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+--- Thread: Range Day (/showthread.php?tid=110)
Range Day - Dino11 - 09-26-2020
Went to the range yesterday, beautiful day,sunny, 75*, light breeze.
Set up our targets at 100 and 300 yards, there are always targets at 600 and steel at 200,300,400,500,600.
I was shooting Nosler RDF 105's as that is the load I have worked up the most and I now believe after reviewing months of data today have finally found the gold, at least for my rifle and it works well for my son as well.
After reviewing data for over 100 5 shot groups, some of them were not so impressive. I was having some problems recently with high SD's and traced it back to my old digital scale that I have had for about 15 years gave up the ghost. So I purchased a Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper, nice piece of equipment. My SD's went from 20's and as high as 30 recently to an average of 8 on this last trip. I did take some of the old reloads with me and the SD's went to 18 from all single digit SD's loaded from the new powder dropper.
The sweet spot seems to be loading with Leverevolution topped with Nosler RDF 105's, OAL of 2.215
Best groups 29.4gn @2680 to 2700FPS, .5 or less MOA @ 100 yards.
Very good groups 29.7gn @2730 to 2750FPS, .5 MOA @100 yards.
This is months of data collected, and I did take out the more recent data that I knew was bad from the scale being wonky.
I will add that I really do not see any variance between the Nosler RDF's and the Hornady 108 ELD's They both shoot almost Identical speeds and accuracy with the 108's losing just a little velocity. And maybe just one click of elevation in favor of the Hornady pills. So I don't think I need to work up a load for them.
It is amazing how these things do in the wind, it doesn't really seem to effect them much at all.
I was approached by a gentleman at the range. He walked up and asked how I liked my 6 ARC, I thought that was rather odd because nobody that I have spoken to even knew what it was. He said He saw the ammo boxes on my bench, I had to put some of my reloads in them because I ran out of the plastic ones I use. They were at the next bench over and my brass was landing next to them. Well after a couple of min talking about the gun he told me he was a rep for Hornady, he was their coaching another guy there and setting up his rifle for PRS. We talked for a while he seemed nice enough and was a wealth of knowledge, but not so much on the technical stuff. I think he must of been a sales or marketing rep, but he did pass on a phone number I could call to talk directly to an engineer for tech info.
RE: Range Day - mikebin - 09-27-2020
Great information; thanks for sharing. And the encounter with a real, live Hornady rep is pretty cool as well.
RE: Range Day - BluntForceTrauma - 09-27-2020
Good stuff! Thanks, Dino. Can't remember your barrel length from your other posts; can you remind me?
RE: Range Day - Dino11 - 09-28-2020
The barrel used for the testing was an Odin 18" rifle +2 gas system. I also have a 20" Faxon barrel, the 18" barrel out performs the 20" as far as velocity and accuracy. I think because the +2 allows more dwell time on the bolt before it starts to pull the cartridge out of the chamber, and the extra length before the gas is vented into the gas block it is pushing the bullet a little harder.
RE: Range Day - BluntForceTrauma - 09-29-2020
In other words, you're getting near 24" book velocity from an 18" — and that loading 2.220 instead of 2.260, to boot!
RE: Range Day - Dino11 - 09-29-2020
Hornady's test numbers are from an 18" barrel, not the standard 24" It took me a while to catch that but it is printed in the data. But then conflicted later in the same data. I called Hornady and they told me all test were done with an 18" barrel. and that this bullet was optimized for an 18" barrel.
Hornady's number are somewhat anemic as well, other as well as myself have seen 100 to 250FPS differences in using their data to load and the actual numbers.
So it is hard to tell you I believe I am getting 24" barrel numbers because those numbers are not definitive.