No signs of pressure yet

[clunker]

Another way to look at this. 40.8 to 41.4; that's only a titch over half a grain. Most factory ammo will have a larger span than that in the same box. Not such a big spread for an accuracy node. This is why a chrono is a good tool; you could have some significant velocity spread and it won't show up much at 100 yards, at 300 it could be significant.

The smile never goes away.Be glad your rifle is so forgiving and shoot it, shoot it, and then shoot it some more. Congrats on such a nice rifle.

I’m currently going through this exact same thing with a 20” CTR in 6.5CM, H4350, hornady brass, CCI 200 primers. I worked up to 43gr in 0.3gr increments with only slightly flattened primers and no other signs. Even then, the factory hornady ammo shows more sign in the primers. I’m new at this too so don’t take this as advice or anything, but it does seem that the manuals are conservative at least for my gun. Velocities aren’t stable for me up there so I’m probably going to drop back to a lower node around 40.5

Excellent points from both of you about velocity. I know a few shooters around here, and maybe one of them has a chrono. PB is correct that I still have a smile on my face. I already have loads at 4 seating depths ready to go if this heat wave ever ends. Totally agree about Hornady ammo. I'll never use it again in this rifle.

 

[grovey]

Just curious how wide your accuracy node was when developing that load. I took a closer look at my target sheet and could only count 8 out of 9 holes. Finally found the ninth one in the middle of the 3-shot grouping of the hottest loads. That's four shots with four different powder loads (40.8, 41.0, 41.2, 41.4) that resulted in .26 MOA. Maybe it was just dumb luck, but that seems like a very wide node for that kind of consistency.

I never seem to find a wide node in my development. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but shooting a ladder at one point of aim over several ascending charge weights can throw down a 3/4" -1" group for me at 200yds, but to shoot those same weights in 3 shot groups at 100 I see groups moving on paper opening /closing/rising/and lowering to the point it makes me wonder how I shot that cluster @ 200 when the groups at 100 don't reflect that accuracy. My best loads have always had to be within a 1/10th on powder and within .003 in seating. Anything outside those parameters and things seem to open up.

 

[searcher]

Just my opinion but those numbers in the manuals are pretty conservative..

I think this depends on the manual. Berger's manual, in my opinion has some pretty light loads as max, which sierra has some pretty hot ones which a few of my rifles couldn't even tolerate. ALWAYS best to work up.

 

[clunker]

I never seem to find a wide node in my development. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but shooting a ladder at one point of aim over several ascending charge weights can throw down a 3/4" -1" group for me at 200yds, but to shoot those same weights in 3 shot groups at 100 I see groups moving on paper opening /closing/rising/and lowering to the point it makes me wonder how I shot that cluster @ 200 when the groups at 100 don't reflect that accuracy. My best loads have always had to be within a 1/10th on powder and within .003 in seating. Anything outside those parameters and things seem to open up.

1/10th on powder and within .003 in seating. That's more like what I was expecting to find. Hence, my surprise at the target sheet results. The only range within a reasonable driving distance is limited to 100 yards, so I might not see anything conclusive until I can justify a road trip.

 

[clunker]

Update

It was a disappointing day at the range this morning, to say the least. After seeing such a tight grouping last week, I was certain to see something promising with a ladder of seating depths, but that's not what happened. Maybe my shooting sucks. Maybe changing the configuration of my rear bag did something to my form. Maybe lumpy grass is not the best surface for my bipod. At this point, I feel like I'm chasing my tail. This is the first time I weighed and matched all bullets and brass to within 2 mg for each grouping. Powder charges were loaded at 41.4 grains with a tolerance of less than one kernel of H4350. Wind speed was anywhere from zero to 4 MPH coming from 5 o'clock, and I made no attempt to compensate for it, considering I was only shooting out to 100 yards. Temperature was only about 70F, and I allowed the barrel to cool for several minutes between each grouping. The really disturbing part is that I had very high confidence in my shooting of the group at a seating depth of 0.002, and it turned out to be my worst of the day. Sorry for the quarter-turned pic. Not sure why it keeps uploading that way.

 

[Bc'z]

Your target says more than you think.
Load your 41.4 and do a seating test moving in .003 increments starting at your .020 off.
The load is virtually holding same elevation on target with the various depths.
Once seating is done you can fine tune charge weight.

 

[clunker]

Your target says more than you think.
Load your 41.4 and do a seating test moving in .003 increments starting at your .020 off.
The load is virtually holding same elevation on target with the various depths.
Once seating is done you can fine tune charge weight.

Thanks for the feedback. Are you suggesting that I start at 0.020 off and increase by .003 increments, or decrease?

 

[Bc'z]

Thanks for the feedback. Are you suggesting that I start at 0.020 off and increase by .003 increments, or decrease?

Deeper into case. Your target is telling me the deeper you go the smaller its shooting.
If it were me ...
3 shots each, shot at it's own aiming point.
I'll load 5-6 as fouling shots at beginning seating depth, then cover 7-9 different seating depths in .003 increments.

 

[Webster]

I have been increasing loads by 0.3, but now I'm thinking about dialing down to 0.2 since I should be getting close. Unfortunately, I can't load at the range. There is only one bench, and it would be rude to make everyone else at the range wait while I spend hours dialing in a load. Also, I don't have a chrono, but I might budget for one next year. If most people are at more than 40.5, then maybe I'll load a ladder up to 41 and just stop when I see signs of pressure.

An interesting observation is that the two hottest loads at the range today were 0.09 MOA (virtually the same hole) and closer to the target center than the other rounds. Maybe a coincidence, or maybe worth noting.

You don’t need to find max load. Stick with your accuracy load no pressure.