dstoenner
Silver $$ Contributor
I decided it was time to give these bullets a spin (pun intended). I had bought some when they first came out but when I got them and did measurements they seemed to be a lot more different from the 105 hybrid than I thought they might be. I have not been able to shot for the last 4 months due to range closure here in NC. So I finally 2 weeks ago got out to a range to fire form my Peterson brass and now had good cases. A plan came to mind of testing 2 things. I would take my tuned 105 Berger Hybrid load and use it as a "guess" at what might work and load up my Peterson to see how a good bullet loads in this brass and then shoots.
So what is coming is sort of a review of both bullet and brass. This was my third load of the Peterson brass. The first load was straight out of the box and performed well. It was when I want to size these cases I realized that I really needed to turn them to be the same as my Lapua cases. Not because the Peterson necks were not concentric but they are enough thicker I am not going to get close to the same neck tension as my Lapua. So the second load was to fire form all of the neck work. I sized them now for the second time and had 49 out of 49 that measure .001 neck concentricity. So now, how many loaded 1's will I get?
The load is 39.2 H4350. The bullets were seated at max length based on bearing surface of 2.710. The measurement to touch the lands is 2.810 for the 109. Based on a previous post on the A110 seated really long with no detrimental effect, next round I am going to do that.
So I loaded the 49 and then rolled the loaded bullets for concentricity. I got for runout
14 - .001
16 - .002
18 - .003
1 - .004
Observation here but that is pretty much exactly in line with what I see for the first load in Lapua brass. It will get better from here for the next 2 firings and then probably settle in. My seater is a Redding Competition seater with a VLD stem in case somebody is wondering.
I then measured CBTO for all 49 rounds. The results were pretty good.
2.094 - 3
2.095 - 7
2.095 - 37
2.096 - 1
2.098 - 1
What was not good was when I measured OAL. My target was 2.710 and only 10 were that. They varied from 2.701 to 2.718. So then I measured out of the box of 50 left of this batch that the bullet length was from completely uniform from 1.270 to 1.279. This is the first time I have done this measuring of any bullet but I thought that this was supposed to be very BC uniform to 1%. Not sure how that can be and have this much length variation. I could be wrong.
So I went down to the reloading room and got out my last box of 115 DTACs. There were 22 in the box. I took 10 out at random and measured them They ran between 1.328 to 1.336 for 9 of them, then I had a 1.352. Huh, that is .016 more. Now it looks like I am sorting my new box of 500 DTACs. So I guess the 109 isn't so bad. I digress...
I shot groups at 100 just to see where I was. I had 3 groups of 5: .652, .550 and .680. This range I was at had 300 so I shot groups on an electronic target and got 2 groups around 2.2 and 1 group at 1.63. It looks like this load holds 2/3 MOA at least to 300 yards.
My take away is that I need to do load development. While this is not bad, my 105's would shoot inside these numbers. Before I did a real load development with the 105, I got these kind of results. Gives me hope that this would be worth it. Also I have some R16 to throw into the mix.
My other take away is that the Peterson brass is every bit as good as Lapua. Only time will tell if it is as tough as Lapua. I am on 10 firings of my 6 BR and have only lost 1 case in 300.
I am sure open to thoughts about this.
Thanks for reading this far
David
So what is coming is sort of a review of both bullet and brass. This was my third load of the Peterson brass. The first load was straight out of the box and performed well. It was when I want to size these cases I realized that I really needed to turn them to be the same as my Lapua cases. Not because the Peterson necks were not concentric but they are enough thicker I am not going to get close to the same neck tension as my Lapua. So the second load was to fire form all of the neck work. I sized them now for the second time and had 49 out of 49 that measure .001 neck concentricity. So now, how many loaded 1's will I get?
The load is 39.2 H4350. The bullets were seated at max length based on bearing surface of 2.710. The measurement to touch the lands is 2.810 for the 109. Based on a previous post on the A110 seated really long with no detrimental effect, next round I am going to do that.
So I loaded the 49 and then rolled the loaded bullets for concentricity. I got for runout
14 - .001
16 - .002
18 - .003
1 - .004
Observation here but that is pretty much exactly in line with what I see for the first load in Lapua brass. It will get better from here for the next 2 firings and then probably settle in. My seater is a Redding Competition seater with a VLD stem in case somebody is wondering.
I then measured CBTO for all 49 rounds. The results were pretty good.
2.094 - 3
2.095 - 7
2.095 - 37
2.096 - 1
2.098 - 1
What was not good was when I measured OAL. My target was 2.710 and only 10 were that. They varied from 2.701 to 2.718. So then I measured out of the box of 50 left of this batch that the bullet length was from completely uniform from 1.270 to 1.279. This is the first time I have done this measuring of any bullet but I thought that this was supposed to be very BC uniform to 1%. Not sure how that can be and have this much length variation. I could be wrong.
So I went down to the reloading room and got out my last box of 115 DTACs. There were 22 in the box. I took 10 out at random and measured them They ran between 1.328 to 1.336 for 9 of them, then I had a 1.352. Huh, that is .016 more. Now it looks like I am sorting my new box of 500 DTACs. So I guess the 109 isn't so bad. I digress...
I shot groups at 100 just to see where I was. I had 3 groups of 5: .652, .550 and .680. This range I was at had 300 so I shot groups on an electronic target and got 2 groups around 2.2 and 1 group at 1.63. It looks like this load holds 2/3 MOA at least to 300 yards.
My take away is that I need to do load development. While this is not bad, my 105's would shoot inside these numbers. Before I did a real load development with the 105, I got these kind of results. Gives me hope that this would be worth it. Also I have some R16 to throw into the mix.
My other take away is that the Peterson brass is every bit as good as Lapua. Only time will tell if it is as tough as Lapua. I am on 10 firings of my 6 BR and have only lost 1 case in 300.
I am sure open to thoughts about this.
Thanks for reading this far
David
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