Mag length is base to tip. Base to ogive is what you need to measure. ogive is where curve of the bullet meets the flat of widest part of the bullet. The tips are always a couple thousandths off each one. You get best rounds measured off the ogive. I would stay with 175gr till you get more comfortable in your skills.
Powder (not Varget) for a 308 that will keep a 175 gr Nosler CC supersonic at 10
- Thread starter lee1000
- Start date
Do like me and my shooting friend did(going to start testing next week) and go to PVI and buy the Sierra 155 Palma "seconds". $105/500. Talked to several HM shooters at last match and they said that was a smart thing to try in the FTR stock barrel. The said that bullet should do well for me. And no they were not trying to trick me so they would beat me even worse, they shoot different category and have almost my age in competitive shooting experience.
Varget, IMR 8208, H4895, RL15 would be choices for 155s
The 155s pushed 3000 should do just as well for you as the Nosler 175s
Varget, IMR 8208, H4895, RL15 would be choices for 155s
The 155s pushed 3000 should do just as well for you as the Nosler 175s
Just in case anyone is interested, here are the velocities I need to meet at my conditions.
JBM gave me these velocities
155 SMK (2156)
Altitude 738
Humidity ballpark 80%
Atmospheric pressure 29.69 hg
Magic #
Temp MV FPS Mach
100 2970 1.201
90 2985 1.200
80 3000 1.200
70 3015 1.200
60 3030 1.200
50 3045 1.201
40 3060 1.201
30 3075 1.202
JBM gave me these velocities
155 SMK (2156)
Altitude 738
Humidity ballpark 80%
Atmospheric pressure 29.69 hg
Magic #
Temp MV FPS Mach
100 2970 1.201
90 2985 1.200
80 3000 1.200
70 3015 1.200
60 3030 1.200
50 3045 1.201
40 3060 1.201
30 3075 1.202
don't get too caught up in the 1.2 Keep them 2950-3050 is where to be at from everything the experienced shooters have told me to work in. I have been researching this weight bullet and powder for over 1 week now. When I get the bullets I am going to chrony powder charge in 0.5 increments until I find the 2950 velocity up to the 3050 while looking at pressure signs. Then am going to only work with the powder charges that give me the velocity in that zone. Then work on seating depth and fine tune powder charge. Hope I can accomplish this in less than 100 rounds
nastynatesfish
A day which we will live in infamy
I run the same rifle with the same short throat. I've been shooting imr4007sc. Still working on my load. Just moved and haven't been able to run a crony yet with my last set of test loads.
Andrew's (Savageshooter) advice is very sound. Stick with that to start with. After moving up to mid weight bullets, then 'heavies', I moved back to the 155-175gn class myself after several seasons as I simply shoot better with a 155 at ~3,050. It's easier to hold tight elevations with light bullets and much easier to get the rifle working consistently on the bi-pod. Many shooters love their 200-230s, and it's a personal thing, but it's a good policy to start with the lightest recoiling combinations that work, get your handloading and on-the-firing-line techniques refined and concentrate on reading the wind and other conditions - at least initially.
At shorter distances, precision (group size) always trumps external ballistics unless you shoot on ranges that suffer 90-deg winds with huge speed changes. Forget the 10 mph 90-deg wind except to allow an overall comparison between bullets' performance. I've reverse calculated the equated 90-deg wind change between shots from my wind plots after matches many times and they're usually smaller than you'd imagine. The actual wind speed change on the range would be larger, though rarely anything approaching 10 mph in UK conditions, but most ranges I shoot on see a considerable angle to the wind. Remember, apart from knowing how much windage to apply to the scope to get the first sighting shot onto the frame, a 20 mph wind presents no more problem than a 2 mph version apart from being initially more daunting. It's easier to shoot in a 20 mph wind that stays at a constant angle and only varies in speed by a couple of miles per hour than in a 5 mph breeze that flicks all around the clockface and dies to near nil every second or third shot.
One disadvantage you guys and girls in the US have with your string shooting set-up is that you neither need nor use a plot. With our two or three on a mound system shooting alternately and with a 45-second rule (maximum allowance after the target reappears before taking the next shot) we mostly plot the hits on a diagramme that represents the target rings, and also plot the estimated wind (ie what's put onto the sights and/or aim-off) with the corrected value put into the next column after we see where the shot actually went. As a match progresses, a quick look down the corrected values shows clearly how much variation is being seen and whether a pattern exists. It also allows us to reverse calculate the shot to shot wind changes in terms of 90-deg wind speeds using a ballistic program afterwards. Whenever I've done this I've been surprised at how small real changes are on this basis - and also frightened myself as to just how precise wind estimation has to be on the F-Class target to get a high score! For example, you decide from the flags or mirage that you need to add or subtract a full MOA of wind setting as you take a shot. The plot is marked with say 6-right or 4-right compared to the previous shot's 5-MOA immediately after the target drops. When the target reappears, the shot-marker's position is marked on the plot's target representation which is normally set on 1-MOA squares so it's easy to calculate how much your estimation was 'out' assuming you didn't get it correct. Let's say you allowed 1-MOA for a right wind pick-up but just drop a point to the left, so the corrected or 'real' wind was 1.5-MOA higher at 6.5 and that's marked in the corrected wind column.
After the match it's simple to take the 15 or 20 individual wind changes in terms of MOA between the last sighter and the final score shot and knowing the distance shot over, the bullet's BC, and its MV then play with a ballistics program to see how much the wind speed varied on a 90-degree basis. Most UK ranges see results that show a maximum of 3 mph equivalent changes on this basis, actually individual shot to shot changes usually lying under 2 mph. Take what really happened in match as opposed to 10 mph comparisons and see how different bullets now compare. What looks like a significant performance difference at 1,000 yards in 10 mph is often tiny at shorter ranges with 0.5-2 mph variations. What also shows up is that a 'ballistically challenged' combination that groups into 0.1 or 0.2-MOA will do far better than the 'best' bullet around if it struggles to hold a half-minute group.
I'm not recommending that people do such an exercise on a regular basis, just the occasional example to avoid getting into the must-have-the-most-expensive-and-highest-BC-bullet mindset, especially for the 200-600 yard shooter. At the top end of the F/TR discipline and for long-ranges matches, being competitive means everything has to be just right - precision and ballistics and then of course, the little matters of aiming precision, rifle and trigger control and wind-estimation. If and when you get to this level, an expensive bullet that moves half an inch less at 1,000 yards in a wind change might add one or at most two points to your final score, but single match points, or for that matter X-counts ('V's as we call them over here), are all that separate the top few match scores.
The other thing to remember and concentrate on is your 'elevations', both getting them right on the day, but also how consistent they are as a result of the combination of aiming + gun handling + the ammunition's characteristics. It's very easy to do off the range comparisons of the amounts of lateral movement calculated for bullet A v B based on BCs + MVs in any wind speed, but it's vital to remember we shoot at circles not squares so a shot that just makes the 10-ring on elevation - whether at 6 or 12 o' clock positions needs near perfect windage - move half an inch either side from a vertical line through the target centre and you lose a point while a shot with perfect elevation has the full width of the ring leeway - half MOA on each side of the centre for a perfectly aimed shot and tight grouping combination, or just over 5 inches either way at 1,000 yards. So, a theoretically 'inferior' bullet in ballistic terms may provide a higher score in practice if it holds really 'tight elevations' than one that moves a little less laterally but wanders through a three-quarter-MOA elevation range on the paper.
Another advantage we have in the UK and Canada with our plots is to keep a close ongoing watch on what elevations are doing - are bullets tending to slowly drift one way or the other during a match needing a 'click' on or off the elevation setting. We can also see just how well a bullet + powder combination really performs in this aspect, trying to sort it or simply get rid if it's not right. The best of the 155s are usually easier to tune in this respect than some of the heavier bullets - although I say that knowing that the Berger 185gn LR BT Juggernaut at 2,775-2,850 fps is often outstanding in this respect shooting a near horizontal line on the plot.
At shorter distances, precision (group size) always trumps external ballistics unless you shoot on ranges that suffer 90-deg winds with huge speed changes. Forget the 10 mph 90-deg wind except to allow an overall comparison between bullets' performance. I've reverse calculated the equated 90-deg wind change between shots from my wind plots after matches many times and they're usually smaller than you'd imagine. The actual wind speed change on the range would be larger, though rarely anything approaching 10 mph in UK conditions, but most ranges I shoot on see a considerable angle to the wind. Remember, apart from knowing how much windage to apply to the scope to get the first sighting shot onto the frame, a 20 mph wind presents no more problem than a 2 mph version apart from being initially more daunting. It's easier to shoot in a 20 mph wind that stays at a constant angle and only varies in speed by a couple of miles per hour than in a 5 mph breeze that flicks all around the clockface and dies to near nil every second or third shot.
One disadvantage you guys and girls in the US have with your string shooting set-up is that you neither need nor use a plot. With our two or three on a mound system shooting alternately and with a 45-second rule (maximum allowance after the target reappears before taking the next shot) we mostly plot the hits on a diagramme that represents the target rings, and also plot the estimated wind (ie what's put onto the sights and/or aim-off) with the corrected value put into the next column after we see where the shot actually went. As a match progresses, a quick look down the corrected values shows clearly how much variation is being seen and whether a pattern exists. It also allows us to reverse calculate the shot to shot wind changes in terms of 90-deg wind speeds using a ballistic program afterwards. Whenever I've done this I've been surprised at how small real changes are on this basis - and also frightened myself as to just how precise wind estimation has to be on the F-Class target to get a high score! For example, you decide from the flags or mirage that you need to add or subtract a full MOA of wind setting as you take a shot. The plot is marked with say 6-right or 4-right compared to the previous shot's 5-MOA immediately after the target drops. When the target reappears, the shot-marker's position is marked on the plot's target representation which is normally set on 1-MOA squares so it's easy to calculate how much your estimation was 'out' assuming you didn't get it correct. Let's say you allowed 1-MOA for a right wind pick-up but just drop a point to the left, so the corrected or 'real' wind was 1.5-MOA higher at 6.5 and that's marked in the corrected wind column.
After the match it's simple to take the 15 or 20 individual wind changes in terms of MOA between the last sighter and the final score shot and knowing the distance shot over, the bullet's BC, and its MV then play with a ballistics program to see how much the wind speed varied on a 90-degree basis. Most UK ranges see results that show a maximum of 3 mph equivalent changes on this basis, actually individual shot to shot changes usually lying under 2 mph. Take what really happened in match as opposed to 10 mph comparisons and see how different bullets now compare. What looks like a significant performance difference at 1,000 yards in 10 mph is often tiny at shorter ranges with 0.5-2 mph variations. What also shows up is that a 'ballistically challenged' combination that groups into 0.1 or 0.2-MOA will do far better than the 'best' bullet around if it struggles to hold a half-minute group.
I'm not recommending that people do such an exercise on a regular basis, just the occasional example to avoid getting into the must-have-the-most-expensive-and-highest-BC-bullet mindset, especially for the 200-600 yard shooter. At the top end of the F/TR discipline and for long-ranges matches, being competitive means everything has to be just right - precision and ballistics and then of course, the little matters of aiming precision, rifle and trigger control and wind-estimation. If and when you get to this level, an expensive bullet that moves half an inch less at 1,000 yards in a wind change might add one or at most two points to your final score, but single match points, or for that matter X-counts ('V's as we call them over here), are all that separate the top few match scores.
The other thing to remember and concentrate on is your 'elevations', both getting them right on the day, but also how consistent they are as a result of the combination of aiming + gun handling + the ammunition's characteristics. It's very easy to do off the range comparisons of the amounts of lateral movement calculated for bullet A v B based on BCs + MVs in any wind speed, but it's vital to remember we shoot at circles not squares so a shot that just makes the 10-ring on elevation - whether at 6 or 12 o' clock positions needs near perfect windage - move half an inch either side from a vertical line through the target centre and you lose a point while a shot with perfect elevation has the full width of the ring leeway - half MOA on each side of the centre for a perfectly aimed shot and tight grouping combination, or just over 5 inches either way at 1,000 yards. So, a theoretically 'inferior' bullet in ballistic terms may provide a higher score in practice if it holds really 'tight elevations' than one that moves a little less laterally but wanders through a three-quarter-MOA elevation range on the paper.
Another advantage we have in the UK and Canada with our plots is to keep a close ongoing watch on what elevations are doing - are bullets tending to slowly drift one way or the other during a match needing a 'click' on or off the elevation setting. We can also see just how well a bullet + powder combination really performs in this aspect, trying to sort it or simply get rid if it's not right. The best of the 155s are usually easier to tune in this respect than some of the heavier bullets - although I say that knowing that the Berger 185gn LR BT Juggernaut at 2,775-2,850 fps is often outstanding in this respect shooting a near horizontal line on the plot.
Laurie I plotted my last 1000 yard match and it have me some information to look back at. Next time I will be more precise in my data and number my shots. I really tried to focus on reading the wind last match and felt I did way better than my first match ever (shot it as fat as I could and didn't know how to understand mirage)
I hope I get these 2156 shooting well
I hope I get these 2156 shooting well
Laurie said:
I can't thank you enough for imparting your knowledge and experience to the online shooting community. I just donated $100 to the site with 50% of it on your behalf. I don't know what the 50% will do (if anything) but I wanted to make it clear that you are a outstanding member and contributor. I'm sure they are already well aware of this but I wanted to do something. Your posts will be used by new shooters for years/decades to come.
When you said "The best of the 155s", do you mean the 155 Palma SMK (2156)?
Thank you very much,
Lee
What distance will you be shooting?
Been told by numerous shooters the 2156 are great for 600. And to shoot the Berger 155.5 for 1000
For $105/500 I'm going to try the 2156 @ both distances for FTR. Hope I can get my FTR factory barrel to shoot
For $105/500 I'm going to try the 2156 @ both distances for FTR. Hope I can get my FTR factory barrel to shoot
I asked if you were running the factory barrel because I knew it was throated short. I know this because I have the same rifle. I will relate MY experience with MY Savage F/TR and MY factory barrel. Yours might be different, so work up your load accordingly. Also, my experience is with Berger 185 gr Juggernauts. I don't know the dimensional differences or similarities between the 185 Juggernaut and your bullet.
In my Savage F/TR I was able to successfully shoot the Berger 185 gr Juggernauts in the short throated, factory barrel with Power Pro 2000MR and get the velocity I needed, and more, to reach 1000 yds without pressure signs. I was not able to do that with Varget. I shot them .020 off. I can't speak to any of the other powders mentioned in this thread because I have no actual experience with them in this application. You need to start low and work up. I was using Lapua .308 Win brass and CCI200 primers.
I also found that the neck diameter of my factory barrel was pretty large. I ended up sizing with a bushing die and taking it down in two steps to .336. I think I used a .340 bushing first followed by a .336 bushing.
In my Savage F/TR I was able to successfully shoot the Berger 185 gr Juggernauts in the short throated, factory barrel with Power Pro 2000MR and get the velocity I needed, and more, to reach 1000 yds without pressure signs. I was not able to do that with Varget. I shot them .020 off. I can't speak to any of the other powders mentioned in this thread because I have no actual experience with them in this application. You need to start low and work up. I was using Lapua .308 Win brass and CCI200 primers.
I also found that the neck diameter of my factory barrel was pretty large. I ended up sizing with a bushing die and taking it down in two steps to .336. I think I used a .340 bushing first followed by a .336 bushing.
I ended up with a load that got me 2740 ish fps with the 185 Juggernauts. This was well below any pressure signs. I got well over 2800 fps before I saw pressure. I shot that load in 90 degree temps with no issues. Again, different bullet and individual barrel.
I have CFE223 to try too.
Run far away from the factory seconds. Sent you a PM. After spending hours sorting bullets by bearing surface. I think I have about 5 lots of bullets mixed in my 1000 ct PVI seconds 155gr Palma bullets I just bought and received. Not even sure how to load these now
+1...go with a .300 win mag...recent article in American Rifleman addressed the exact same topic for the US Military snipers in Afghanistan..the .308 runs out of speed and goes subsonic before 1,000 yds..
My favorite is the Berger 175 VLD at 3,185 Mv from a 26" barrel...75 grains of H-4831sc..in RWS brass.
Eddie in Texas
My favorite is the Berger 175 VLD at 3,185 Mv from a 26" barrel...75 grains of H-4831sc..in RWS brass.
Eddie in Texas
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