Working up a 270 load.

Briarquest

Well-Known Member
Hi,
Today we have been testing some loads for my old Sako AV .270. I am using Reloader 22 in Remington cases 002 off the lands. Propelling a 150 grain Hornaday soft point.
I worked out the average load from several reloading manuals taking their max and min loads and dividing by the number of data sources to get my average.

I started out at 52 grains with my final 4 shots being 56.5 grains. 52 grains was 1 grain above my worked out minimum and 56.5 was 1 grain below my max.

There was only one clear winner with 4 shots at 100 yards in a 10p piece. It was the 52.5 grain load.

I have been reading the "is this what is to be expected" thread. In fact it was my inspiration. I am just surprised the charge weight is so low and a little concerned about velocity and I don't have a chrono to check it.

Should I stick with the same load or adjust the distance from the lands?


Ian
 
Knowing the .270s liking for a hot load, you'll probably find there's another sweetspot bang on the maximum powder charge, so keep going right up to 57.5 - 58 grains (watching for pressure signs obviously).
 
Am I correct in reading that you are working 2 thou, ie .002" off the lands? If so, this is much too close for a hunting rifle. Hunting bullets will have more than 2 thou of difference in the shank length. I would start at 10 thou as a minimum, maybe more like 20 thou. Bear in mind, 20 thou is 0.5mm.

I don't propose to rehash all sorts of stuff here now about load development, but expecting perfection by running up a ladder of charge weights is not realistic, it is only a starting point. If you do get a load doing 0.5moa for 3 or 5 rounds, it is only pot luck.

You need to establish your best powder charge at max OAL, and then systematically test OAL's which are incrementally shorter until you get to an accuracy node - the sweet spot.
 
Last edited:
OK let's just say this ................................................. it's impossible to be sure you are really seating your bullet 0.002" off the lands. Now I don't care what your Stoney Point or Hornady etc OAL gauge says as the chances of it being the same measure as your actual rifles barrels is slim to none. Plus with shooting the leade will wear some so unless your going to re-check the measurement say every box or so of ammo the whole thing becomes a bit of a farce. Add the fact that unless the bullets your using are carefully measured and batched there will be far more the 0.002" variation in them and that's if ............................... IF they came out of the same die.

Too many people read about bench rest shooting and it's loading techniques and then try to use it in a normal rifle :rolleyes: bench rest rifles are like formula one cars totally useless for every day normal use. I recall the BR gunsmiths like Seely Masker made seating gauges from a section of the barrel fitted and reamed with the same chamber reamer to the same depth he did not use some bit of metal with a hole bored in it of nominal calibre and then claim that was the same as every barrel in that calibre.
 
to be perfectly honest it depends on what you are reloading for and your expectations.
If you are happy with the group then leave it alone.

IIRC RL22 is quite similar to N160 in burn rate.
I settled on 54.5gn of N160 when the max is quoted as high as 58.2.
Theoretically it give me a MV of 2800f/s, more than enough to expand a bullet well at hunting ranges.

from the Lee manual the starting load for RL22 under 150gn is 54.1 giving 2800f/s
max being 58.5 and 3010f/s

your MV is likely to be around 2700ish which will work just fine...doubt the deer will complain
 
Hi,
I am going to see how the load performs at 200 yards and see what the level of drop is and then go from there. The recoil was very low for a 270 and very noticable when I got to 56 grains plus.


Ian
 
Back
Top