300 SAUM Imp

[Alex Wheeler]

Extremely impressive for an 8lb hunting rifle from a bipod. Need to get some 15.5 in a bench gun and see what it can do.

 

[B23]

Alex do you or have you any plans to do this same spec in 6.5 or 7mm?

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Done both, the 7 was disappointing. Didnt do anything a straight 7 saum cant do. The 6.5 reamer is here but have not chambered one yet.

 

[taylorw]

That’s some impressive shooting. Are you still using the 185 Juggers?

Yeah, 185 juggernauts.

This rifle platform just seems to work together so well, I feel like it’s covering up some of my mistakes. Lol.

I think I was driving it just a little during the morning test but still grouped well.
The barrel is one of those that seems to be better than avg and the bullet is amazing but it’s also a combo of the man behind the lathe, cartridge design, and IMO, the burn rate of powders.
Not to mention that Glenn did most of the load work up so it was pretty much turn key for me.

I was posting during my lunch break so left a couple of things out.
I didn’t touch the scope from the morning test but you can see a slight shift in POI from one test to the other.
Im pretty sure this was bcs the morning one was run before the sun popped up and the evening was during a cloud break, with the sun shining onto the left side of the rifle.

 

[GlennK]

Thought I’d send out an update since it’s been a while.
After running RL15.5 up to pressure, I wanted to take a doe off my lease, at the higher velocity, so just grabbed the middle of the node (58.3) and took it to my 294yd spot to get drops.
I had some rounds left over so ran a 3 shot group at 294yds. I’m sure it’s a bit of a fluke but still shows that this powder has great potential.
View attachment 1303397
Sometime around mid Dec, a company came in and ran a power line through my hunting lease so between that and the crazy warm weather, it’s been tough to see anything other than an occasional fawn during last light.
I’ll give it an effort up until the last day
(Jan-1) but not looking good. Lol

On a positive note.. I could see the warm weather coming and had some cold mornings, just before that, so I decided to do a temp sensitivity test with this powder.
I just took the 3 charge weights that formed the node, shot at ~38 degrees, (58.0, 58.3, & 58.6) and ran 3-3shot groups, keeping the POA the same.
One test on the coldest morning, and the other yesterday evening.
I had 1round (58.0) leak out the bottom of the 9 shot group on the 26 degree morning. I don’t think this was due to a POI change. Could have been me or the reload. Had all 3 (58.6) drop out at 71 degrees, which I do believe was bcs the load came out of tune. Both tests were shot at 200yds. Orange dots are 1”.
One thing that I would like to add is I still don’t think this barrel has fully settled and has picked up a little more speed (which could be why the 58.6 load came out of tune on the warmer day) so I’m thinking that this powder is more stable than what the target & velocities show, but this is just an assumption.
View attachment 1303415

Thanks for posting. Very nice. Looks like it is a great powder for this case and bullet combo. Gotta find some now lol

 

[taylorw]

Thanks for posting. Very nice. Looks like it is a great powder for this case and bullet combo. Gotta find some now lol

These 200 yard groups will lie to you with the “1% nodes”. Lol
Looking forward to getting off call from work in a couple of weeks so I can travel out farther than 1 hour.
Its always interesting to compare where it actually shoots, with the close range stuff.

 

[whatwind?]

Done both, the 7 was disappointing. Didnt do anything a straight 7 saum cant do. The 6.5 reamer is here but have not chambered one yet.

I think you will need 3050-3150 in the 6.5 to improve the regular saum with the heavies in “hunting” set up and maybe faster with n570 and the like

I made a 35 degree 6.5 reamer from this thread and haven’t tried it yet

I want to say thanks for sharing so much tuning knowledge, I have learned a lot and applied it to my own process, thanks again

 

[waybones]

What pilot are you guys using for the AMP Annealer?

Thanks!

 

[newbieshooter]

What pilot are you guys using for the AMP Annealer?

Thanks!

300 SAUM Imp

Thanks. I do want to explore a lower node. Am thinking may have started too high with my initial ladder test and only discernible node was around 2900-2020. At any rate my initial ladder started with MV of 2793 but that charge was jumping all around. This load would probably be between...

forum.accurateshooter.com

from post 197.

 

[taylorw]

Went out this morning to test RL15.5 at distance.
Originally planned to shoot somewhere around 600-700 but when setting up, I didn’t like the amount of back drop so backed up to next spot at 837 to be safe (Range finder was bouncing between 834-837).
Temp was 17 degrees with zero wind.

Circling back.. I had notice that my velocities seemed to rise during the temp testing at 71 degrees but didn’t feel like it was the powder, from my experience with RL16&23, so I loaded up one charge weight of 57.7-58.6 and ran them over the LabRadar last week. I think the barrel wasn’t finished settling in so the charge weights dropped about 3tenths for the same velocity.

I ran the test with that in mind and loaded up 57.7, 58.0, 58.3 (thinking 58.0 would be where the barrel previously was with 58.3). I also wanted to see which neck tension looked best beyond 200yds since 1K & 5K both group similar.
I ran both tests without moving the scope so the shift seems to be from just changing neck tensions. I noticed a small shift at 200yds also..
One thing that I would have done different is add 58.6 to the test also since 58.3 seemed to shoot the smallest with both test, regardless of velocities rising.

 

[Jud96]

Went out this morning to test RL15.5 at distance.
Originally planned to shoot somewhere around 600-700 but when setting up, I didn’t like the amount of back drop so backed up to next spot at 837 to be safe (Range finder was bouncing between 834-837).
Temp was 17 degrees with zero wind.

Circling back.. I had notice that my velocities seemed to rise during the temp testing at 71 degrees but didn’t feel like it was the powder, from my experience with RL16&23, so I loaded up one charge weight of 57.7-58.6 and ran them over the LabRadar last week. I think the barrel wasn’t finished settling in so the charge weights dropped about 3tenths for the same velocity.

I ran the test with that in mind and loaded up 57.7, 58.0, 58.3 (thinking 58.0 would be where the barrel previously was with 58.3). I also wanted to see which neck tension looked best beyond 200yds since 1K & 5K both group similar.
I ran both tests without moving the scope so the shift seems to be from just changing neck tensions. I noticed a small shift at 200yds also..
One thing that I would have done different is add 58.6 to the test also since 58.3 seemed to shoot the smallest with both test, regardless of velocities rising.

View attachment 1306184

That’s some amazing shooting! Very very impressive!

 

[GlennK]

Went out this morning to test RL15.5 at distance.
Originally planned to shoot somewhere around 600-700 but when setting up, I didn’t like the amount of back drop so backed up to next spot at 837 to be safe (Range finder was bouncing between 834-837).
Temp was 17 degrees with zero wind.

Circling back.. I had notice that my velocities seemed to rise during the temp testing at 71 degrees but didn’t feel like it was the powder, from my experience with RL16&23, so I loaded up one charge weight of 57.7-58.6 and ran them over the LabRadar last week. I think the barrel wasn’t finished settling in so the charge weights dropped about 3tenths for the same velocity.

I ran the test with that in mind and loaded up 57.7, 58.0, 58.3 (thinking 58.0 would be where the barrel previously was with 58.3). I also wanted to see which neck tension looked best beyond 200yds since 1K & 5K both group similar.
I ran both tests without moving the scope so the shift seems to be from just changing neck tensions. I noticed a small shift at 200yds also..
One thing that I would have done different is add 58.6 to the test also since 58.3 seemed to shoot the smallest with both test, regardless of velocities rising.

View attachment 1306184

I like the 5k shape. Very nice

 

[MikeRu]

Great job and super consistent results across the 3 powder charges. If you dont mind sharing, what is your freebore?

 

[taylorw]

Great job and super consistent results across the 3 powder charges. If you dont mind sharing, what is your freebore?

I’m not exactly sure. I believe Alex has at least a couple of reamers setup for different free bores. To my knowledge, this one was for the 185 juggernauts.
Not sure if this will help but my COAL (185 jug) is 2.967”, when touching the lands.

 

[taylorw]

My intentions were to also put these results up last night but got called into work right after the first post.

Ran this ladder with RL16 at the same distance. Used 5K tension since it worked well at 200 yds and confirmed from the first test of the day.
Velocity numbers also showed a similar increase as RL15.5.

Wasted a little more time than intended while changing out targets and cleaning the barrel so didn’t start this test until just after 09:00. Wind flags started rising at 09:20, while I was letting the barrel cool, after second group, so thinking this caused the shift to the right.

I felt like I pulled out of the rifle on the 61.4 group and usually take reloading stuff with me, so loaded up 3 more at the same charge weight and dialed up to get onto clean paper. Thinking back, I should have just left the scope alone to see exactly where the group fell in relation to the others but oh well. Lol

After running these 2 tests, I’m starting to realize the small amount of vertical shift I’m getting, even when running such wide ranges of powder weights. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before but I’m sure it would change somewhere around ~900+.

Made a Note on the target, concerning rifle sounding strange about every 5th firing so not sure If the BR2’s on the verge of being a touch too “cool” at these temps.
It makes me want to run them against 250’s the next time it’s in the teens again so that will probably be the next thing I do with this rifle.

 

[savageshooter86]

So do the 185s do better than the heavies? Say the 200.20x or the 203-208gr bullets?

 

[rhovee]

Let us know when you try cci 250’s. I have a hunting rifle using BR2 currently and do run into some cold temps in Idaho.

 

[taylorw]

Went to a new spot that I got permission to shoot at in between hunting seasons. Wanted to make sure the groups from last week would repeat, so picked a charge weight from each and shot both at the same target (720yds).
Put 3 foulers through, before running the RL15.5 group and then shot 2 rounds of RL16, to transition the barrel over for that group.
I did move the scope to prevent the groups from over lapping.
Was in a little bit of a hurry to mark up the target and accidentally wrote down the same series twice for velocities.



Kinda interesting how the single groups have a similar shape to the combined overlap.

I think I’m finished with this combo. I have a hand full of rounds that I need to get on the second firing so I’ll use them for my drops and call it good.

 

[GlennK]

Went to a new spot that I got permission to shoot at in between hunting seasons. Wanted to make sure the groups from last week would repeat, so picked a charge weight from each and shot both at the same target (720yds).
Put 3 foulers through, before running the RL15.5 group and then shot 2 rounds of RL16, to transition the barrel over for that group.
I did move the scope to prevent the groups from over lapping.
Was in a little bit of a hurry to mark up the target and accidentally wrote down the same series twice for velocities.

View attachment 1308222

Kinda interesting how the single groups have a similar shape to the combined overlap.
View attachment 1308224 View attachment 1308223
I think I’m finished with this combo. I have a hand full of rounds that I need to get on the second firing so I’ll use them for my drops and call it good.

I am not smart enough to run your tape measure lol. Took me a minute

 

[Jud96]

Went to a new spot that I got permission to shoot at in between hunting seasons. Wanted to make sure the groups from last week would repeat, so picked a charge weight from each and shot both at the same target (720yds).
Put 3 foulers through, before running the RL15.5 group and then shot 2 rounds of RL16, to transition the barrel over for that group.
I did move the scope to prevent the groups from over lapping.
Was in a little bit of a hurry to mark up the target and accidentally wrote down the same series twice for velocities.

View attachment 1308222

Kinda interesting how the single groups have a similar shape to the combined overlap.
View attachment 1308224 View attachment 1308223
I think I’m finished with this combo. I have a hand full of rounds that I need to get on the second firing so I’ll use them for my drops and call it good.

That’s some amazing shooting. Very interesting to see your full load development process. That’s a great shooting rifle!