6.5 Creedmoor seating depth and accuracy

[Lefty Trigger]

Early on in my development for my 6.5 a friend that owns several got me started seating bullets at around .010-.015 off the lands claiming that's what the Creedmoor likes with the Hornady 140ELD. I settled on .020 off the lands and did get really great results. However due to a mistake on my part playing around with other brands of bullets and their seating depths I got my seating die all out of whack and when I went back to the Hornady bullets they were seating in deep and I did not catch it. I shot a bunch this way and the groups have tightened up by a considerable amount, this blew me away. Measuring them I'm slightly under Hornady's recommended depth of 2.800 at 2.794 giving me a .053 jump. Going to the range again tonight with a few made up at the correct 2.800 depth and see how they perform at the 300yd range.

 

[MontanaCreedmoor]

Post your results ..... would like to hear outcomes.....

 

[AckleymanII]

I seated the Hornady BTHP in a Krieger bbl just barely touching the lands and got groups in the 2's. Then went to a rem Varmint with the 140g eldm, touching, and they shot in the high 2's and low 3's. Jumping in the Rem went all to heck. Problem in the Rem is the Mag Pull mag length, I am at Max OAL where the round will feed with the eldm, so the 140g bthp will have to suffice.

There maybe another node jumping.

 

[Rob01]

The 140 ELDs shoot great in my loads at .020" off lands and also in factory ammo at 2.800. In my .199 freebore chamber that is a .070" jump but it shoots great. Same with the 147 ELDs. They don't mind a jump at all.

 

[PatMiles]

Early on in my development for my 6.5 a friend that owns several got me started seating bullets at around .010-.015 off the lands claiming that's what the Creedmoor likes with the Hornady 140ELD. I settled on .020 off the lands and did get really great results. However due to a mistake on my part playing around with other brands of bullets and their seating depths I got my seating die all out of whack and when I went back to the Hornady bullets they were seating in deep and I did not catch it. I shot a bunch this way and the groups have tightened up by a considerable amount, this blew me away. Measuring them I'm slightly under Hornady's recommended depth of 2.800 at 2.794 giving me a .053 jump. Going to the range again tonight with a few made up at the correct 2.800 depth and see how they perform at the 300yd range.

Thus the wisdom of doing your own tests.

 

[Raptor]

I did the same exact thing when testing with RL16. used the wrong compariator when checking my seating depth and accidently seated them way deeper than my normal seating depth of around .020 off. The test loads shot great at 300yds so i wanted to test at 600 and while loading them for the 600yd testing i realized what I had done so set them at the correct jump my gun liked. They shot like crap!! Barely 5"s!! I could not believe that they had shot so well at 300 and so crappy at 600 then remembered that I seated these different. I found 5 of the load that was seated about .050+ deeper than my standard load and shot them. When I went down to check the target they were all in a cluster of about 1.9" at 600yds!!! I don't understand it but I am going with it!!!

 

[Kermit in Va.]

May have to try a little deeper.
Went with the just off the lands and
this gun is shooting really good. Guess the
next time I'll go deeper and see how it likes
it.


Kermit

 

[daniel brothers]

my savage 12 fv 6.5 creed likes seating at 2.800, which is 80 off lands

 

[Clancy]

I don’t really know where everyone else stands on this, but I know I’m not in the minority.

I am extremely picky about seating depth.

I will test for seating depth with a warm but not hot charge when the barrel has about 10-15 rounds on it. 5 shot groups, and I’ll test 5-10 seating depths.

After that, I truly do not care how fast a load is as long as the ES is low.

Case in point:

My current 6.5x47

1/2-3/4 groups across the board regardless of powder charge. Bullets seated 30 off the lands (130 Hybrid)

I ran a seating depth test and shot sub 1/4” groups at 16,20 and about .3 at 24 off. Went to 600 with the 16 off load and shot 1.5”. Just a hunting rifle, so that’s a done deal.

People place too much faith in powder testing I believe, mostly because the book gives one seating depth and tons of charge weights.... that’s only because they don’t know how long the throat is.

I have a new Proof Sendero coming in a couple weeks or so, and I’m just going to take my current load, run a seating depth test, and most likely find a load I’ll shoot until the throat wears down in 25 shots or less.

Give this a try next time around.

 

[Mike Casselton]

I traded into a BDL Varmint special chamberd in 243, back around 1996.
This was to primarily be my rock chuck rifle.
Got it home, cleaned it up, made some ammo .010 off the lands and took it to the desert to shoot it.
My response to the initial groups was WTF??
Varmint Specials aren't supposed to shoot this bad. Bad as in 2.5-3" with Speer TNT, 55 and 70 gr Nosler BT and 65 V-Max.
I took it back home and cleaned it again and put it away for a couple of days.
I wanted to glass bed the stock, but didn't want to waste time if the darn thing wouldn't shoot.
I went out to reload the cases and thought about changing the seating depth and decided to go for it.
Settling on just the 70gr BT, I said screw it and turned the screw down until the bullet was at the recommended depth per the Nosler manual. Loaded up 20 and headed out.
The change in seating depth was amazing. Groups right at .300 in perfect little triangles. I shot most of them and used the last 5 to kill some ground squirrels.
From that day on, I learned that if a rifle won't shoot after all the playing around with touching vs not touching, it's time to make some ammo with factory specs.
If it doesn't shoot after all that, it's gone

 

[BW64]

I've had the same outcome with 147s in the RPR. Shot 3 groups with the same charge at 100 & one hole each time. It was like I didn't even have to try \> Scary accurate with H4831 but speed was around 2500 fps. It's well under max load but I'm limited by the mag length. Maybe I should just leave it but going to try 600 & 1000 today.

BW

 

[Rob01]

I've had the same outcome with 147s in the RPR. Shot 3 groups with the same charge at 100 & one hole each time. It was like I didn't even have to try \> Scary accurate with H4831 but speed was around 2500 fps. It's well under max load but I'm limited by the mag length. Maybe I should just leave it but going to try 600 & 1000 today.

BW

Buy AICS style mags and you will get more length than the AR style mags that come with the Ruger.

You should be able to get closer to 2700fps with the 24" barrel.