I think I found my sweet spot... What do you think?

[WWWJD]

Stepping up the powder weight from 42.4 to 43.6 round robin. I wish I knew what my velocity was doing. This is out of my .308 SPS 20" @ 100 yards. I'm thinking I could load anywhere between 43 and 43.4 gr of powder and be "in there".. the wind was from the left at 5-10, so one on group #6 pushed a little.. or I just pulled it. The vertical spread on the others doesn't seem good.

Group #8 is 5 shots with 43gr of Varget behind 168gr Nosler Ballistic tips... not too shabby for the first 5. I'd say that these shoot as good as the Match Kings give or take.

Group #11 are fouling/warm up shots; didn't try too hard with those.



Here's another 5 of the Noslers at 200 yards.. same wind conditions.



What do y'all think?

[mwsenoj]

Looks good to me Mark - better than I am shooting these days with my 20" SPS in 223

Two questions, first, I saw your other targets that are posted in your signature and thanks! but I am interested in the one you use here with the 10 diamonds if you still feel like sharing. And second, what does your username mean? It has one more dubbya than I am used to seeing

[farmerboy]

Think youre on your way, the only thing is what I do is I am there after I can do same exact three days in a row. that way you cant blame wind, or your trigger finger are just a bad day or a good day. Thats just what I do.

[Rimfire5]

Those are nice groups for an initial test.

Here are rough measurements of the groups given that the image was slightly skewed but the results are great nevertheless. Sorry for the large size but I figured you might want to do something with the results.



Remember though, one group with a particular load doesn't do anything but give you some encouragement to pursue that load.

I would recommend that you shoot at least 10 groups with the best ones before I decided on my best load.

Then you have the alternative of changing bullets and then tuning seating depths.

But with that rifle, you're well on your way.

[WWWJD]

Thanks for the feedback guys and the analysis rimfire! I think I'm going to do what you're talking about, farmer, and do 10 each of the 43.2 and 43.4.

WWWJD- it's a carry-over from the jeep forums; I own a 2004 WJ frame, so "what would WJ do?"... it's cheesy, but everything else I came up with had 35 digits behind it.

I've modified my siggy with a link to the target shown.

[Jimro]

Look for an accuracy node at 43.0 The shift between the center of the groups 43.2 and 43.4 doesn't look good to me. Whereas everything from 42.6 through 43.2 had a pretty stable center of group.

But definitely shoot more to find out for sure.

Jimro

[Kayser]

I think I wish I could get to the range as much as you do

[WWWJD]

So where do I go from here Jimro? Seating depth? 43.1, 43 and 42.9?

[Jimro]

Load up 42.8, 43.0, and 43.2 and shoot them to see if they end up in the same group. If so you found an OCW sweet spot. If not try for a higher node or lower node. Remember you are looking for the center of the group to stay tight with the different powder charges.

Once you've verified the sweet spot, then start playing with seating depth. 168gr bullets are usually fine with a "jump" to the lands so that may or may not be critical to accuracy in your rifle. My experience with factory chambers is that you really can't "load to the lands" without going way long on COAL.

Jimro

[Bart B.]

I don't think 2/10ths of a grain increments is enough to sort a bad load from a good one. Especially when excellent commercial, military and custom match ammo's loaded with metered charges with weight spreads of about 3/10ths grain. That's enough to shoot 2/3 MOA at 600 yards from a proper rifle. And they'll shoot 1/4 MOA at 100 yards.

Nor do I think 5 shot groups are sufficient to tell which load's the most accurate. Especially when so many folks shoot a few to several of them then average their extreme spreads. Averaging a bunch of 5-shot groups ain't a good test. The load's accuracy one can rely on is at least the size of the biggest one 'cause if you shot all five of them in a row all on the same target, all 25 shots would have a bigger group than any 5-shot sample.

At least 20 shots per test group's needed if one expects the group to be at least 80% representative of what all groups will be. Best way to evaluate any test for reliability is if the results are the same each time it's run, then its a good test.

Load ammo with powder charges in 1/2 grain increments; 20 rounds with each.