Savage Model 10 FCP

[Duckiller]

No. 1 son bought the Savage with a McMillian stock to put holes close together at long distances. As of right now it has no sights. No.2 son is going to arrange for bases, rings, and glass. Dad, as the prime reloader, gets to provide ammo. My reloading has been for hunting and plinking. Current available range max out at 450yds with the potential to go to 600yds soon. The question is what do I need to load 400-600 yd ammo? Match primers? Sierra Match king/Berger bullets? Some special powder? weigh every powder charge? weigh bullets? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Once he gets so he knows what he is doing with J-bullets I may be able to convince him to try cast boolits.

[Lloyd Smale]

I had a fp in 223 and what it liked best was 60 grain horndady vmax bullets and varget capped by a ww small rifle std primer. But every gun is differnt. Contrary to what some people think. Buying match quality bullets doesnt gurantee accuracy. Every gun has its prefered bullet and sometimes its the cheap ones that shoot.

[38-55]

Duck killer,
What caliber ? If it's .308 try a 175 gn matchking and 42.5-44 gns varget. I use a cci large riffle primer but any should work well...
Calvin

[Duckiller]

Sorry, Thought I included everything. It is a .308.

[Buckshot]

...........If the rifle will shoot, Sierra match bullets should suffice. I would prep all your brass (same headstamp and lot if possible) and then weigh each case. I wouldn't bother weighing the bullets. Weight your powder charges.

I'd also suggest you keep your brass in batches of 20 or 50 rounds. With each batch keep a record of the number of times fired, annealed, and trimmed. At a minimum use a Lee collet die for sizing and leave the body & shoulder alone. Don't mess with swapping primers until you find a really good consistant load.

There are many more things you can do, but that's a pretty basic list. I have a Savage M112 single shot in 223 I bought back in 1992 when they re-introduced the heavy barreled rifles. My cousin was a Gunnery Sargent in the Marines stationed at 29 Palms at the time, and after a visit and finding out I had the rifle, the next time he brought a 3 gallon pail of LC88 brass.

After they'd all spent some time in the tumbler, over several nights while at work I de-primed, FL sized, trimmed and swaged the primer pockets. After that I scaled every friggin' one of'em. I had several 50 round batches that weighed within a tenth grain of each other and several more within a half grain.

At the time while doing load development I was at the range twice a week sometimes. The load it would consistantly do the best with was 28.5grs of Win748 and a Sierra 53 gr match HP. I use the Lee collet die set. It is an honest half inch rifle with 5 rounds at 100 yards. I have shot groups in the mid-low .3's, but I'm just personally not up to that all the time. The rifle very well could be, but any day I'd wager a hundred bucks I could drop 5 rounds into a half inch or better.

................Buckshot

[9.3X62AL]

+1 to WW-748 in both 223 and 308.

That 28.5 x 748 load is a little warmer than I run my 223's.......what kinda velocity are you getting with the 53 FB/MK's? 26.0 grains of 748 and the Nosler 55 BalTip in commercial cases gets about 2875 FPS in that little 16.5" Ruger boltgun of mine.

[Buckshot]

+1 to WW-748 in both 223 and 308.

That 28.5 x 748 load is a little warmer than I run my 223's.......what kinda velocity are you getting with the 53 FB/MK's? 26.0 grains of 748 and the Nosler 55 BalTip in commercial cases gets about 2875 FPS in that little 16.5" Ruger boltgun of mine.

.............Without running out into the shop in my stocking feet to check the notebook I believe it's about 3400 fps (26" bbl).

.............Buckshot