BTSniper heavy 6.5mm 180 grain VLD bullet!!!

[nccaster77]

BT. Any chance you were ever able to recover any of these? I would love to see expansion on these beauties. At 3000fps I bet it’s amazing. If not I’ll send you a few Boston Butts so you can give it a try. Love your swaged products. Custom made better than store bought. Wish I had $$$$ lol

[BT Sniper]

Haven't shot any into any sort of recovery media. The day I do I'll certainly post a pic.

Did go out shooting one last time for a while yesterday, it seems the accuracy and stable fps is returning for me. As I suspected an increase in load was the key. Once I got up to 69-70.5 grains of RL-33 it starting shooting much better. I even tried a few rounds with CCI 250s and Federal Mag primers, the results over the crony looked promising and potentially better then the CCI BR2 primer.

But what was really awesome was the results I got from my 6.5x55 with 141 grain bullets made in this same die! I'll post data of these results soon on another thread.

BT

[BT Sniper]

Posted results of my 141 grain bullets in a previous 6.5 thread.

I did find the upper end of the pressure limits for my 178 grain out of the 6.5WSM, at 71.0 grains it blew two primers. This was at a fps of 3080 with the CCI BR2 primmer.

Here is some of the data with loads and fps I have gathered from my 178 grain bullets. 28" 7 twist barrel, CCI BR2, Win 270WSM brass sized down and id. neck reamed, RL-33 loaded .020" into lands at 3.050" OAL.

Numbers after Nitride processing barrel. Average fps was taken from as many rounds as possible, in some instances only 4 rounds fired in testing....

62.5 = 2770 fps
63.5 = 2830
64.5 = 2976
65.5 = 2976
66.5 = 3061 ?? 3058, 3037, 3122, 2996, 3093, 3079, 3044, 2930
67.0 = 3072 ?? 3065, 3079, 2911 (threw out the low one from average)
67.5 = 3000
68.0 = 3012
68.5 = 3030
69.0 = 3099 ?? 3037, 3167, 3115, 3079
69.5 = 3030
70.0 = 3044
70.5 = 3061
71.0 = 3059


CCI 250 mag primer

68.5 = 2989
69.5 = 3047


Federal GM215 mag

68.5 = 2997
69.5 = 3066



Before nitride with CCI BR2 primers....

62.5 = 2960
63.5 = 2980
64.5 = 3000
65.0 = 3014
65.5 = 3025
66.0 = 3021


I think my next testing will be with loads between 69.5 and 70.5 grains of RL-33 with the three different primers.

The 66.5 and 67.0 grain loads with the high spike in pressure my have been do to high build up of carbon and copper in barrel? I don't know for sure and probably will not be testing those two exact loads again.

[BT Sniper]

My last outing proved to be a success with the polished chamber in this 6.5WSM barrel. Only had two rounds that produced bolt lift pressure, the 3167 and 3115 fps shots which are 100% certain to be due to excess pressure spike then a rough chamber.

Here is a look at the polishing lap I put together from a 1/4" piece of brass and a fired round.



Swage on!

BT

[Mike in MD]

Very interesting read there BT. I have a 6.5 WSM that shoots 140 gr. Bergers very well. I'm having a light version built as a carry gun. I was looking for load development for the 156 gr. Berger EOL's when I came across this thread. How deep are your 178s in the case? I'll be throated for 156 and was wondering what I might loose in case capacity with a 178. Anyway if you need someone to shoot some of those beauties just say the word.

Mike

[BT Sniper]

I debated throating it out a bit, IIRC I could have went .200" longer to put the boat tail junction at base of neck. So I guess it is seated .200" deeper then ideal. My loaded OAL is 3.050 with a .020 jam.

Brian

[BT Sniper]

What twist is your barrel? I don't think these will stabilize in any thing less then a 7 twist. I think with my 7 twist I may need at least 2850+ fps to stabilize these long pills.

[BT Sniper]

What powder you shooting?

[257X50]

Reminds me of the old Barnes 6.5QT......on a 264WM case I believe.......200 gr,2800 FPS and a 6 1/2” twist.
The 226QT .....125gr,2800 FPS and a 5 1/2” twist......257 Roberts case.

I think those are right. Been a few of decades since I studied them........

Sorry to bring up an old thread. Someone may like it

Fred liked those rounds.