Off-season project - 7mm Rem Mag

[std7mag]

I suppose but I’ve never shot sub MOA with any Hornady bullets, even polymer tips. After I caught the one that wouldn’t round, I pretty much lost any confidence in their ammo. Really wish I would have brought my good federals, just to satisfy curiosity.

Their muzzleloader bullets, on the other hand, are pretty top notch.

Ahhh.
I reload mine.
I've shot all the Hornady bullets up through the 162gr.
Mostly for load development and trigger time.
I've found that Nosler Ballistic Tips, Berger VLD, and Sierras will all shoot smaller groups.

But .78" group of 5 at 100 yards with Hornady is more than fine for a hunting rifle.

 

[perma]

Ahhh.
I reload mine.
I've shot all the Hornady bullets up through the 162gr.
Mostly for load development and trigger time.
I've found that Nosler Ballistic Tips, Berger VLD, and Sierras will all shoot smaller groups.

But .78" group of 5 at 100 yards with Hornady is more than fine for a hunting rifle.

Yeah I think the bullet itself would be good. I’d like to try them when I start building a kit. I’m not sure what it is but the ammo out of the box always fouls the barrel more than others. Noslers and federals seem to have a cleaner burn that doesn’t leave much to clean from my experience.

 

[Alpine01]

Yeah I think the bullet itself would be good. I’d like to try them when I start building a kit. I’m not sure what it is but the ammo out of the box always fouls the barrel more than others. Noslers and federals seem to have a cleaner burn that doesn’t leave much to clean from my experience.

I could never get hornady's to shoot well with their factory loads; either my 308 or my 7 mm RM. But I have developed a hand load with the 150 gr CX's for the 7mm that is 0.5 MOA.

 

[perma]

I could never get hornady's to shoot well with their factory loads; either my 308 or my 7 mm RM. But I have developed a hand load with the 150 gr CX's for the 7mm that is 0.5 MOA.

I might be asking for notes in the future….

 

[cahunter805]

Yeah I think the bullet itself would be good. I’d like to try them when I start building a kit. I’m not sure what it is but the ammo out of the box always fouls the barrel more than others. Noslers and federals seem to have a cleaner burn that doesn’t leave much to clean from my experience.

Always foul more? I’m curious how you know this?
Normally for me I “break” in a barrel with at least 100-200 rounds before it settles. With factory ammo and your factory rifle anything 1MOA I’d call acceptable.

 

[perma]

Always foul more? I’m curious how you know this?
Normally for me I “break” in a barrel with at least 100-200 rounds before it settles. With factory ammo and your factory rifle anything 1MOA I’d call acceptable.

Take my observations for what they’re worth, cuz clearly I’m not a gun expert here.

When I had my old rifle, I ran out of Noslers so I had to use Hornadys. I could get them to group 1.25” but I noticed that my muzzle break had a lot of residual on it. I take the bold out and the barrel looked dirtier than I normally see. With Noslers, I can burn through a box and never see it as dirty.

 

[perma]

Today is putting lipstick on a pig.

Because of the epoxy job I subjected this stock to, I thought it best to repaint the whole stock a base color, sponge it and clear coat. Something basic but tasteful. I had 3 cans from the prior paint job and started with ‘expresso brown’. I did a coat of paint and hated it. It looked like a wood stock, too light for me. A quick trip to Menards yielded a ‘walnut brown’ color, which in the right light, is essentially black. Turned out amazing and will contrast well with the barrel color.

Letting it dry for a few more hours and will check if it’s tacky. Sponge paint either tonight or tomorrow.

 

[std7mag]

Take my observations for what they’re worth, cuz clearly I’m not a gun expert here.

When I had my old rifle, I ran out of Noslers so I had to use Hornadys. I could get them to group 1.25” but I noticed that my muzzle break had a lot of residual on it. I take the bold out and the barrel looked dirtier than I normally see. With Noslers, I can burn through a box and never see it as dirty.

It's down to whatever powder Hornady and Nosler use, not the bullet itself.

 

[perma]

My uncle was a dealership body tech and a damn good painter. I didn’t inherit any of those genes. Took me a good 5 days to rattle can this stock but it came out great. Finally out on my last coat of clear this evening. It’s dry enough to handle but I’ll wait until tomorrow to refit the barrel one last time and epoxy the swivel studs.

Still grinding the recoil shim, can’t seem to find a decent bench grinder to be gentle enough. I may have found one I can use so I’ll have that done tomorrow hopefully. Then sand flat and paint it to match the stock.

All that’s left is bed the scope, pretty up the bottom metal and re-zero for the last time.

 

[perma]

Well I cant update unless I screwed up, so here I am.

The stock was ready to go. I attempted to epoxy a shim to the recoil pad and then I was going to epoxy the screw holes to bore out a new hole. The epoxy didnt dry within the 24 hours I assumed it would have. I touched it and got it all over the stock. Tried to wipe it but reached for the rag that had brake clean on it. For those that dont know, brake clean is a harsh chemical that will strip paint, which is exactly what it did. So I had to wet sand and repaint the butt side of the stock. All for the sake of looking pretty, too!

Good news is that it's all dried and clean. Turned out really good. Decided to not sponge it and just clear coated it. I assembled the gun early this morning and tightened the screws. Took an early lunch and went out to the gun range to rezero. I took two boxes; some very expensive Federal TA's that I bought during the ammo shortage, and some old janky-@$$ Remington soft points that I would believe are 12+ years old.

Here’s the groups for the TA



And here’s the deadliest 12 year old mushroom




And for the sake of saying it; the TAs were shot first after 10 rounds put through from the other day. Add 15 rounds of TA, then the Remingtons....

 

[perma]

Well, I thought this would eventually turn into a reloading thread, and I’m too lazy to start a new one so here we are.

I started making a collection of reloading supplies. Super budget friendly along with a lot of folks from here chipping in their treasures to me. All in all, I can reload 300 Weatherby all for around $150 invested in used and donated tools. I also got lucky and found a bottle of H1000, so Im cooking with kerosene.

Here comes the stupid. I get the dies today and get overly ambitious to size up my first brass. I rub a bit of Unique on the case and prep the press with the first die. I slide the shell into the holder and find it’s a bit loose, didn’t think much of it….

I press the shell up and pop the primer out. As I pull the press down, the shell doesn’t come with it. I looked and everything was fine, the shell holder was just too large. I rechecked the shell holder size and this is where I screwed up.

I checked two shell holders. A #5 for Lee will work for 300 Weatherby, which is 100% true because I got one for a hand primer. A #5 on a RCBS will NOT work for 300 Weatherby, a #4 will. Checked the local Sportsman’s and they’re out of stock, but Laramie has one. Bought it, and will pick it up tomorrow.

Off to a splendid start!

 

[perma]

Well I got the right shell holder and was able to shimmy it onto the case and pull it out. The case ended up being a few thousandth inches short at the end of it so I’m not sure I’ll reuse it.

Which comes to another topic; say you buy a box of factory ammo and fire them all empty. How many cases can you yield from that box? I ask because I have a handful of cases that are shorter than spec, one specifically was about 0.005”. I might be splitting hairs here but that comes with the stupid engineering degree.

 

[Sheltowee]

Well I got the right shell holder and was able to shimmy it onto the case and pull it out. The case ended up being a few thousandth inches short at the end of it so I’m not sure I’ll reuse it.

Which comes to another topic; say you buy a box of factory ammo and fire them all empty. How many cases can you yield from that box? I ask because I have a handful of cases that are shorter than spec, one specifically was about 0.005”. I might be splitting hairs here but that comes with the stupid engineering degree.

I'd shoot them all. If you are really wound up about it, you can always trim to a consistent length but 5-thou below spec isn't going to hurt much in terms of practical accuracy particularly in a cartridge headspacing off of its belt.

 

[perma]

I'd shoot them all. If you are really wound up about it, you can always trim to a consistent length but 5-thou below spec isn't going to hurt much in terms of practical accuracy particularly in a cartridge headspacing off of its belt.

That makes me feel better. I went from 14 to 19 pieces. The last one just vanished somewhere.

 

[perma]

Made my first 5 rounds with the out of spec cases. Going to give them a whirl this Friday.

At this point I’m pretty much hooked. Seems like something I can enjoy doing. Here comes another rabbit hole.

 

[BackofBeyond]

So were your out of spec cases shorter than the max case length, or shorter than the “cut to” length?

Usually there’s a range - somewhere between the two is where you want to be. Start growing past the max length then it’s time to start trimming.

 

[perma]

So were your out of spec cases shorter than the max case length, or shorter than the “cut to” length?

Usually there’s a range - somewhere between the two is where you want to be. Start growing past the max length then it’s time to start trimming.

Shorter than my ‘cut to’. The brass seemed to get longer when I resized except for maybe 2-3 that were still way shorter than the ‘cut to’ which I found odd. The other ones I just goofed because my trimmer wasn’t locked.

 

[BackofBeyond]

Shorter than my ‘cut to’. The brass seemed to get longer when I resized except for maybe 2-3 that were still way shorter than the ‘cut to’ which I found odd. The other ones I just goofed because my trimmer wasn’t locked.

They should grow when you full length resize. How much shorter than the cut too? If it’s just a couple thou I wouldn’t be super concerned with it.

 

[perma]

They should grow when you full length resize. How much shorter than the cut too? If it’s just a couple thou I wouldn’t be super concerned with it.

I’d have to remeasure but I thought the worst one was 0.007” short. I did manage to get the OAL in spec and I didn’t visually see anything wrong.

 

[perma]

Well I misspoke. The length I was referring to was the max length. Nosler didn’t publish a trim length for 300 WBY, so I looked on SAAMI’s website and it has a cut to length of 2.813”. So I’m actually well within spec, (max is 2.825”).

I had another box of brass that I decided to clean and deprive this evening. I couldn’t get one piece to get over 2.8145 so I decided to trim all the brass to 0.001”+/- that. All came out pretty good. I’ll prime those and wait to fill them once I get a good load.