another round of charge weights up to 41.5... 5 rounds were shot in round robin with 90s between shots.

The "+.020" means I increased the COL by .020.

To put things into perspective... 39.5 has a center to center vertical spread of .296"
40.5 and 41.5 seem to have a flyer.




Just to make sure things were ok before and after. I shot 2 factory loads before and 3 after and those look OK. (see attached factory.jpg).

I had also loaded up some loads with varying seating depths, I choose, 41.0 as this is my desired velocity.




I can't seem to find a good pattern or "node"... I can get this to shoot 1/2 MOA, but I would really like to find a more consistent load.

I'm very anal about my reload process trying to keep everything identical and precise.

Any help appreciated.

- pat

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Do you think that you are at the capabilities of the rifles potential? Not sure what others have gotten but if you showed those to ruger they would probably frame em.

 

[pat fulghum]

Do you think that you are at the capabilities of the rifles potential? Not sure what others have gotten but if you showed those to ruger they would probably frame em.

Dusty,

I'm wondering the same thing, but I do hear people with bug hole groups with this rifle. Maybe that is 1 in 100 3 shot groups. I'm really looking for something consistent.

- pat

 

[rardoin]

I could get consistent .5MOA and under groups out of a Ruger PR with the factory barrel. I can get .35MOA consistently with a cut rifled K&P barrel. This is with Hornady ELD-X 143gr and Berger 140 hybrids over H4350 and now Berger 140 hybrids over Hog 100V-hybrid. Three shot groups. Under .5 MOA with 5 shots USUALLY. I have shot several 3 shot groups under .1 MOA with the K&P tube. I only shot about 150rds or so before I changed barrels...I may have been able to get even better with the factory one...maybe.

 

[BoydAllen]

I think that you are doing very well considering your rifle's design, and that it is a factory rifle. It seems to me that you have some limitations that are not load related. The forend design of your rifle is not at all good for use with a sand bag. When getting down to small groups, trigger pull weight becomes an important consideration. Are you limited by magazine length as far as seating depth is concerned, or could you load so that your bullets were lightly engraved by the rifling? (Of course this sort of change would involve a new workup, because of the slight increase in pressure.)

 

[pat fulghum]

I seem to be stuck at that 1/2 MOA at least consistently... I was hoping for better.
Occasionally, I will get a 3 shot group .25 MOA, but that is not consistent.

I am not limited to Magazine length, I have been using a bobsled.

Also I have changed the forend to a Seekins that has a nice 2" flat rest that seems very stable vertically.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I think that if you really dug deeper, your gun is shooting with the best of em. Sure you could go out and get a .250 3 shot and say thats what it does but when the cookie really crumbles yours is shooting fabulous and better than its designers intended and certainly better than the others out there. "It shoots bugholes!!" Yeeep. Its easy to say that but showing multiple targets like yours shows that youre really doing good

 

[L.Sherm]

Try switching just the primer and keeping everything else the same.

 

[Brians356]

I would return to the 41.0 @0.005" on the second target. Then start test seating depths deeper from .005" in no more than .003" increments, e.g. .005, .008, .011 etc. shooting only 3-shot groups. If that factory Ruger will shoot 1/2" consistently, you should be thrilled. And do read the "Long range ... 100 yard" thread mentioned earlier, which brings in monitoring vertical shifts in POI to find a node.
-

 

[3081FTR]

Good luck with shooting consistent .25moa groups - that is difficult.

Couple of things - if you read the 100 yard thread you will see there is no flyer only the group. If you look at the group you will see it has a centre and if you follow the 100 yard approach you are looking for a powder load where the centre of the group is not changing (ideally coupled with low ES/SD if shooting further than 100 yards). This locks in your powder choice leaving seating depth and neck tension as relatively easy tuning steps to shape and refine the group.
If your only going to shoot 100 yards - which I doubt with this rifle then you should probably look at techniques used by short range shooters - they tune on the day by adding powder (as an example) in order to keep the groups small.

To my eye between 40.5 and 41 looks to be the powder charge to hone in on.

 

[Brians356]

If your only going to shoot 100 yards - which I doubt with this rifle then you should probably look at techniques used by short range shooters - they tune on the day by adding powder (as an example) in order to keep the groups small.

I kind of assumed this was a hunting rifle. If this is for competition, how many stock Ruger PRs are on the line at those matches? An honest question. I know nothing about this model, maybe they're considered chain lightning for accuracy.

Edit:

Looking at Ruger's braggin' board page, I see some impressive individual groups. But I've got a few of those in my wallet which are not representative of typical performance. Still, it seems like consistent 1/2 MOA is not an unreasonable goal for this rifle.
-

 

[ranger3]

I have seen other RPR groups which are similar to yours. Quite frankly for a factory rifle to shoot consistently at .5 MOA or less is great, and if you can get SD of 10 or less that would be just fine in my mind for 600 to 1000K shooting. I would keep working with bullet seating depth and look at Primers. I know, where does it end? Another thing is neck tension. If you can play with Neck tension, that might show you what it likes.

 

[Tim Singleton]

I seem to be stuck at that 1/2 MOA at least consistently... I was hoping for better.
Occasionally, I will get a 3 shot group .25 MOA, but that is not consistent.

I am not limited to Magazine length, I have been using a bobsled.

Also I have changed the forend to a Seekins that has a nice 2" flat rest that seems very stable vertically.

The reality of things and the Internet bragging are two different things. Your factory gun is shooting well.
A .250 agg would have gotten you second place to a .240 agg out of 65 of the best shooters in the world at this years Shamrock match. That's a 100-200 yd benchrest match not a precision rifle match

 

[Tim Singleton]

Correction I looked at the results wrong. A .250 agg would have won the Shamrock. With the winner of it this year Finishing second with a .2548
Putting Wayne Campbell Larry Costa and Billy Stevens at second, third and fourth

A .250 agg is no easy thing