270 not liking ELD-X. What should I try?

I haven't had any luck getting my .270 Win to shoot the ELD-Xs well, in spite of hearing good things about them from a number of sources. Best accuracy was a 40mm group at 235m but that was at the starting load, and the groups opened up to 100mm and I hit pressure signs before getting to decent velocity.

After re-checking the max. seating depth, I figured I could reduce the jump by a fair bit. It didn't help accuracy, and if anything made the pressure worse.

Rifle is a Remington 700 SPS, 24" suppressed barrel. I'm using AR2213SC powder.

130 gr Berger VLDs went okay, but were also getting pressure signs at useful velocities (I'm looking to develop a 300m+ hunting load, so a light projectile would need to be humming). The 140 grain SSTs seem to give me a serviceable mix of accuracy & speed (2950fps, 70mm groups at 235m) but I really hoped the higher BC of the ELD-Xs would deliver better.

I'm wondering if I should try a slower-burning powder, play around with the seating depth some more or give up and try another projectile. I was also going up in 1 grain increments, so could try smaller increments in case there's a node somewhere in between.

Cheers guys - I'm still pretty new at this, so please excuse any rookie misunderstandings.

That's supprising, I go up in .5gn increments and my go to 145gn eldx load for 270win is doing 2930fps and easily prints cloverleaf groups all day at 100 yards, I have shot it out to 450 yards on a decent red spiker (bang flop) and out past 600 yards on steel.
I'm loading 58gn of 2213sc to get that and no pressure signs.

First step will be to try in smaller increments as you are correct that 1 grain increments are too big and you have probably missed the node.
Try .5 at a time and fine tune further in .1 after you are close to the node.

And don’t get too caught up on speeds as even those starting loads will kill cleanly out to around 500m as long as the accuracy is there.

right ho..you asked so I will answer.
first off to qualify...Im a bush hobbit at heart.owned and used a .270 for 30 years seldom shoot past 200yards but have now shot 4 deer at 300-350yards in last 5 years.
40mm at 235m IS plurry fine shooting thats still well and truely dead dear at 400yards.
2213 is a good powder.
150grn partitions are and have always been awesome projectiles FOR KILLING DEER,they dont have the sleak BC of new fancy projectiles BUT THEY ARE STILL THE SAME as they always were. I got given a box of bog standard 140grn hornady interlocts..they shoot straight and kill deer.
chuck the chronicgraph away.....YOU DONT NEED IT. the 270 made its name before rangefinders were common.sight her in 3" high at hundy hold dead onto 270 yards,backbone hold at 350.... easy numbers to remember.
why do I say get rid of chronicgraph...because a very wise man once said "many a good load has been ruined by a chronograph"....meaning if a load shoots straight you will stand better chance of killing deer dead with well plaed shot than with a super fast one thats not as accurate...sure the ultimate is both accurate and fast...but the extra 50fps might not be worth the hassle.

Agree 40mm at 235 meters is plenty good, something else to keep an eye on with eldx is copper fouling, in my sako a7 they were pretty bad for it but then again 100 rounds probably does require a bit of maintainence.
What kind of speed are you getting ? Eldx work in quite a broad range of speeds from about 1800-2600fps or greater from memory, as long as you have something around that at the range you want to shoot you can adjust your drop charts to suit.
I'm pretty new to reloading and I work off the theory find pressure then make sure your at least 1gn below that (wherever you get best accuracy) for a safe load.
Another thing is your case prep up to scratch ? Brass sized properly, length trimmed, neck chamfered etc ?
Good consistent cases give good consistent data.
No digs at all just trying to help

The 130 Sierra Prohunter is not overly sensitive to seating depth and 60 grains 2213 is nearly sure to be on the money to get around 3100 and moa or better.
Cheap, and kilsl proper dead, as does it's direct equivalent the 130gn Speer Hot cor

Worth noting that moa at 400yds is 2" from your aim point on the animal, and if you ignore it's supposedly poor bc, you will find you can kill deer with the bullet rather than scaring it to death with high bc numbers

40mm ain't bad at that range. A lot of variables too that have caused me issues in the past trying to find the "perfect" load. Sorry if this sounds patronizing but are you letting the barrel cool properly between groups? I know with my tikka that will play havoc with accuracy after a few strings, especially with a suppressor on. Also if your scope isn't providing a solid point of aim at that range it may be better to bring it back to 100m for accuracy testing. This will also minimize any variations due to wind

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Originally Posted by dannyb

Agree 40mm at 235 meters is plenty good, something else to keep an eye on with eldx is copper fouling, in my sako a7 they were pretty bad for it but then again 100 rounds probably does require a bit of maintainence.
What kind of speed are you getting ? Eldx work in quite a broad range of speeds from about 1800-2600fps or greater from memory, as long as you have something around that at the range you want to shoot you can adjust your drop charts to suit.
I'm pretty new to reloading and I work off the theory find pressure then make sure your at least 1gn below that (wherever you get best accuracy) for a safe load.
Another thing is your case prep up to scratch ? Brass sized properly, length trimmed, neck chamfered etc ?
Good consistent cases give good consistent data.
No digs at all just trying to help

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Didn't chrony the 55 grain starting load, but got 2790 fps with 56 grains, 2850 with 57 and 2920 with 58, so I'm guessing around 2730 fps. Doubt it was copper fouling as I don't shoot enough and over-clean, if anything. I like to think my case prep is pretty good, but I'm still learning... only bump-sizing, not full length sizing and trimming / chamfering to 64.35mm. Thanks for the ideas, though...

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Originally Posted by Link

40mm ain't bad at that range. A lot of variables too that have caused me issues in the past trying to find the "perfect" load. Sorry if this sounds patronizing but are you letting the barrel cool properly between groups? I know with my tikka that will play havoc with accuracy after a few strings, especially with a suppressor on. Also if your scope isn't providing a solid point of aim at that range it may be better to bring it back to 100m for accuracy testing. This will also minimize any variations due to wind

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Yeah, I was letting the barrel cool, but I'm beginning to wonder if there was more variation in rest & shooter error than load... might need to do some more testing at 100m on a solid rest before going back out to 200m+

What load did you hit pressure ? As a side not I've never found eldx to be over sensitive to seating depth, in a sako a7 the mag length is way to short to seat them anywhere near the lands. Happy to help you shoot some loads if you want to eliminate the shooter aspect ?

Shoot without the supressor. Ladder Test. .3gn increments from book starting loads til you hit pressure signs

40mm at 235 is pretty much 1MOA, so on a factory rifle that's quite aceptable.
24" should get you a bit more velocity though.
.
Just to be sure, Torque your stock/action screws, make sure barrel is fully floated, get trigger pull as low as you are comfortable with.

:PAnother Calibre :XD::o

Have you got a COAL gauge and do you know the max COAL (i.e. ogive touching lands)?

Use the marker pen on bullet method to try and determine it if you haven't got a gauge or can't borrow one. @dannyb did this and he's not far away from you?

I ask this just to make sure you can seat the bullet in the right "zone", so that you're neither too close or in the lands, nor too far away.

The ELD-X has quite a thick jacket on the bearing surface so when it gets shoved into the lands, it takes more push for the lands to bite into the jacket than some other bullets. So it can spike pressure earlier than you might expect, especially if its only 5 or 10 thou away from touching, or actually touching already.

As for 40mm at 235m, mate that's showing you there's nowt wrong with the rifle, so others have suggested, start the ladder again at a middling powder weight, a grain or more below where you got pressure, and go up in 0.2gr increments. Find the loads where the velocity graph flattens, pick the middle weight, and start to alter seating depth from there. "Should" see you come right.

What pressure signs did you get exactly?

As mentioned above, you really don't need to push these 145gr bullets at light speed, as long as you are within the ~2000-2400fps window when the bullet hits, you'll be fine. That's about a 500m bullet / load and that's plenty to be getting on with.

What's the typical heart lung area size on a mature deer?

I'd say that anything you can put into 40 mm @235m will handily bowl deer as far as you can usefully shoot.

Unless you're Carlos Hathcock or Simo Hayha.......

A4 paper or a 3ltr plastic milk jug......pretty much cover the vitals...if you can CONSISTANTLY hit a milk jug a deer is in big trouble at same range. a rabbit,not so much LOL.

Another vote for pro hunters or super chap. Cheap but deadly. Went away from ballistic tips in my rifle and sussed the load accuracy wise before looking at speed .

If it ends up not liking them the 150gr nosler long range accubonds are a good pill in 270. Tikka on this forum has shot a fair number of deer with them out to 800 odd metres from memory and I had a pretty good run with them to.
If you don't plan on shooting more than 500 to 600 yards then the stock standard 130gr ssts or nosler ballistic tips work find. In the last year I had my 270 I think I shot 15 or so deer between 400 and 525 yards 130gr nosler ballistic tips.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

A4 paper or a 3ltr plastic milk jug......pretty much cover the vitals...if you can CONSISTANTLY hit a milk jug a deer is in big trouble at same range. a rabbit,not so much LOL.

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A rabbit is still in big trouble. Even a near miss with the 270 will kill the rabbit. Hit any part of the rabbit and it is game over.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I had tried a couple of methods to establish max. COAL @Flyblown... used a Hornady gauge first, but struggled to get a consistent reading. After the first set of loads were less than amazing, I used the marker pen / fired case method and got a more consistent reading around 0.9mm longer than the gauge had given. I figured I hadn’t been shoving it in firmly enough. Have been working to a 20 thou jump (no issues with mag length on a 700 LA @dannyb).

Yeah, I’d be happy with the 40mm group, but given I’m getting an extra 200 FPS with the 140 SSTs, I thought I could expect that accuracy at higher than starting loads...

Given the consensus seems to be that speed is overrated, I’ll have another go at the lower loads and see how accurate I can get it. I’ve loaded another set at 0.5 grain increments. It might be false economy, but I can’t bring myself to go to 0.2 / 0.3 until I know I’m close.

I’ve also split the difference with the jump, and sanded out the plastic factory stock to float the barrel - maybe I’m introducing too many variables, but I’m running out of powder and projectiles (not to mention wearing out my welcome at @Moa Hunter’s range 😜)!

Will let you know how I get on...

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Originally Posted by mopheadrob

Thanks again for the advice guys. I had tried a couple of methods to establish max. COAL @Flyblown... used a Hornady gauge first, but struggled to get a consistent reading. After the first set of loads were less than amazing, I used the marker pen / fired case method and got a more consistent reading around 0.9mm longer than the gauge had given. I figured I hadn’t been shoving it in firmly enough. Have been working to a 20 thou jump (no issues with mag length on a 700 LA @dannyb).

Yeah, I’d be happy with the 40mm group, but given I’m getting an extra 200 FPS with the 140 SSTs, I thought I could expect that accuracy at higher than starting loads...

Given the consensus seems to be that speed is overrated, I’ll have another go at the lower loads and see how accurate I can get it. I’ve loaded another set at 0.5 grain increments. It might be false economy, but I can’t bring myself to go to 0.2 / 0.3 until I know I’m close.

I’ve also split the difference with the jump, and sanded out the plastic factory stock to float the barrel - maybe I’m introducing too many variables, but I’m running out of powder and projectiles (not to mention wearing out my welcome at @Moa Hunter’s range ��)!

Will let you know how I get on...

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Some of the problems are likely operator fault - shooting off a field rest for load development is not ideal. We need to put you on the bench and sandbags at 100. You are welcome anytime, but please don't attract any more fog

Some .270's just dont like heavy projo's i have had 3 and none of them shot 150's very well compared to 130's. As MD said the Nosler partition 150 is a very good killer / performer I have used that in short country a lot but wouldnt rate it for longer shots.

Ummmmmm. Use a different bullet. So saying that what is wrong with 40mm? Mine doesn't like them either but shoots 0.5 MOA with 130gn interlokts. Which is good cause they kill better anyway. I agree with Mickey Duck. My accurate load is only doing 3000fps. Any increase in velocity and they styart to open up. I haven't lost a moments sleep over it. That is plenty fast enough. Killing power (with acceptable accuracy) first, fine accuracy second and velocity a very distant third.

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Originally Posted by Mauser308

Ahhhh, the solution from @johnd - it's not the projectile in this case, its the caliber. Change that and you'll be sorted!:thumbsup:

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No thats not what I said at all? Did I miss something or are you reading me wardsback :thumbsup:

I dont know why more people dont use 2217 in the 270. Its the best ADI powder for heavy bullets.

I can get a 150 (sgk,vld,ablr) all going just over 3000fps in my T3x which is in the 7mm rem mag ballpark almost. But i settled on 2900 for accuracy.

The ADI book data is very very conservative, work up a load until you see pressure and then go back a bit.

Also, you should go further away from the lands to reduce pressure, my 6.5 shoots ELDM at 3.7mm off the lands.

Im playing with the VLD now, i get just under 1moa at 1mm jump but im going to play around with the depth a bit as you do with VLD's. See the berger website for the reccomended process.

In saying that, even at 2700 the 150vld is a 500 yard deer load easily.

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Originally Posted by NewbieZAR

I dont know why more people dont use 2217 in the 270. Its the best ADI powder for heavy bullets.

I can get a 150 (sgk,vld,ablr) all going just over 3000fps in my T3x which is in the 7mm rem mag ballpark almost. But i settled on 2900 for accuracy.

The ADI book data is very very conservative, work up a load until you see pressure and then go back a bit.

Also, you should go further away from the lands to reduce pressure, my 6.5 shoots ELDM at 3.7mm off the lands.

Im playing with the VLD now, i get just under 1moa at 1mm jump but im going to play around with the depth a bit as you do with VLD's. See the berger website for the reccomended process.

In saying that, even at 2700 the 150vld is a 500 yard deer load easily.

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I thought that Robs loads seemed overly long and said to myself 'Gee that rifle has a long throat'. If Rob used factory ammo the projectiles would be seated 4mm off the lands looking at the length of the reloads