90VLDs and 2000MR

[XTR]

I enjoy shooting this little cartridge in an 18 lb F-tr rifle, but it's for fun and practice at 600 yds. If I'm shooting further I'll shoot a 308.

I've used it in two mid range matches with the 80s and it's doing ok. I'm not that concerned that the 90s aren't working. I wouldn't mind the additional BC, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it either.

Now if I were shooting some serious mid range and not just club matches I might have to reconsider whether to shoot the A max or get my 308, but for now I'm enjoying it and I'm not messing with the 90s any more.

 

[XTR]

I may have had an epiphany. I couldn't leave this alone and I loaded up another set of OCW bullets last night. Then just because I was bored I dragged my runout gauge into the house and sat at the bar checking the bullets I'd made... WTF!

Checking the runout on my 308 bullets has been kind of a spot check formality for a couple of yrs now. I load with a Lee Collet sizer and Forster seaters and there is never any to speak of. These 90s have four to 5 thou on the bearing surface! You can see the meplat wobble when you roll the bullet.

I've been trying to load these on my Dillon, I'm using the same procedure that I use with my T7 just using the Dillon I've used it to make bullets for my service rifle and the results have been good, and those shoot well in my bolt gun, really well, but they are seated much shorter.

I'm using a Redding seater. Do I need to drill out the seater stem for the VLDs? or do I need to move to the T7 to seat them. (I've got a Widden tool head on the 550B)

Suggestions?

 

[XTR]

OK, I'm finished with 90s in this barrel. :'(

I went to the range to to a little testing today. Had 90s seated +010 (10 into the lands). I had them seated with two different neck tensions (1 and 2 thou) The first three shots at 300 looked promising, about a 2" group. Thinking maybe....

Next "group" was closer to 8 inches, the third group had a flyer nearly a foot to the left of the POA and the first shot was about 3 inches right and 9 inches low.. I tried one more "group" and it too was close to a foot.

Pulled out my 308 to do some fine tuning on my 185 Berger load. Of the three groups one (5 shot) group was under an inch center to center, and a second had under an inch vertical, but I didn't pay attention to the letoffs (I had a pretty good right to left going). I felt much better.

 

[sbrabec]

Xtr
I've found similar results as you with both the 90vld and 80amax. I struggled with both until switching powder, which can hard these days as your limited to what's on hand or in stock. Re15 works best for me.
I also found that jamming the 90vld .020-.025 shot as good or slightly better than .035 off the lands. As for the 80amax, they pretty much shoot 1 hole at 300 but I can't get them to shoot at 600. My 8 year old son has a pending 300 yard record shooting a 199-13x with the 80amax.

Good luck
Scott

 

[XTR]

I'm going to shelve the 90s until I get another barrel.

I'm working on loads with the 75 Amax and the 90 Sierra, both of which are showing promise in 300 yard testing. I've got a load with both to take back to 600 yards on my next trip. Looks like the 90SMK is going to work around 2700 and the 75 Amax at about 2900. The groups yesterday were not conclusive, there were still some unaccounted for vertical flyers which has been the problem with this rifle all along.

In the last 600 match I shot with 80Amaxes last yr I shot nine or ten 10s or Xs in a row then threw an 8 at 12:30. @)#(* !!! The problem was that it was obvious I was working the 10 ring top to bottom. That's not acceptable. You really need the load has to shoot inside of the X ring for F class, and half minute vertical is not that much to ask from a match rifle.

Right now my 308s are shooting way better than the 223 so I don't think I'll be shooting the 223 in any matches any time soon

 

[jscandale]

XTR,

I have been reading this thread and watching the roller coaster ride you have been on with the 90s. I have been shooting the 90's for about 13 years now and have had very good success with them in service rifles and match rifles at 1000 yds. They can be finicky, but when you have them nailed down, wow, their a lot of fun in that little cartridge. I'd like to help out if I can, please feel free to call me at the shop some time this week. 610-272-2511.

JS

 

[XTR]

XTR,

I have been reading this thread and watching the roller coaster ride you have been on with the 90s. I have been shooting the 90's for about 13 years now and have had very good success with them in service rifles and match rifles at 1000 yds. They can be finicky, but when you have them nailed down, wow, their a lot of fun in that little cartridge. I'd like to help out if I can, please feel free to call me at the shop some time this week. 610-272-2511.

JS

you should probably read this one too :-[

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3818537.msg36245928#msg36245928

I'll give you a call, but I've just about exhausted everything I can think of to make them shoot in this rifle. It's not like I'm trying to get them to tighten up from just so-so. They literally won't stay on the page at 300 yards.

I went to the range yesterday and I've got two loads that may work out with 75s and 90SMKs both printing about an inch, maybe a bit more vertical.

 

[XTR]

I'm using 2000MR, and my bullets are so long that the won't fit in most plastic cases. Using a Hornady tool the 90VLDs are 2.060 to the lands and he 90SMK are 2.070. Both have the end of the bearing surface up in the neck.

The problem I have with the 90SMK is that I'm not sure that I'm in the node after I discovered that I didn't have the action torqued.

I think I had a good node at around 2700FPS, but I may also have a higher one. Now that I know that I was shooting with the action loose some of the wonky results I had make sense now. I've decided on a 75 Amax load at about 3000FPS. It shot under half MOA vertical for 20 shots at 600. (with the action loose) In fact if I'd been shooting at a 600 yard target and not at a 3/4 inch paster, even with the wind shifts that I was pretty much ignoring, it would have been a clean for 20 shots on an F class target.

The 90SMKs actually shot a little better vertical (2.5 inches total) for one 10 shot group at about 2700FPS, but a second group looked like a 2" wide 7" tall zig zag, as did a test group at what I thought may have been a higher node.

When I took the rifle apart I realized what happened. I forgot that I had bedded the action a few months ago, after I cleaned up the bedding job I just stuck the action back in the stock with the screws finger tight with the bit on an extension and never got the wrench. DOH!

That is also how I was shooting it when the 90VLDs went haywire on me last time. So, I've got one more OCW load worked up with 90SMKs and 90VLDs just to see.

I've reduced the runout to my usual 2 max an most are at about 1 total.

I've also made one more modification to my stock. This started life as a Savage F class rifle. It had the standard F class stock with the big 3" trapazoid fore end and the base of the buttstock is parallel to the barrel channel. I have realized comparing this to my PR&T stocks that the PR&Ts have about ¼ inch of drop in the bottom of the buttstock. In a TR stock it really cuts down on fiddling with the bipod. I don't like the big drop that the Savage F-TR has but some is useful.

In any case, I really carved this stock down last yr. I cut the fore end down into a flat bottomed two inch wide shape and I've been in the butt with forstner bits taking out weight, changed the taper on the bottom of the stock to ride my bag better and I've installed an adjustable cheek. Well as of now it's got about ¼ inch of drop across the bottom of the butt stock too.

This started out as something fun to do at 600 and somehow it has gotten sucked into my OCD vortex.

 

[XTR]

If luck is with you, tightening the action screws may also tighten up the 90 VLD load as well. I've been able to get the 80.5s up to around 2800 fps out of my 26" barrel with 22.9 gr H4895, but the precision wasn't so great. They might come back in if I could get them up to around 2825 fps or so, but they're seated so deep in the case there simply isn't room for any more powder with H4895. So, I settled for using 22.5 gr and am getting around 2760 fps with pretty decent precision.

As I mentioned, this rifle has essentially no freebore at all. It shoots FGMM 77s at 2730 fps like an absolute laser out to 600 yd...that is until the wind comes up, whereupon it becomes a very nice 600 yd precision shotgun. For me, those 77 gr pills just aren't up to shooting in the typical twitchy 5-10 mph winds we get out here. So even though the freebore of this rifle is limiting, I want to see if I can get the 80.5s to shoot. If they're showing good precision at the same velocity as the FGMM 77s or even a touch faster, I figure the significantly higher BC of the 80.5 (.223 vs .193 G7) will allow me to shoot them in midrange matches at 300 and 600 yd. I mainly got this rifle as a trainer for windreading, etc., so if I can only shoot the FGMM 77s, I'll just have to live with it.

Good luck with your next OCW!

Do you want to borrow my throater? I got one of the hand throaters from PT&G a while back. Easy to do. It's what I used to throat mine out.

 

[Jdne5b]

If you don't mind sharing, what has been your powder charges and velocities with the 80's?

Any chrono data on the 90's yet? (Berger or Sierra)

I also have a Mcgowen 1:7 that I throated out for the 80.5 bergers, but may try the 90's as well.

I have PP 2000MR to try.

 

[XTR]

in my best tent revival imitation "hallelujah!"

Took off at lunch and shot a couple of OCW tests with 90VLD and 90SMKs, this time with the action torqued.

Just shooting 3 shot load tests but it looks like I've got something that will work here. The loads for the two look to be very similar. The node for the 90SMK looks to be about half a grain more powder than the 90VLD. Shooting at 300 yards both bullets tested showed groups falling flat to slight rise until you get to the mid 2800s then the group jumped up about 6 inches, and my last group with the VLDs was a little heavy on the bolt lift. (I did however shoot about a ½ inch 2 hole group with the last test, but it's not an achievable node.

I need to do another couple of tests but it looks like I'll be able to get the VLDs to run in the vicinity of 2750 and if I wanted to the 90SMK at about 2790.

I think my problems last yr with this bullet were mostly runout based and to some extent because the action needed bedding. The last few trips to the range have been because the action was not torqued.

Making straight bullets, bedding and torquing the action seem to have solved most of my troubles. Now I need to do a couple of bigger group sizes, start working on seating depth and see what this thing will do from 600 yards.

 

[r bose]

Good news!! Glad to hear your success today. It's the little things that need attention to really get a rifle to shoot. You had the right setup but needed to find the real problem. The 90 VLDs really are not that hard to get to shoot.

 

[XTR]

Sunday I was thinking I'd drive over to Tullahoma and test this in a match. Thought about it and decided to skip that and took my target camera to the range to do some testing. ....

I shot 3 simulated 20 shot matches over about a two hour period. Over all it was barely holding 1MOA vertical, and flyers from the top of the 9 down to the middle of the 8. Driving me nuts. I'm really glad I didn't drive a couple of hours to have it shoot that way and have to drive home. I may have tossed it out the widow on a bridge somewhere.

Came home, thought about it. Made up another seating depth test (was shooting at 30 off) and went back again today in very calm conditions.

The first group I shot jammed I got a vertical string about an inch wide and 4" tall, got the torque wrench out and wet up 5in*lb on all three screws (35/35/25)

Jumping 20 I got a decent group

Jumping 50 I got random impacts with about a foot of spread.

Jumping 10, 15 and 30 with 3 shot groups they all looked to be in the range of an inch at 300 yards. I haven't worked out exactly where the best place to shoot them is but it's between 30 and jammed, probably between 15 and jammed. I'm going to take this to the match in Oak Ridge this weekend and shoot it in at least one match, two if it's working. (I'm shooting my 308 doing a load confirmation in at least one match)

So with 746* rounds down the tube I think I may be close to finally having a load for the 90 Bergers, it shouldn't take more than about 100 rounds to figure this out.


*not all the rounds are load work on the 90VLD, but a whole lot of them are. I've worked up loads with 80Amax, 75Amax 90SMK and 90VLD and I've experimented with some Varget, N550, and 2000MR, and shot at least 60 shots for record with it

 

[XTR]

Using a Hornady Ogive tool I'm at 2.070 to the lands, that's important, these are long.

I'm loading 25.3 gr of 2000MR and I think it's at 2775 give or take a little. My come up from 300 to 600 is right on 9MOA. At 26 gr the bolt lift started getting stiff.

My brass life is looking great. Pockets aren't tight but they are holding. The brass I'm currently using has about 8 loads on it. I've kind of lost track. After ruining a bunch of brass last yr testing heavys in a 308 I've changed my approach to load development. I start with a selected # of cases that I use for all the load development so if I get silly then I limit the damage because I find the loose pockets when I load for the next test.

When I started this round of testing with the 2000 MR this stuff all had at least 3 firings and some were at pressure signs in other tests.

 

[XTR]

Well, darn... That didn't work.

Shot two 600 yard matched with the 223 today. It was aweful, both scores in the 180s. Shot the 308 in the 3rd match of the day. 195-10, I dropped one point that I knew I dropped as soon as I broke it because I forgot what I was holding and held te wrong ring, but I had a string of I think it was 8 x's in the middle of the first 10 shots. The 223 project is going back to the drawing board, there is something not working.

It is so sweet to shoot the 223, the bullets just don't go where they are supposed to.

 

[Hosted]

Dang, I was really hoping you had it figured out. Doing a build very similar is making me have second thoughts now like maybe I should just go 308 before I get in to deep. :-\

 

[XTR]

It may well be my garage throating job. I am thinking of getting a reamer from Kiff and having my smith knock 1/2 an inch off and re-chambering it.

The other stark difference in the stability of the PR&T stock compared to the Savage stock. I have to be pretty careful to get the NPA of the Savage on the spot I want to shoot, the PR&T I just about have to muscle off the mark.

EDIT: I do have one other possible test and that is to run a test over the chrono and see if I can find a stable load. I have noticed in my testing that my MVs have been pretty erratic. I attributed it to wonky chrono, but it does give me good numbers with my 308. Maybe a different powder or go for a higher node and see how the brass holds up.

 

[XTR]

It wasn't the wind. I think the rifle was grouping about like it was last time I tested, about 7 out of 10 inside of 1.5MOA, with an extreme spread of almost 2.5 MOA. You don't just get vertical displacement when it's shooting like that so it makes it really hard to tell what your wind calls are doing. The wind was the same as when I shot the 308. Other than a couple of cross overs that would put you in the 8 ring the wind variations were about a total of 1.5MOA all day long.

I'm going to put this aside for a while and concentrate on my 308s for the time being. I'd have liked to shoot it at the Perry Mid Range matches but I don't see me dropping the time and $$ to get this fixed by then.

I know I want it in another stock. The side by side comparison between the Savage and the PR&T is pretty clear. The PR&T is much more stable, but Ray is pretty proud of his stocks. (I already own two) Add to that I have worked on and either partially refinished, fully finished or refinished four stocks in the last few months. I'm kind of tired of sanding right now.

I purchased a 223 bolt for this rifle from Midway when I converted it from 6.5-284 to 223. I probably should get a bolt head from PT&G and lap it in.

After that maybe recutting the chamber with a reamer designed for the 90s instead of running the hand throater.

I could try to see if running the pressure a little higher would make it more stable. I may run one more test and see what happens at just over 2800FPS. I'm shooting around 2750 right now, I think there is another node that starts just above 2800, but I was worried about breaking brass at that pressures, but it may not be as bad as I first thought. I've done all of my load testing this yr with the same 60 cases. There are 5 that were very soft to prime this last time but they held. I think all of this has close to 8 firings on it now so it's not a high pressure load. I've got about 5000 cases for the 223 so I guess really shouldn't worry about them so much.

The last thing I could do is to experiment with some of the Nostler 80s that I have for my service rifle, but that would just be an academic test. I think they give up too much to the 185s to bother with them in F class, to make this worth while I need to get it to work with the 90VLD, the 90SMK or the 80AMax

[edit] I will say to anyone out there reading this and looking at using a 223 for mid range, if you get one to work the almost absence of recoil shooting an 18lb 223 is really fun.

 

[XTR]

Some people just cant quit, sometimes I'm one of them.

I've been experimenting again with my 223. I think I figured out a lot of my problems, so I've tested and loaded up again.

I'll have to run a group test on the 90VLDs later this week but my testing with the 80 Amax has worked out.

Testing today, running the 80s I shot a 10 shot group at 300 yards, center to center vertical extreme spread is just at or below one inch, horizontal is under 1.5 (and there was some wind)

I think I've got a promising load with the 90VLDs too. So, 800+ rounds down the tube and I may actually have found a load (or two)

 

[Randy L]

Any details/results of your test yet? I've been following your saga because it mirrors mine with the 90's in 223. I've got about 250 rounds down the tube and still don't have a load I'm satisfied with.

Randy L