Thread: Old reloading data

Greetings again,
Load data for the 6.5x55 is all over the map. Speer in its No14 manual offered two sets of data, A lighter set for the army rifles and what were supposed to be high pressure loads for stronger actions. About 2011 a second 6.5x55, a Tikka T3 Lite, snuck into my gun safe. As usual for a new rifle all the data I could find was rounded up which I found was all over the place. Some target velocities were calculated based on data for the .260 Rem and case capacities and using some rules that John Barsness had dreamed up some years back. from this and some chronographing it appeared that for AR2208 the supposedly high pressure speer data was more like the medium pressure data in the Hodgdons on line manual. Along the way it was discovered that AR2209 (H4350) had been sped up around 2,000,
Getting back to AR2208 and the 120 grain projectile the 39 grain load giving around 2,800 fps should develop about 45,000 CUP and 36 grains giving a little over 2600 fps should develop a little under 40,000 CUP. This is in line with the velocity recorded by @Woody and interpolated from the Hodgdon data. In short I would not use any load that chronographs over 2,800 fps with the 120 grain in a barrel of 24 inches or more. Velocity is a better indication of pressure than the grains of powder used as I found out with AR2209.
Regards Grandpamac.