I played around with the 308403 Pope on and off for more than a Dozen Years. I used it originally as it was designed ,finger seated in the case and delicately chambering and found it to be "about" a 2 minute of angle load in sporting rifles.
Recently I got a fairly good gas check bullet shooting "200th year" Ruger #1 30-06. I figured I would give it another go. My results were similar so having recently acquired a little unimat lathe I decided to make myself a breech seater. It didn't come out too bad considering my rudimentary machinist skills. The first few range sessions I played with my favorite load of 8 to 9 grains unique and was averaging five shot groups right at an inch and a half for the last 20 groups at 100 yards. The good groups were very round but didn't want to go under an inch and there was not really an inclination that it was going to do so. I had a can of Hodgdon CFE pistol in the truck and I tried some on the same setting for Unique . the velocity was definitely higher but I didn't have my chronograph to check. Needless to say the shots were all over the place.
So this morning I brought out the chronograph and backed it down to a velocity 1280 ft per second(10.5g) .I then shot five consecutive 5 shot groups that had a lot of clustering that averaged Just a Touch over an 1-1/8" with a couple of shots that were Heartbreakers that would have made a couple group's 5/8 of an inch.
I have to say I'm getting happy with this breech seating 30-06 deal .Remember this is an unmodified Ruger #1 so it's nothing special ,the triggers rather heavy compared to my target rifles.
the groups circled in pink are the cfe groups.
Attachment 263497Attachment 263498
Attachment 263499
Attachment 263500