Load Testing/Bullet Questions

[fishing4sanity]

I'd start with your 30-06 and later decide if you want to mess with reloading a 9mm. For me, the pistol is something that when I do shoot it, I go through ammo so fast I don't want to take the time to reload ammo. Couple that with the fact that I'm not as worried about very fine accuracy details with my pistol, so I buy reloaded ammo from Bite the Bullet or someone for my pistols. Rifles I do worry about getting as much accuracy as possible and reload for those. Like others have said, rifle reloads for me often start with a bullet in mind and then work with different powders and seating depths to find the accuracy. Before it's done, some rifles go through a few different bullets or weights different than where I started. Others sometimes come together quickly with the bullet I had in mind to start with - then there's the occasional problem child.

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

Again, thanks everyone for the advice. The only reason that I'm interested in doing the 9mm is because it IS time consuming. I really don't give a crap about accuracy with my handgun either, but the fact that I can potentially spend a bunch of time loading it and focusing closely on something really helps me relax. I can't imagine that loading 20 rounds of '06 would really take me too much time (maybe I'm totally wrong) and it would be a little on the spendier side. Just thoughts I guess.

 

[Bambistew]

Again, thanks everyone for the advice. The only reason that I'm interested in doing the 9mm is because it IS time consuming. I really don't give a crap about accuracy with my handgun either, but the fact that I can potentially spend a bunch of time loading it and focusing closely on something really helps me relax. I can't imagine that loading 20 rounds of '06 would really take me too much time (maybe I'm totally wrong) and it would be a little on the spendier side. Just thoughts I guess.

If you want to load something cheap that is tedious... get yourself a 17rem, fireball or hornet. you'll spend more time dropping bullet and picking the up than loading.

I pick the bullet I want to shoot and hope for the best. If, for what ever reason they don't shoot well, they become practice loads for trigger time. I've only had one bullet that I couldn't get to shoot and gave up... 150gr E-Tips in my 308. S-U-C-K. Speaking of which, I have 3 boxes that need to be tripped down the road.

 

[Ben Lamb]

If you want to load something cheap that is tedious... get yourself a 17rem, fireball or hornet. you'll spend more time dropping bullet and picking the up than loading.

I pick the bullet I want to shoot and hope for the best. If, for what ever reason they don't shoot well, they become practice loads for trigger time. I've only had one bullet that I couldn't get to shoot and gave up... 150gr E-Tips in my 308. S-U-C-K. Speaking of which, I have 3 boxes that need to be tripped down the road.

I've got a 308 I need to work up a load for after I change out the extractor & firing pin. What are you looking for in trade?

 

[Don Fischer]

I think where hunting ammo reloading really run's into a wall is when we strive for more accuracy that we actually need. I do that and bet most the experienced guy's on here do that. For me it's also led to re-doing a rifle's bedding. Give me a factory rifle that shoot's 1 1/2" out of the box and I'll either fix it or get rid of it. But the truth is a rifle that shoot's 1 1/2" out of the box is more than adequate as a hunting rifle! But heaven forbid we accept that! I don't own a rifle that won't give me three shot group's of one inch or less. Can't do that or better it need's a new home, not mine! Absolutely stupid! Take an inch and a half rifle and shoot a lot and the mere practice you get will more than make up for that wayward one inch group. Yet lot of guy's like me out there and worse trying to make bench rest competation guns from out of the box! Ain't gonna happen but the chase is a hoot!

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

That's exactly why I want to get into it. Something else to spend my time perfecting.

I decided to go with 9mm first but am moving on to '06 soon enough. Ended up getting the Lee challenger kit. Built a small bench in the basement and have everything ready to go. Now I just wish the die that I ordered would hurry up!

 

[GlockZ]

Cabela's used to sell variety packets of bullets, each pack contained a dozen bullets, different brands, calibers and weights. i bought those a bunch of times for different rifles for load development. unfortunately they stopped selling them. ( by variety i mean, one pack would contain 12 .308 Berger vld's in 168gr, another would be 12 .308 Nosler AB, etc, etc )

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

Cabela's used to sell variety packets of bullets, each pack contained a dozen bullets, different brands, calibers and weights. i bought those a bunch of times for different rifles for load development. unfortunately they stopped selling them. ( by variety i mean, one pack would contain 12 .308 Berger vld's in 168gr, another would be 12 .308 Nosler AB, etc, etc )

Well I wish they would start up again. Looking at bullets this weekend it doesn't look to be that horrible price-wise. Also, the link that Mthuntr posted for the Nosler rejects looks promising.

 

[old man]

I never fond an accurate load for the N.P.t in my 300 WM.

 

[old man]

There are a few sources for sample bullets online. In my opinion they do not give you enough bullets to actually find a load for that specific bullet.

In most cases, shooters are looking to match a load to the bullet they have chosen. That bullet typically has a specific purpose and the shooter chooses a weight based on their goal for that specific rifle/application. I wouldn't randomly go buy a bunch of bullets without having a specific purpose in mind...in my case target shooting gets a bullet with a high BC with little regard to construction while for hunting I tend to prefer bullet construction over BC (ie something like a partition). Some bullets have both good construction and good BC like the Accubond.

There are a handful of favorites used by shooters and sticking to the known helps reduce the cost a little. Universally, I suggest the Accubond as a starting point for a hunting bullet

I never fond an accurate load for the Nosler partition in my 300 win mag.

 

[Four22]

What caliber are you trying to work loads up for? I have some I could share if the caliber is right. Lots of load development for my calibers also.

 

[Four22]

My process is below:
• Select bullet weight
• Determine seating depth (I start .020 off the lands)
• Determine “accuracy powder” for Lyman manual, Sierra Manual, Hornady manual, Nosler Online resources and cross reference all of them to see if one specific powder is denoted as “most accurate” for a weight bullet.
• Start 2-3 grains below the “accuracy load” (I typically go off the Lyman manual) and go up by .5 grain increments until you’re 2-3 grains above the “accuracy load” or at max load
• At this point you should be able to see what grain charge the sweet spot is between
• From there I break it down to .1 gr increments and shoot again
• Once the most accurate load is found you can start playing with seating depth if you need to tighten it up more.
I have a .257 ackley that shot the lights out with my grandfathers loads that he developed. He passed, left the rifle to me and I tried duplicating the load (he had no data or anything written down). 80 rounds later I got close to his accuracy only to find out that the bullet liked more bullet jump in that particular rifle. Set the bullet back another .030 and shoots like a dream now.

Other circumstance, my 30-06 shoots the Lyman “accuracy load” like a dream at .020 off the lands. Some rifles are finicky and some are a breeze.

I still have yet to find a load that shoots 117gr bullets out of my .25-06 smaller than a 3” group when others claim that to be a phenomenal shooting bullet.
I guess the take away is to just buy a box and hold on to them

 

[375H&H]

For your 25.06 try 115gr Barnes TSX.

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

I'll be working up a load for my Win Model 70 30-06 shortly hopefully. I'll definitely take your advice. Do you by chance have a picture of the Lyman book's "accuracy load?" I was only able to snag the Hornady book to begin with at this point.

 

[MThuntr]

My process is below:
• Select bullet weight
• Determine seating depth (I start .020 off the lands)
• Determine “accuracy powder” for Lyman manual, Sierra Manual, Hornady manual, Nosler Online resources and cross reference all of them to see if one specific powder is denoted as “most accurate” for a weight bullet.
• Start 2-3 grains below the “accuracy load” (I typically go off the Lyman manual) and go up by .5 grain increments until you’re 2-3 grains above the “accuracy load” or at max load
• At this point you should be able to see what grain charge the sweet spot is between
• From there I break it down to .1 gr increments and shoot again
• Once the most accurate load is found you can start playing with seating depth if you need to tighten it up more.
I have a .257 ackley that shot the lights out with my grandfathers loads that he developed. He passed, left the rifle to me and I tried duplicating the load (he had no data or anything written down). 80 rounds later I got close to his accuracy only to find out that the bullet liked more bullet jump in that particular rifle. Set the bullet back another .030 and shoots like a dream now.

Other circumstance, my 30-06 shoots the Lyman “accuracy load” like a dream at .020 off the lands. Some rifles are finicky and some are a breeze.

I still have yet to find a load that shoots 117gr bullets out of my .25-06 smaller than a 3” group when others claim that to be a phenomenal shooting bullet.
I guess the take away is to just buy a box and hold on to them

This is the process that I tend to use for my hunting rounds. sure you use a few more bullets but getting things tuned in is totally worth it.

 

[Four22]

Those are around 60 bullets to develop but is now my go to load for anything...

Biggest thing I learned when reloading is: TAKE NOTES. write things down so when you have a 2 month break from reloading, you don't forget...

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

Beautiful groups! Hope to have something like that ironed out with my rifle as well. Not sure what to expect for accuracy out of it, but I've definitely killed enough deer with factory ammo to know that it shoots decently well.

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

I got my first 50 done in 9mm. Took wayyyy too much time prepping the brass (it was fun to piss around with for a while), and am heading to the range this weekend to send them down range. Thanks everyone again for your advise! I'll probably have more questions once I move on to my '06.

 

[TimeOnTarget]

I strive for excellent accuracy with handloads. A couple weekends ago I worked up and shot 9 different loads. I was getting frustrated with the results and loaded about 5 more different loads and finally found a load that I was happy with which measured in the .3's.

When I got back in the house I grabbed the calipers and measure the 9 original groups. 7 of them were in the .5's. It gave me a good chuckle that 1/2" groups were not acceptable to me.

on a game animal or .2's difference in group size is never going to make a difference. But I sleep better at night

 

[OhHeyThereBen]

I really hope that this isn't a dumb question, but I can't find an answer anywhere in the Hornady manual or the interweb. Are the powders that are listed in the Hornady manual listed from most to least accurate?

Another question that I would like to throw out there is this: I see that there is a lot of people saying that IMR 4350 is a great 30-06 powder and it's even the most accurate powder for 165 grain bullets in Nosler's online load information, but it's not listed in the Hornady manual. Would this be because they found the other IMR powders to be more accurate than this one or something? I can't really swing buying a bunch of powder right now, so if anyone has any powder recommendations for 30-06 with a 165 grain bullet I would definitely appreciate it. I'm sure that eventually I'll have the opportunity to try different loads with different powders to see which my gun likes best, but I would really like to start with something that I can get decent groups out of off the bat.