Not trying to brag. But some backstory. I had a rem 700 300AAC. It was a ***. bbl said 1-7 but was 1-10. Didnt shoot heavy subs for anything. Was a baffle striking SOB. Buddy of mine loved it with supers and offered to buy it, which was an opportunity to build what I wanted. I figured I could build a savage 111 for the $1200 ish I got for the rifle (wasnt a stock 700). $5000 later I have a blueprinted sav 111 in a yankee hill chassis with an air gauged to .0001 bore dia criterion 10" stainless bbl VLTOR stock, blah blah blah grips and bolt handles and other such with a .30 harvester can. On top of that I put a Leupold MkIV 4.5-14 with their amazing TMR reticle. I know thats a ridiculous scope for this application, but I have 3 of em in a drawer and the MK II I put on it originally ran out of elevation. Dont judge me
I know this is an incredibly stupid gun. I have a 300AAC AR thats way more reasonable. Ill probably rebarrel this in the future to something else less stupid. HOWEVER. My brother made fun of me for spending a gazillion dollars making a glorified 100 yd gun. Im not taking any of his guff so Im trying to REALLY push the limits of a 300AAC shooting heavy subs. And its super fun to shoot, set the rifle down, wait several seconds, and then hear the ping of the bullet striking steel. I had a doe on the range I was shooting at the other day and she only left when she got bored. I had to stop shooting when she got too close to my bullets flight path.
I worked up a subsonic load with 311-247s by chrony to be slightly short (most of the time) of 1100 fps. Im trying to toe the line on sub sonic. So I cannot vary my powder charge to attain accuracy. What I am doing is the F-class guys method of varying COAL decreasing from on the lands to mid accuracy node by .003 per test group of cartridges to find my accuracy node. Ive shot over 100 rounds working up velocity and COAL once I found the proper velocity. I take a journal to the range and take tons of notes on each 5 shot group every time a variable changes. I draw maps of targets with which variable was shot at which target and what the group looked like. So you can imagine how much time I have into figuring this out. I went to the range yesterday and shot a 4 shot group within about 1.5 caliber @ 100yd @ 2.230 COAL and 11gr 4198 (I dont have AA1680, I am aware its awesome). The best node I have is .006 wide. I was planning on setting up my die at the longest COAL and id have .006 for erosion wear before I have to reconfigure the load (not that a sub bullet will erode the rifling to any degree), but thats the method and I was trying to stick to it.
My Lee bullet seating die is varying seating depth +- 6 or 7 thousandths. I cant even stay in my node without measuring every bullet and readjusting the seating depth every dang time. On the long side of the node I was shooting like 1.5 inches, not calibers. So massive difference in accuracy.
1 does anyone understand all that garbage?
2 Is there a die I can buy that will give me better consistency in COAL? The lee seating adjuster on the die visibly moves on seating. Ive not seen any micrometer 300AAC dies.
3 Am I just asking too much from a powder coated cast boolit? Is this variation from variation in the coating?
4 Do you think I should seek psychiatric help for trying to shoot a 247gr cast lead boolit 500 yd?