Caribou Gear

7mm-08 powder start

Your right because I didn't ask for your help reloading. I offered experience with the powder and cartridge asked.


And my experience and knowledge is saying that getting wrapped on the stats can be a waste of energies. Focusing on them with statistically insignificant groups sizes is even more of a harm than good. That’s the engineering speaking.


The guys a world class f-class shooter and very informative.

If you can get groups and your under 900 yards, The elevation changes are nil for what your trying to do.

That’s just reloading period.

Regardless of caliber.
 
Hodgdon's reloading site also shows 6.5 Stabil as the fastest load for 140's. Has anyone tried it yet?

Anyone load for a specialty pistol in 7-08? Curious what you came up with. I have a Savage Striker in 7-08 just going to try to develop a good antelope/mule deer load with Nosler 140 BT.
I worked a good load up with it using 150 corelokts. Imagine it would do good with 140's as well. YMMV
 
I just worked up a load for the 140gr Accubond and 150 ELDX with Varget. Great results, 5 shot groups at 100 for both are under .4" That is with Lapua brass and Federal primers. Total length of 2.8". This is in a Bartlein barrel 24" with 1:7" twist.

Of the powders I have tried in the 7mm-08 Varget has been the most consistent over the greatest temp ranges.
 
The 3 powders I've used a lot in 7-08 are Varget, Big Game, and H4895. All are very good, but I consistently get most fast and accurate with Big Game. A few years ago I worked up a load using Big Game and 140gn ABs. I got good accuracy with 46.8gns. I was using F210 primers and got about 2870fps in a 24" barrel.

Found good accuracy with Varget at 41.3gn. This load seemed to like a little more jump than others: COL = 2.77. This combo was accurate, but not all that fast. Around 2750fps.

7-08 is great cartridge for reloading. Surprisingly versatile.
 
I went through a slew of powders and wasted a lot of time & $$$. For me Varget and RL-15 became my 'GoTo' powders, from 120's to 150's. In my Ruger 77, I don't fret much over which. If either one is on the shelf I grab it and run, but I sway towards Varget.
 
My method for picking a powder is this.

Look at load data for a given bullet/cartridge and pick the powder that has the highest velocity. Then look at is that powder available and is it temp stable? If yes and yes, I'm done. That's my powder. I've found this to work well for most of my applications. The only time I vary that is when making purely plinking rounds for revolvers, I use cfe pistol for it being clean and handling multiple power levels and calibers.

Alot of the newer powders were the best at everything, velocity, temp stability, clean (at least in my load) imr8133 until they discontinued it.
 
My method for picking a powder is this.

Look at load data for a given bullet/cartridge and pick the powder that has the highest velocity. Then look at is that powder available and is it temp stable? If yes and yes, I'm done. That's my powder. I've found this to work well for most of my applications. The only time I vary that is when making purely plinking rounds for revolvers, I use cfe pistol for it being clean and handling multiple power levels and calibers.

Alot of the newer powders were the best at everything, velocity, temp stability, clean (at least in my load) imr8133 until they discontinued it.


I also add in the per round cost. Been coming up with some .223 and .260 loads that have really dropped the cost down with smaller charge weights and lower per pound costs. My match .223 68 gr OTM I’ve got down to under $6/box now. It would be almost $10 if I used the most common components people say to use.
 
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