Rutland lad
Well-Known Member
You may recall my expensive (time and money) quest to make Barnes 120 grain TTSX/TSX work in my 6.5x55. I detailed this in a previous post.
In my exasperation the torch was passed to a friend and ex colleague of mine who had similar poor results with the Barnes - and he’s an experienced reloader.
We then decided to try Fox Classic Hunter in 123 grain. After some work he arrived at a charge weight which seemed to work well, but being OCD like myself, he continued the quest and found a better sweet spot Today’s target. In the field at 100m off a bench using bags for support as I’m after groups.
starting bottom right - not bad, just about 1.5” group
bottom left, getting my eye in now, down to 1.2” group
top left is the same load in Sako case, again not too shabby for deer stalking,
but then - top right. Three rounds of the ‘preferred load’ giving a 0.8” group.
Much happier now.
That’s it. Job done. All that remains now is to see what the effects are on deer, and if satisfactory then I’ve a winter of reloading ahead of me to build up some stock.
To all of you that gave me moral support on here, thank you. It was worth not giving up even though I felt like it. On many occasion.
To those of you struggling with the change from lead to copper/nontoxic - keep going. You’ll find a load that works.
In my exasperation the torch was passed to a friend and ex colleague of mine who had similar poor results with the Barnes - and he’s an experienced reloader.
We then decided to try Fox Classic Hunter in 123 grain. After some work he arrived at a charge weight which seemed to work well, but being OCD like myself, he continued the quest and found a better sweet spot Today’s target. In the field at 100m off a bench using bags for support as I’m after groups.
starting bottom right - not bad, just about 1.5” group
bottom left, getting my eye in now, down to 1.2” group
top left is the same load in Sako case, again not too shabby for deer stalking,
but then - top right. Three rounds of the ‘preferred load’ giving a 0.8” group.
Much happier now.
That’s it. Job done. All that remains now is to see what the effects are on deer, and if satisfactory then I’ve a winter of reloading ahead of me to build up some stock.
To all of you that gave me moral support on here, thank you. It was worth not giving up even though I felt like it. On many occasion.
To those of you struggling with the change from lead to copper/nontoxic - keep going. You’ll find a load that works.