David,
Any impressions of how hard, relative to the standard 200 grain loads the gun was to handle? And thank you for providing a great narrative of your trip down this rabbit hole.
I was contemplating related questions to that for about an hour of the drive, what would have been the outcome with 200’s, same shooter, me?
But firstly, recoil is a step up. I have shot just enough, barely, 200’s, 155’s and 175’s over the years to
probably correctly identify which is which from recoil at regular load levels. The 155 to a very healthy 200 load is still probably less significant a difference than a 200 to 250 load, at least the 2,450+ speed 250. But, I didn’t find it problematic. I’ve seen guys use that same Phoenix bipod on huge case ELR guns, and it never torqued to the side in the slightest today.
The butt did burrow into the bag requiring quite a bit of wheel adjustment, and even using different portions of the angled stock in shot sets of six or seven rounds. and I for one lose points a fair percentage of the time that I make major movements to the bag or reposition a rifle that’s been inching it and me back. The 200 probably is less attractive to sling shooters than the 155 in parallel terms.
Barrel time is an issue. These things pick up speed like a limousine compared to my saums. There’s a lot of opportunity to pull the shot. Shooting .22’s helped my cognizance of follow through stillness.
At some distance, maybe 1,200 yards, these would pass 200’s in time to target, but they remain behind them 0 to 1,000, (even though going faster by 1,000) and especially 0 to 600, including zero to the muzzle.
So, I have actually shot a 199 with CM’s top end borrowed gun and 200’s at 1,000 - with him coaching the shots. I’m truly wracking my memory of the holds that mild day trying to ascertain whether this load doesn’t actually require unnoticeably similar wind calls. I was amazed at the efficiency of the 200 grain bullets that day and consistency of rifle.
There were some good points today in side talk about the relative benefits of A-Tips in 7mm when it is very windy, - thought being that the right shooter can win with them in the high wind but possibly not in the calm to mild, where “very good” could be the best outcome. Here, there’s a bigger conceptual difference to the Open comparison, 25% more weight to deal with. The 7 A-Tips don’t recoil any more than other options, like these do, and that might always affect accuracy, at least some; ;it’s never a benefit, we do know that.
I’m not a TR shooter, let alone a proven, good TR shooter. It’s tough to draw any conclusions from my outing, other than that most shots dropped were in the height of the 10. On one hand, I peeked at some excellent, top targets and saw higher SD’s, and not necessarily better vertical. 8.0 is maybe as good as any bullet shot today, so the .308 is capable of sending them consistently, and Hornady did its job.
On the other hand, if 80% of matches are mild enough that there is no gain, these might get score hammered by a smoother running combination, even if a TR wiz was shooting them. Now, not by the number I got hit with, because my calls were bad, but even 5 points due to a larger group would do in a leader. I’m reminded how sensitive to the wind TR ppl are.
For heavy bullets in general the calls have to be tricky enough on a given day for those not using them, that their point drops exceed the heavy bullet rifle’s inherent accuracy disadvantage of greater firing disruption. Shooting heavier bullets than your neighbor with equal weight rifles virtually guarantees less stability. The pendulum can favor heavies if it’s really blowing.
The really interesting proposition would be how these would do in a place like Avery, on a bad wind day like recent times, in the hands of a TR ace.
