Thread: can't leave well enough alone 7mm rem mag 180gn eldm and VLD

My 2c, dont assume .02" off the lands is the best for precision. VLD shooters are finding out that not all benchrest trends cross over to LR setups. I found some of my most accurate nodes were way back beyond .05" so its worth doing a full seating test plus using a decent gauge to find realtime distance to your lands. After firing say 200 you need to confirm it or adjust for any erosion. Point is you will use this guage many more times than just once.

Totally, I have started at 15thou off the lands and will see how that goes, if no joy then i will go the full seating depth test.
This is really just something to play around with, my eldm load is more than adequate for the hunting I do and unless the VLDS shoot better than I probably won't muck around with them to much.

So the berger 168gn VLDH didn't shoot better than 1 moa or there abouts but I was pretty lazy and just seated them all at the same depth then just did a ladder of different charge weights so serves me right.
What I did notice was I got better speeds with less or the same powder than the 162gn eldm's is this normal ?
Didn't write any down as I was disgusted with only 1 moa groups
Anyway I've decided to scratch the 180gn itch and bought some 180gn VLDH Bergers to try out.....watch this space





.....what can I say I'm a BC slut

Following with interest @dannyb

you really need to try the 140 grain noslers @dannyb.

Originally Posted by gonetropo

you really need to try the 140 grain noslers @dannyb.

Plenty of time for that mate

Originally Posted by dannyb

Plenty of time for that mate

i have a few loaded up if you want to try

I think I coughed up my arsehole seeing the price of them... STREWTH!!!

Originally Posted by A330driver

I think I coughed up my arsehole seeing the price of them... STREWTH!!!

Partitions or bergers ? Once a load is developed I'd be lucky to use 20 a year so the cost is not really a factor too much

The 7mm jobs

Well had some spare time so have loaded up a ladder of berger bombs to try at the range tomorrow.
Below is a 180gn VLDH behind a 162gn ELDM man I love the mag on this 85 action so much room.




Not much room for bigger cal



All set for some range time tomorrow....

Well busy day on the range today a few rifles to sort unfortunately I forgot the ammo for one of them

Better results with the 180gn bergers too, not quite there but better and some direction at least for the fiddler in me
The speed I was able to push these heavy slippery slugs at was quite surprising.
Went to about 1/2 a grain over book max and got better speed than my 162gn eldm load.
No signs of pressure at all, no sticky bolt, primers looked good, no ejector marks nothing at all.
I don't see the need to push them any harder but I will be playing with the seating depth and trying my best load from this ladder again as I can't be sure I didn't muff one.

Here's my ladder and the speeds I got off the magneto speed chrono.



As you can see some very consistent speeds at the higher charge weight end of the ladder

The groups aren't that impressive and I didn't take a pic of the first group as it was pretty average in line with the rest...
I have numbered the rest from 2 to 8 as per the list in the book on the previous post.

Continued...