Savage F-TR 223 1/7" questions

[JAlfred]

New to bolt actions, lots of experience with loading mag length 223 in AR platforms.

Main use in the near term will be 600 yards or less.

First question, Is there a real need for a detailed barrel break in?

Bought a couple hundred Lapua cases for the new rifle. For their first loading, should I run fairly consistent full power loads, or would some mouse fart loads with LT-32 and Reloder 7 with 52 and 55 grain bullets suffice?

I have almost 1 thousand 80 gr Noslers, length to lands seems to be 2.435" with this bullet. Right now the plan is to run a series with Varget and Reloder 15 from 23.0 gr to 24.5 gr at 0.020" off. I also have XBR 8208, but I am unsure about starting with it. Remington 7 1/2 primers will be used for starters. I have CCI BR-4, Fed 205M, Wolf SRM, and CCI 400 primers on hand.

Any advice or insights would be appreciated

 

[benchracer]

New to bolt actions, lots of experience with loading mag length 223 in AR platforms.

Main use in the near term will be 600 yards or less.

First question, Is there a real need for a detailed barrel break in?

Bought a couple hundred Lapua cases for the new rifle. For their first loading, should I run fairly consistent full power loads, or would some mouse fart loads with LT-32 and Reloder 7 with 52 and 55 grain bullets suffice?

I have almost 1 thousand 80 gr Noslers, length to lands seems to be 2.435" with this bullet. Right now the plan is to run a series with Varget and Reloder 15 from 23.0 gr to 24.5 gr at 0.020" off. I also have XBR 8208, but I am unsure about starting with it. Remington 7 1/2 primers will be used for starters. I have CCI BR-4, Fed 205M, Wolf SRM, and CCI 400 primers on hand.

Any advice or insights would be appreciated

There are a lot of different approaches to barrel break-in. Typically, factory barrels will behave differently than aftermarket/custom barrels in the number of rounds and the process required. My best advice is to clean a new barrel more frequently in the beginning, letting the barrel tell you what needs to be done. At some point, you will see a significant reduction in the rate of fouling and cleanup will become easier. When that occurs, I tend to consider a barrel broken-in.

Where your Lapua cases are concerned, I believe you are better off working up some full power loads and using those for your first firing. While you are doing that, use a starting load to perform the following seating depth test:

http://www.bergerbullets.com/getting-the-best-precision-and-accuracy-from-vld-bullets-in-your-rifle/

With the preferred seating depth set, do your powder charge workups and test primers.

IMR 8208 has become one of my favorite powders in .223 and .308. My 5.56 chambered, 9 twist MVP does its best work with 8208 and 75 AMAX's. I have shot club matches with it out to 500 yards with excellent results. AR-COMP is another powder that deserves a serious look. It is a fine grained extruded powder that is reportedly slightly faster than Reloder 15. I have done some work with it in both .223 and .308 and found it to be very consistent and doesn't appear to have temp sensitivity issues.

I know people use Varget in .223 with success. I like it in .308, but am not impressed with it in .223. There are a lot of better choices, IMO.

 

[Mozella]

There are plenty of opinions about barrel break-in but I know of no scientific study proving one way or another if barrel break-in procedures do any good. I use a 1:7 Shilen .223 barrel for F/TR and I broke it in because Shilen publishes a recommended procedure. But they say they published the procedure mainly because they got a lot of requests from their customers; go figure.

Anyhow, except for the first five or so rounds which you can use to zero your scope, barrel break-in can be done in conjunction with initial load development. So it's easy to do. I figure it can't hurt, so I do it.

IMR 8208 XBR is my "go-to" powder for my .223 "fun" gun. It's also accurate in my F/TR competition gun at mild loads but I find that Vihtavuori N-140 is just as accurate at a more robust charge weight (a bit over max published) and VV N-140 offers me about 150 fps more MV. Of course your mileage may vary. You MUST do your own careful testing.

At 600 yards you're gonna' need a heavy bullet to be competitive. My 1:7 Shilen shoots Sierra Match King 90gr bullets well, but not consistently. One 5 shot group will be good and the next not so hot. So at the moment I'm using Berger VLD 80gr bullets which are consistent enough and accurate enough that my .223 won the last two matches and last month I out shot all the F-Open guns as well.

You may do very well win using Nosler bullets, but I have been unable to get any Nosler bullet to shoot as well as Bergers. My theory is that unless the cost is WAY out of line, if it costs a little more to gain some accuracy, it's worth it, at least to me.

Once my testing is finished, I shoot so few rounds in competition that using Berger bullets and the more expensive Vihtavuori powder is not a real financial consideration. For my "fun" .223, I shoot Sierra bullets with IMR 8208 XBR at shorter range because the combination works great at shorter range and it saves a few bucks too.

By the way, I shoot my competition Berger VLD 80gr bullets with VV N-140 using a jump of .050" which is WAY more than I would have guessed before reading Berger's write-up on seating depth.

I have a small quantity of Berger 90gr VLDs on order and I hope they will be more consistent than the SMK 90s I tested in the past. I'd like to use the 90s, but if they don't prove out, I'll stick with the 80gr VLDs.

You're gonna love F/TR shooting, especially when you out shoot your friends using .308 guns. You need to find a good recipe using the heaviest, highest BC bullet your gun fires accurately. Load carefully to produce the very best competition ammo you can, and put in some significant effort to learn how to read the wind; it's mostly about the wind.

 

[jsthntn247]

I could only get the 90 smk's to shoot well and be consistent at slower speeds. They produced fliers when ran over 2800 fps. They also impact 3"-4" lower than Berger 90's at 600 when ran at the same speed. This leads me to believe that the BC is no where near stated by them and a Berger 80 pushed to 2900+ would have less drift than the 90 smk at 600.

 

[JAlfred]

So break in it is.

I don't know if competition is in my future, bad back limits my options, but its a pretty dream and can motivate some rehab.

The choice of Noslers is purely financial. I bought some to try with the AR (~0.7 @ 100 yards, under 6" at 600 no wind). A new central air unit and braces for the youngest in one week busted the budget. If I can get them to 0.5MOA with the Savage I will be ecstatic. I will shoot them till they run out or are obviously holding me back and then reevaluate. I am most likely to be the limiting factor in that equation. I need trigger time and practice with the wind.

I can get 75 and 80 gr AMAX locally for a reasonable price, so that is a consideration.

I also have a few hundred Sierra 77 gr TMKs, would those have potential? I have had very good luck with them out of the AR 15s and have a BC 0.420 G1. These have produced a lot of sub 0.5" groups and can average 0.6" for 5 5 shot groups regularly at 100 from the WOA AR.

 

[JAlfred]

I don't see 90s on the menu any time soon and my throat is on the short side. Next barrel, it might happen 8)

Note: I have a bunch of threads page marked for further reading on this and the general reloading forum, where has this place been all my life?

 

[rmist]

H4895 is what works for my 7 twist and 80.5 gr bergers.

 

[JAlfred]

H4895 is what works for my 7 twist and 80.5 gr bergers.

I have a box of the 80.5s I ordered in a moment of weakness on the way and I know a local gun shop that should have a lb of 4895 on the shelf...... I am terrified that I am really going to like this.

What primer are you using?

 

[rmist]

I use a plain Fed 205 primer. Produces a little over 3000 fps out of a 30" barrel.

 

[JAlfred]

I use a plain Fed 205 primer. Produces a little over 3000 fps out of a 30" barrel.

This is getting bad, I have a few K of federals in the closet. My wife is going to kill me. Oh well, can you give me a starting charge and approximate max. In for a penny, in for a pound.

 

[rmist]

I would go with the CCI 400's as well...they are my next go to primer. I did work up with them but had more of the 205's at the time. I believe in my rifle they work better with a little better velocity. I have enough of them now.

 

[jsthntn247]

What's yalls load with 4895 and the 80's? Just had a fella send me some new monolithic bullets to try out for him. I figured 24-24.5ish should be close.

 

[JAlfred]

What's yalls load with 4895 and the 80's? Just had a fella send me some new monolithic bullets to try out for him. I figured 24-24.5ish should be close.

What I'm looking at places max at 23 to 24.5, I would be a little more careful using a monolithic style bullet, not sure they will behave like cup and core bullets

 

[JAlfred]

Well, 3 lbs of H4895 have been added to the war chest. Cost me a little more than the 5 lbs. of XTerminator that I sold locally last week.

 

[Fotheringill]

I have the very same rifle, Model #18890.

I followed the Savage recommended break in. It was a PItA, but did not have another brand new model nor the price of another barrel to see if Savage's instructions were worthless.

The rifle shoots. It shoots dirty but it shoots.

Bullets, primers, equipment- You are going to get 100 opinions from 100 posters.

I have had 0 FTF's with CCI 400 primers. Without a lot of testing under exactly the same conditions outside and with you, I don't know how to decide if the CCI's are as good as the CCI target primers or Federal 205M primers or plain old Federal small rifle primers.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[JAlfred]

Loading in the ARs, the only primer failures were with Winchester SR at the time they transition from the plated to unplated style, that cost me a firing pin.

The big issue with 400s has always been, to me, the thickness of the primer cup. Flattening starts early and I have always felt like
I was walking on eggshells, waiting for one to pierce. That said, they never failed.

 

[JAlfred]

First of all, thanks for all the help, it has been much appreciated.

Well, did the whole fire and clean process, abbreviated because I am lazy and I could not get any copper out of this thing. I was beginning to think the foaming bore cleaner was defective but when tested on an old bore brush, it quickly showed blue. I think I got a freakishly smooth Savage barrel. I fired 80 rounds through it today, and still no copper.

All loads, unless otherwise stated are Nosler 80 gr CC loaded 10 Thousand off. Remington 7 1/2 primers used throughout.

Did some load work up today and the results were interesting. First shot out of a cold clean barrel was unremarkable and the next 4 shots, all with 23.5 gr of Reloder 15 landed less than 1" away in a group spanning just 0.22". Mild load, but worth working up to see if it holds up. There is a nice node between 23.9 to 24.3 and I am curious to see how loads in the 24.2 range perform.

I am not sure about Varget, 23.9 looks interesting with a group in the high 0.4" range and the whole range of charges from there to 24.5 are all grouping in the low 0.5" range. Still no pressure signs at 24.5 gr Varget, but the bolt lift was starting to get noticeably (slightly) more difficult.

The last set tried was with the Sierra 77 gr TMK loaded at 2.31" with a range of XBR 8208 from 22.8 to 23.6 gr. 23.2 to 23.4 gr appears to be the node with 23.4 gr giving a group of approximately 0.35". This is with the Rem 7 1/2 primer and if history repeats itself, Wolf primers will shrink those groups some.

Thanks again, I am excited.