d80hunter

Hello everyone I finally gotten into reloading rifle cartridges after a few years of straight wall pistol reloading. The degree of quality I plan on using on rifle ammo will be much greater than the effort I gave on pistol ammo.

The pictures I attached where complimemts of a 7mm-08 Savage 16FSS 22"inch barrel. Shoots were taken at 100 yards in field conditions through a chronograph and into the target. I used Hornady 139 grain American Whitetail ammo as a reference to factory loadings and Hornady 139 grain BTSP bullets with a starting load and a max load. Powder used was IMR 4064.

The max load shot similar to the factory load in accuracy and velocity. The starting load shot great but was 100 fps slower.

My question simply is tinkering with the max loads seating depth and dropping the charge a several .001s going to ever be worth my time or should I stick to the starting load go from there? I am leaning on the later but some insight on the subject would be appreciated.

Ridge Runner

my experience with 7mm/08's, IMR 4350/fed. 210 primers shines, the load you have is begging for a seating depth adjustment.
RR

super_hunt54

Seating depth adjustment is a great tool in a reloaders tool box. Some rifles, actually most rifles, can be a bit picky about how far you set that bullet from the lands. Some like a good bit of distance, others like it right up on it. I've had more than a few bolts that just a simple thousandths set out cleaned up a group from 1.2 MOA to a cloverleaf. A grain here, a thousandths there can make a world of difference to a picky rifle.

RaySendero

So how far off the lands were those loads?

muzzlestuffer

just load up some batches of ten or so per batch and make each one a couple thou shorter that the ones before or vise versa making them longer depending where you started and just shoot the batches just be as consistent from one batch to the other as possible.

super_hunt54

A good set of calipers can be a re-loaders closest ally! 2 things a re-loader should never skimp on, scales and calipers! Scales for 2 reasons, one being a goof in weight can have some nasty results, the other is consistency. Calipers for consistency.

mounting man

I like starting loads or one step up in powder. 2 reasons being that they most of the time shoot groups tighter and second,my brass last longer!

d80hunter

Thank all of you. I appreciate the advice. I will find out the OAL to the lands for this particular rifle and compare it to my reloads. Then I will have some measurements to work with for a seating depth adjustment.

Another thing is I find this rifle to get hot rather quickly and cause vertical stringing depending on cool down time. My first string shots always hit 12 o'clock of the bullseye very consistently with a cold rifle or 5 minute wait, now and every other time I shoot it. The 2 minute wait between shots always yield a higher impact. Firing back to back and it will keep walking up. I will keep this into consideration when I post pics of my next shooting session.

Ridge Runner

I load batches of 6, one is ran through the chrony, the other 5 are shot for group, just a flyer doesn't bother me much, but the "group within the group" syndrome tells me I can make it better.
RR

Blackelk

After buying the Hornady OAL measure, a bullet comparator and a concentricity tool. I found out I wasn't off by much compared to using my old methods but I was still off regardless. I haven't seen a huge differences in groups on the first day but it's not that easy to shoot better than 1/2" MOA groups unless I'm shooting better for the particular day. Reloading for precise one hole groups is getting expensive. It seems your loads need some seating depth tweaking as said before. I think my next step in this process is having dies built for the guns and loads I am shooting. I've done everything else I can think of.