disaster or sorts!

skippy1001

Well-Known Member
well i finsihed last weekend making up a batch of 100 rounds in 22/250. followed the Hornady book gr for gr.

using a 55gr v max with H380.

my rifle its a weatherby vanguard and shoots very well, usually arround a sub 1 inch group at 100 yrds.

well i tried a few out last night and discovered that 4/5 shots missed the target. so some zeroing was conducted today and would you believe it i can only achieve a 6inch group at 70yrds with these loads.

needless to say i will be starting again! and the sad thing is I Dont have a BULLET PULLER!

moral of the story: only load in small numbers when developing a load for your rifle!

Doh.

Skipp.:oops:
 
well ive checked a few things and one thing has been shown to be at fault at least! my micrometor is faulty, i have checked how far i am away from the lands using this faulty guage (and a dummy round) and i am some where between 1.81 and 2.1mm away from it. i think the first thing to do is to replace this faulty guage and then maybe show the bullet a little closer to the lands. at 2.1 mm the bullet will need binoculars to find its way out of the chamber! all in all not the best sesion i have ever had. that will also explain the copper swarf on my floorplate!

skipp.
 
well ive checked a few things and one thing has been shown to be at fault at least! my micrometor is faulty, i have checked how far i am away from the lands using this faulty guage (and a dummy round) and i am some where between 1.81 and 2.1mm away from it. i think the first thing to do is to replace this faulty guage and then maybe show the bullet a little closer to the lands. at 2.1 mm the bullet will need binoculars to find its way out of the chamber! all in all not the best sesion i have ever had. that will also explain the copper swarf on my floorplate!

skipp.

Yes, best to load up small batches.
Some rounds like a 'jump' to the lands. The depth should not cause 6 inch groups. H380 and 55gr bullets have worked well in .22-250s for many years. Not sure why you should get such awful grouping.
If you changed powder 36gr of Varget did well for me too.
Good luck :)
Best, C
 
i am starting to wonder if the barrell might have past its best. i think before i do much more tweaking with the homeloads i will get it checked by a gunsmith and have a quote for a new barrell from border barrells.

all in all an expensive day.

thanks for the reply's chaps.

Skipp.
 
Barrels don't suddenly start delivering 4.5" groups overnight. I guarantee that if you go to one of those blood-sucking UK gunsmiths he will indeed agree your barrel is shot out no matter how good it looks. Forget worrying about your barrel. And don't worry about the seating depth too much, either. That won't deliver 4.5" groups either. A bullet load combo that is incompatible will. What was your charge??~Muir
 
Skippy, Muir makes a good point. Have you checked that nothing has come loose? Scope mounts are still all tight? Action screws? I have shot a poor group, given up in disgust and when I went to remove the moderator, found it wasn't on tight. Regards JCS
 
Gentlemen I have a 270 with short length Norma factories it shoots 6 inch groups when I pulled them and re set the OAL 5mm longer they shoot 1 inch groups so bullet length sometimes will cause 6 inch groups
 
i have checked that everything is secure and tight, i have also tried a few rounds without the moderator fited and still grouping is a problem with these homeloads. one thing i have not tried yet is my old load that worked well! i will try that this weekend and see if accuracy improves. i have noticed that the bullet heads are not quite perfect to the eye, there seems to be a rais in the jacket on one side where the BT sits in.

loads of things could be causing this, including my shooting style, so i will start off back to basics with the old rounds and see where to go from there.

Your right about the gunsmiths! so far i have been quoted £735 and £550 to replace the barrel. i only paid £575 for the rifle 5 years ago!

So plenty of things to keep me bussy over the weekend, however raising the rifle to an animal will not be one of them, as i carnt in all good consious do that knowing that performance is down.

thanks for the comments chaps!

Skipp.
 
Skipp, when i started using my reloads my groups went up from 3/4" with federal 140gn (1" with RWS HP) to about 4" with 129gn SST's. I made up 3 round test batches of 42gn, 43gn, 44gn, 45gn, and 46gn and i made them to the length Hornady specified in their book and could not better 2.5". Then I re-read all three manuals that I have, all of which said one way to promote accuracy was to decrease the jump to the lands. I worked out how far out I could seat the bullet while still giving good neck tension on the bullet, and tried them. I did a 3 shot group (and yes i know all you military types say 5 shots is a group) that worked out at .334" . I have since done some 5 shot groups, taking my time, that are outstanding.

Before dropping your pants and lubricating yourself for a new barrel, try altering your reloads back to what you were doing, then change things slowly!

ft
 
well i have returned to zero my rifle with some different rounds. Remmington 55gr SP, sako 55gr SP and my old homeload. would you believe it i have a group back down to sub 1inch at 100yrds. so the barrel will stay and my wallet will remain unopend.

i will now start from scratch again and work loads in groups of 5 untill i can reach the same or better accuracy than before. to say the least i am releaved.

thanks for the info everyone. it would seem something in that last load did not like my rifle. amazing really how small changes in a load can make big changes on the range. lets hope i find that "sweet spot" at some point.

Skipp.
 
Skippy, as FT says take it up in one grain incroments at a time, seat the bullet at 10thou off the lands i'm sure it will come good at some point.
Then stick with the best powder weight, and tweak the seating depth later, to tight'n up the groups. Atleast you have between 5 & 7 hundred £ss to by more loading components with:lol:. Just take your time, it will come good in the end;)

Atb,
Moe..
 
That's an interesting article on seating. Starting to wonder if poor performing homeloads I had long since binned and changed powder and bullets for could have been turned around by changing the seating depth. Hmmm..lots to digest. I've loaded H380 for three .22-250s and had very good results, but just seated to what I thought were ok depths...no science. Just lazy I suppose, but have always been too busy with work or culling to look for 'sweet spots' and take homeloads to the next level. I'm keen to play around with seating depth now... Where on earth did I put that micrometer? :)
 
While new to reloading myself, I'd point out that changing the COL also raises/lowers pressures (quite dramatically at times) and if the bullet starts in the lands it can spike pressures!

A good bit of kit for varying the COL's easily and precisely are Competition Seating dies, not cheap but quite useful. Redding is better than the RCBS in this case, the RCBS is difficult to read. I recently found that lengthening a load by 20 thou' closed groups from 1 Moa to about a 1/2" moa. Same charge, powder primer, bullet and case.
 
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Start as long as possible check for pressure signs at max length,this way you can make a larger batch and just keep seating them deeper by a thou until you get to where you want to be,saves a lot of time if you are able to take a press and seater die to the range....

Nell
 
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