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260AI roll call

What an informative read. Very enjoyable, thanks guys. Oh man, now the cogs are turning! Lol.
Paul
I'll even lend you my reamer, possibly for a trade :cool: ! My reamer has a 0.077" throat (the old 6.5x308 and 263 Express dimension), so if you have a 6.5 throating reamer you can lengthen it to whatever you want, but 0.150" will do everything you want with a 130-150gr bullet and mag feeding.
 
Well got mine working. 47.3gr N160 with a 32" Brux barrel. Target at 600yd was reading 2150fps with 140gr RDF so backwards calculating MV is around 2960-2980. Was holding 1/3 X ring elevation, so I'm very pleased with it. Brass (Lapua) isn't showing pressure signs so very happy. Gun is definitely going to be a shooter. Now just have to finish the tube stock its going in.
 
Glad to see another test of N160 doing well. I used to run 140s at 2975, so that appears to a good velocity for them. Hope you can get those RDF to shoot for you, I couldn't make them shoot consistent at all. Tried like hell, too.
Well I the rifle wasn't setup properly as had to pull my head back for the scope but they were grouping nice. Friend of mine has been shooting the 140 RDFs for a year or so and likes them. I have a lot of them ready to go in various calibers just haven't got to them yet. But from when I checked the loads they shot well.
 
Well I the rifle wasn't setup properly as had to pull my head back for the scope but they were grouping nice. Friend of mine has been shooting the 140 RDFs for a year or so and likes them. I have a lot of them ready to go in various calibers just haven't got to them yet. But from when I checked the loads they shot well.
I've heard of people shooting them well. I got duped into believing it by shooting groups in the .1's at 100/200, so I bought 500ct boxes. When I first started shooting F/class I was shooting the 140rdf. I blamed the 8s and 7s on my inexperience. Then after 600 rounds at 1000y and on a 10-12mph full value wind day I shot two upwind 5's, I knew it wasn't me or the gun. I was already shooting Master scores at LR, so I completely switched my entire load and ammo out. New brass, new powder, new bullet. Scores immediately jumped up 10-15 points and Xs went up too.

I had never seen a bullet do such strange things. Could have been the lot I was shooting, this was when the RDF first came out and they hadn't worked out the QC or the dies in the press yet. I don't know. But sure as can be it was a big difference when I switched to the 140VLDT.

If you can make them shoot consistent in your gun, more power to you! But in that barrel I just couldn't. I haven't tried them since, so hopefully things have gotten better.
 
I've heard of people shooting them well. I got duped into believing it by shooting groups in the .1's at 100/200, so I bought 500ct boxes. When I first started shooting F/class I was shooting the 140rdf. I blamed the 8s and 7s on my inexperience. Then after 600 rounds at 1000y and on a 10-12mph full value wind day I shot two upwind 5's, I knew it wasn't me or the gun. I was already shooting Master scores at LR, so I completely switched my entire load and ammo out. New brass, new powder, new bullet. Scores immediately jumped up 10-15 points and Xs went up too.

I had never seen a bullet do such strange things. Could have been the lot I was shooting, this was when the RDF first came out and they hadn't worked out the QC or the dies in the press yet. I don't know. But sure as can be it was a big difference when I switched to the 140VLDT.

If you can make them shoot consistent in your gun, more power to you! But in that barrel I just couldn't. I haven't tried them since, so hopefully things have gotten better.
I tried the 130 gr. RFDs briefly in my 260AI but to no avail. I ditched them and never tried them again.
 
I've heard of people shooting them well. I got duped into believing it by shooting groups in the .1's at 100/200, so I bought 500ct boxes. When I first started shooting F/class I was shooting the 140rdf. I blamed the 8s and 7s on my inexperience. Then after 600 rounds at 1000y and on a 10-12mph full value wind day I shot two upwind 5's, I knew it wasn't me or the gun. I was already shooting Master scores at LR, so I completely switched my entire load and ammo out. New brass, new powder, new bullet. Scores immediately jumped up 10-15 points and Xs went up too.

I had never seen a bullet do such strange things. Could have been the lot I was shooting, this was when the RDF first came out and they hadn't worked out the QC or the dies in the press yet. I don't know. But sure as can be it was a big difference when I switched to the 140VLDT.

If you can make them shoot consistent in your gun, more power to you! But in that barrel I just couldn't. I haven't tried them since, so hopefully things have gotten better.
I had very similar experiences with the RDFs, too. There's a lot to the saying 'There's a seven in every box'.
 
The only RDFs I've shot a lot of so far are the 85s. Done a little mod to the AR15 match rifle so I can seat them out farther and use them at 300 Rapids and occasionally have fired them at 600. I haven't noticed anything yet. Same with the 185s in the 7mmWSM. But I will keep my eye on them. However IMHO I think as shooters (speaking from the sling side) when we get a flyer we need to be honest with ourself and ask did we do everything 100% correctly. I know in my case usually it is due to poor follow through or an occasional yank on the trigger.
 
Thats exactly why I went through 600 of them. Believing it was me, until I switched bullets. I came to F/class from service rifle and silhouette, wasn't new to competition.

Like I said, I've heard of people shooting them well, but I just never could.
 
The only RDFs I've shot a lot of so far are the 85s. Done a little mod to the AR15 match rifle so I can seat them out farther and use them at 300 Rapids and occasionally have fired them at 600. I haven't noticed anything yet. Same with the 185s in the 7mmWSM. But I will keep my eye on them. However IMHO I think as shooters (speaking from the sling side) when we get a flyer we need to be honest with ourself and ask did we do everything 100% correctly. I know in my case usually it is due to poor follow through or an occasional yank on the trigger.
I hear you, and it is incumbent on us to be dispassionate and objective. I did my level best to assess my involvement in the WTH? eights and sevens. The fact of the matter is that I don't get these when I shoot Berger Hybrids and SMKs. My scores have been higher with the Berger and Sierra bullets, period. ELD-Ms, too, and by a lot. I've shot cleans at 600 with Bergers, Sierras and Hornadys - lots of them - but NEVER with a Nosler RDF. I've concluded it is the bullet. My statement covers 6mm, 6.5mm and 7mm. Based on my mid-range experiences, I would never take RDFs to the line at 1K.

I wanted those pointy suckers to shoot. They're beautiful bullets. But there's a seven in every box.
 
The only RDFs I've shot a lot of so far are the 85s. Done a little mod to the AR15 match rifle so I can seat them out farther and use them at 300 Rapids and occasionally have fired them at 600. I haven't noticed anything yet. Same with the 185s in the 7mmWSM. But I will keep my eye on them. However IMHO I think as shooters (speaking from the sling side) when we get a flyer we need to be honest with ourself and ask did we do everything 100% correctly. I know in my case usually it is due to poor follow through or an occasional yank on the trigger.
Here's what I mean . . .

Shots 1, 5 and 15 were wind calls. Missing the X-ring was absolutely on me. Better wind calls would have resulted in a 200-20X. I was shooting Berger 180 gr. Hybrids, and these bullets gave me a vertical spread well within the x-ring. Nosler 185 gr. RDFs would not have yielded the same result at 1K. Heck, the 600-yard targets I've shot with the RDFs didn't look this good. None of them. I'd drop points above and below the 10-ring, right side and left side, on consecutive shots with the same conditions, and not just 9s. Some would fly into the 8-ring or 7-ring, above or below the 10-ring.

I've seen this enough to conclude that my ability to read conditions is not the culprit. The RDFs just don't shoot as good as they look.

1717641209477.jpeg
 

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