Another project of mine a long time in the works..... to be able to make and shoot .264 cal bullets as good or better then the many of the bullets available today. A pretty tall order considering there is some very good match bullets in the 6.5mm class but I feel I have come pretty darn close, or at least good enough for my personal shooting needs at the moment..
The first rifle I started hunting with back in the early 90s was a sporterized 6.5x55 M94 Swedish Mouser. My family had been hunting the hills of NE Oregon with these great little cartridges for an entire generation before my love affair with the 6.5x55 started and they have accounted for a great many number of successful hunting trips. Now with a strong modern day (I like and use Savage) action and some high end custom barrels the 6.5x55 is only getting better.
As for the bullets, they took me for a journey in basic reloading fundamentals. Making the bullets was straight forward and just as easy as any other bullet with a beautiful 7.5s ogive, small .062 meplat and a precision 9 degree boat tail, with these dimensions they are a near identical match to the Nosler Custom Comp 140 grain bullets, I do have a reamer that will allow for a near perfect match to the 142 grain Sierra Match Kings that I will be trying out soon. Getting the bullets on paper producing small groups proved to be just as successful with my first outing with these beauties. However subsequent outings in attempts to produce small groups proved to be a bit of a challenge. What I learned, or more specifically..... what was once again ingrained in my learning process, was that when it comes to reloading......EVERTHING MATTERS! Of course we all knew that right! You change a component your going to get different results, you change the OAL, powder, powder lot#, powder charge, primer your going to get different results. I didn't want to believe it, especially with the same brand of powder but different lot numbers but boy did something as simple different lot number of powder and a different primmer sure give me a wake up in the fun involved with loading an accurate round.
I got lots of data and info to share but short on time at the minute. Till I get back here is some fun pics to check out.