Thread: Test load temps

if you are not pushing the envelope eg 2-3grns above book max or trying for that last fps you should be fine...... a nice accurate load that is a bit below max will be better to shoot and easier on components and shooter anyway..... firing off a load and seeing primers looking like pancakes is NOT a pleasant experience,far better to find happy medium and live longer.

I ended up throwing the ammo box in a chilly bin with a hot weat sack and a thermometer, it bought the ammo up a few degrees to about 24-25 not to scientific though, it was a pretty sunny day so probably didnt need to bother.

Book max is a bit vague as its 6.5x55 and all the load data I can find is for older actions, after a lot of looking around I have found for 140gr most people are working up to a max of 47-47.5gr 2209, that was one of the things I wanted to confirm today, got very light extracted wipe at 47 and a clear wipe at 47.2 so stopped there.

I am trialing this 10 shot style of load development that's all the rage on youtube mostly just for somthing to do, results we're interesting.

My chrono may be reading a bit high not sure it's new first time out.

45.5 2716fps this was mostly just a check/test load to make sure I'm not way out or somthing
46 2784fps
46.25 2804
46.5 ERR realy wish I had this read
46.75 2826
47 2850
47.25 2848

So from that there is a flat spot in 46.25-46.75 as that's only a 22 fps jump for .5gr every other .25gr was atleast a 20 fps jump excluding the 47 and 47.25 which read the same but did have slight pressure, I may explore this if a load at 46.5 doesn't group well but I'm happy with 46.5 and if that velocity is correct I feel I'm pushing it hard enough.

So next is to load up a few rounds at 46.3, 46.5, 46.7 and see how they go for group size, as I say this is mostly an experiment, if this actually works and gets me onto a go grouping load without having to shoot lots of groups is a fair advantage, it's tricky for me to get to a decent shooting bench setup for load development and this cuts it down to one trip to confirm the final groups.

Sorry need a few more space bars in there next time to make it easier to read