Starting over; .308 Winchester

[RickinTN]

I gotta ask. I think I remember the parallel portion or freebore of your throat had a length of about .140"? How are you getting a .311" bullet into a .310" throat? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here.
Rick

[Silverboolit]

Lyman load data for 2015..26.0 gr = 13400psi, 31.7 gr = 24100 psi.. Alliant 2400..15.5 gr= 15800 psi, 22.0 gr = 34,800 psi, velocities about the same.

You had better luck with the lower loading with 2015, right?

Your alloy may be too hard considering the lower pressures that you are running. Your bullet may not be filling the grooves in the barrel and skidding. Try to recover some spent boolits and check for skid marks.

[tomme boy]

Dean, what I mean is most USA made rifles have a 0.308"x0.300" barrel. I was wondering what yours is?

[DeanWinchester]

I gotta ask. I think I remember the parallel portion or freebore of your throat had a length of about .140"? How are you getting a .311" bullet into a .310" throat? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here.
Rick

Yeah, brain fart, sorry. The spot in between the case mouth and where the rifling starts measures .311. Veral designed and built this mold to be .311 up to the ogive. I sent him the pound cast and he cut it to that. It fits. When I close the bolt, I can FEEL it fit, but it doesn't hang and extraction is easy. I can feel it though, basically 'Touching" everything.

Accuracy is nothing more than a function of launching a stabile, balanced bullet. Hard for me to beleive this bullet is unbalanced. Its supported by more than 75-80% of its surface area.

[DeanWinchester]

Dean, what I mean is most USA made rifles have a 0.308"x0.300" barrel. I was wondering what yours is?

Well, this is Japanese made.

[DeanWinchester]

Lyman load data for 2015..26.0 gr = 13400psi, 31.7 gr = 24100 psi.. Alliant 2400..15.5 gr= 15800 psi, 22.0 gr = 34,800 psi, velocities about the same.

You had better luck with the lower loading with 2015, right?

Your alloy may be too hard considering the lower pressures that you are running. Your bullet may not be filling the grooves in the barrel and skidding. Try to recover some spent boolits and check for skid marks.

I've tried air cooled wheel weights, although not with this particular boolit but with everything else so far. You'd think if the boolits were skidding, the volume I've run and the fact I only run a dry patch once or twice for cleaning, would show some leading somewhere.
No joke, the bore is spotless. If anything, it's shinier now than when I got it.

Ive tried 2015 with every boolit so far and it's pretty much sucked all the way. I keep trying to make it work because I have over 9 pounds of the çrap.

[Silverboolit]

Dean.. Don't take this wrong, but I think that your powder choice is a little off. Look at the loads on this website, and you don't see too many running the powder that you are using. Could the powder choice be the common denominator that is holding you back? You have changed everything, 4 rifles, how many molds, etc. You have spent a lot more in trying to get results that you want than a couple of diff. powders would have cost.

I know I am not the sharpest pencil in the cup, but if we were closer, we'd make that Weatherby sing a different song.

[DeanWinchester]

I've used a lot of different powders. I'm running with 2015, 3031, 4198, 4064, 2400, Unique & Varget because that's all I have.
In the past I've also tried 4350, BL-C2, 2520, wc846, wc844, wc844t, wc842 & smp842

[DeanWinchester]

Okay, how about this one.
I was at the local gunshop, there, in the back of the shelf were two dusty canisters of SR4759. I said, "These weren't here before".
"Oh yeah, they were buried in the back."

$40 for two pounds. Not too bad.

Reckon 4759 will run in this thing? I think I'll load up some 2400 & SR4759 and try them both. Worst it can do is fail. If it does, I'll have that for consistency.

[RickinTN]

I just bought my first pound of 4759 a few weeks ago. I haven't had time to try it but expect good things. I think I know that somewhere in the 19 to 20 grain range with your bullet is supposed to work well. I have my fingers crossed for your success.
Rick

[DeanWinchester]

Interesting discovery today. Not sure I believe it will cause my groups to shrink but.....

I was inspecting my cases to get ready for the next go round. I was really looking them over and I never thought to look before but there is some NASTY burrs on the inside of the flash hole on about 3/4 of these cases.
I went to town today and bought a Lyman tool and fixed that. I don't think for a second the groups are gonna just tighten up dramatically but this could be the source of the inconsistency, yeah?

[Ben]

DeanWinchester

Removing each and EVERY variable in the reloading process is certainly a step in the right direction.

I've been know to lightly spin a VERY sharp drill bit that is slightly larger than the flash hole on the inside of the case and in the primer pocket , to clean things up .

This will do a pretty good job of removing any burrs.

Ben

[Silverboolit]

Dean....How did today work out for you??

[DeanWinchester]

Dean....How did today work out for you??

Pretty good. I got up late, ate, ruled my kingdom of tile from my porcelain throne, and then took a nap.

Been a great day so far!

[country gent]

Deburring flasholes does help some How much I cant say for sure. I made a debyrr tool with a small center drill set in a stem and an adjustable stop so all cases could be chamfered the same from the mouth of the case. Mine osnt have a handle byt is driven in a drill press spindle and cases set on by hand and fed by hand pressure. What I would like to try is a cutter with a chamfer cutter and pin stop so flas holes chamfer could be held to depth from primer pockets surface or possibly case heads. Would take some playing but a solid angled [pin spinning might burnish the burrs out with out any real metal removal also. Uniforming primer pockets a few thousandths also seems to help accuracy consistency.

[highmaster82]

I load the lee .308X180 gr tumble lubed standard gas check bullet, 39 gr slow lot of 852 (4831 data) about 1800 fps . Kriger barrel 1-11 twist .308 match rifle . 1 to 1.5 moa at 200 yds. also cycles my dpms LR .

[DeanWinchester]

I know it's bad form to change more than one thing at a time but I've got all the flash holes deburred. There were a lot of chips for such a tiny job.

Next, I switched back to an Mdie. Before I was adjusting the collet die to get the tension I need, then flaring with a Lee Universal Flare.
Now, I've put a healthy chamfer on the ID and run them into the MDie just enough to prevent shaving but still chamber easily. Any flare at the case mouth is gonna be left there and I'm not going to close it with the collet crimp die.

As time allows this week, I have 50pcs to load; (10) each @ 17.0g-21.0g of 2400.
Wonder what, if anything, will change this go around?

I've also got two pounds of 4759 to try after that. I'm scared of 4759 though. Something tells me it'll probably shoot the best.......because they just discontinued production of it. It'll be my luck to find the sweet spot and not be able to get the powder to repeat it.

[DeanWinchester]

You're not gonna get a heavier "non bore rider" in this rifle without seating the boolit below the case neck, which is something I'm not going to do for several reasons.

[Kraschenbirn]

...Ive tried 2015 with every boolit so far and it's pretty much sucked all the way. I keep trying to make it work because I have over 9 pounds of the çrap.

Too bad we're not closer together 'cause I'd gladly make an offer to take some of that '****' off your hands.

Seriously, at one time, AA2015 was the 'hot number' among the bench-resters for cartridges like the Rem 7BR, .308x1.5, 6.5 PPC, etc. I started using it when I was shooting a custom XP100 in 7BR for IHMSA (off sandbags w/scope: moa groups from a 14" barrel). Currently, I burn a lot of it in my .45-70s where 29.5 gr. 2015 + 440 gr. RNFP = 1270 fps from my Pedersoli RB. Until AA2015 got hard to find around here, I was also using it in the 7.5x55 Swiss and getting pretty fair accuracy.

Bill

[waco]

My best .308 load so far is a Lee 155gr boolit over 19gr of SR4759 and a .7gr tuff of Dacron filler. I was getting pretty consistant five shot groups at 100 yards that measured right around 1.2-1.5"

2400 was a close second accuracy wise. Speed for both loads was somewhere around 1700 FPS if memory serves. Alloy was coww and 2% tin. Air cooled.
Waco