h414 and the 30-06

[jnh]

Any one have any good loads with this powder. Where I hunt there can be a 50 degree diff in temp from morning to afternoon. Ive heard that this powder is temp sensitive but have not check for my self yet. Just looking for some starters from you guys. Ive also heard that it is the same powder as w760 and in my 30-06 I should use a mag primer. But in my reloding books tells me its a bit slower. Im hopeing that it will shoot 150 sst well because I cant get then to do any better than than about 2 in at one hundred yards. 150 spire points are at .75 and 180 spire points are less than .5. Ill try it with all of my bullets just hopeing the sst will work with h414. Thanks.

[Loader9]

Yepper, H414 and 760 are the same with the variance being the difference between lot numbers. I've used H414 in a 3006 with bullets as light as 110 HPs. Ever heard of the red mist when shooting coyotes? That's when the bullet explodes with such force that the animal literally explodes and the blood mist in the air is easily seen. This was a common occurrence for a 110 gr HP load I used for coyotes. Obviously, not a round for taking hides. Just sneak up on any max loads you might want to try and watch for signs of pressure. As far as temperature sensitive, I always hunted with this load in the cool of the night and never during the heat of the day. Can't help you with it being temp sensitive.

[Art Eatman]

My pet '06 never has seemed to care what brand of bullet I used, although I sorta settled in on Sierras for the last twenty or so years.

I used to load a fair amount of 110 Hornadys with 3031, back when I was a one-gun guy. My deer hunting was with various 150-grain bullets, and they all worked okay with 4064.

I finally got around to using a new-to-me powder, H414, with 180-grain Sierra SPBTs. I don't remember if I used the Speer or the Hodgdon book, but I loaded with 54.0 grains. The first two shots were a quarter-inch apart, and the third shot went through one of the first two holes. I figured that was close enough for government work...

[AlaskaMike]

I've had good results with H414 and 150 grain bullets using a Springfield '03A3 and military cases, but for hunting I prefer H4350. I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to temperature sensitivity with H414--the temp was about 55 - 60 deg. F when I did my load testing, and the groups were good. However H4350 gave me more consistent results. I certainly wouldn't have any problem going into the woods with loads using H414 though.

Mike

[crowbeaner]

I use both WW760 and H414. The 760 does the job with 150s and the H414 is for 165s and 180s, although H380 works well also. I use 54.0 with a 150 grain, 52.5 with a 165, and 51.0 with a 180. You can perk all these up a bit, but I don't like difficult extraction in my semiauto. H414 will give you an honest 3000 fps. with a 150 in a long barrel, and not burn out the barrel leade in 100 shots. As far as 760 and H414 bring the same powder, it woudn't surprise me at all seeing as how 296/H110 , HS6/540 and HS7/571 are the same powders with different numbers.

[Unclenick]

Jnh,

It is not uncommon for boattail bullets to be less accurate than flat base bullets of the same weight at shorter ranges. Three things affect this. One is that the shorter bearing surface the boattail has compared to same-weight flat base bullets makes it more prone to tip slightly sideways in the bore. Another is that the boat tail dwells longer in the muzzle while passing out of it, subjecting the base to more muzzle blast tipping. The third is related to the second in that the more muzzle pressure their is, the more muzzle blast influence there is, and slow powders make for more muzzle pressure; ergo, the boat tail often does a bit better with somewhat faster powders.

To address the first issue, seating the bullets straight into the case is more critical for the shorter bearing surface of the boat tail bullet. Using techniques like neck-sizing only can help because the rest of the case is tight in the chamber for better alignment. Get a Lee collet die for that if you don't already have one, and learn to use it. It doesn't tend to cock case necks as the expanders on some conventional neck sizing dies can do. Using a competition or bench rest type sliding sleeve seater die prevents the bullet seating operation from causing that same neck cocking. Redding make great seaters for this. I understand the Forster is also very good. The Hornady claims also to be in the same category. The Lee Dead Length seating die is also supposed to accomplish this and comes together with the excellent collet die in their collet die sets. I only own the Reddings myself and can attest they produce a remarkably straight bullet seating job, often defying measurability of runout. You may want to obtain or borrow a runout gauge and sort out some straight rounds and test them against your less straight rounds to see for yourself how much of your group difference is being caused by this issue? Please note that feeding from a magazine can tip a bullet, so load singly during testing.

The second item may need some study on your part. A typical rifle bullet is accelerated about ten to twenty fps after it leaves the muzzle by muzzle blast acting on the base of a bullet. That is why Harry Pope famously said, the bullet is steered by its base. Any bullet base imperfection causes that blast to deflect unevenly off the bullet which tips it in initial flight. Modern jacketed bullets are usually pretty symmetrical, but if the crown of your muzzle is even just a teensy bit uneven, a boat tail will exaggerate the error it causes by uncorking the muzzle gradually and allowing extra time for the uneven jet of muzzle blast to act on the bullet's base. Many rifles are therefore greatly improved by very careful re-crowning. I read of one fellow whose club bought one of the Dave Manson Precision crowning tool kits (several hundred dollars) and redid almost all the club member's rifles, substantially improving about half of them, IIRC? Go to my file repository and download the PDF file on ball lap crowning for an economical approach to cleaning up a crown to get more precision.

For the third matter, try a little less extreme performance in powder choice. H4895 will do nicely and it fires well with different primers. It has the wide temperature burning rate stability of all the Australian stick powders in the Hodgdon Extreme line. That temperature stability is not available in their ball powder line. H4895 is a forgiving powder as to case filling. Somewhere between 48 and 53 grains (very warm in some guns, so work up slowly; I recommend 0.3 grain charge increments) you will find at least one sweet spot load for either a 22 or 24 inch barrel (you didn't say what you are shooting?). That peak accuracy load may cost you 100 fps to 150 fps over what you would have gotten from a maximum velocity H414 load (not necessarily a peak accuracy load), but it will have up to 20% less muzzle pressure. The cost per shot will be about 15% less, too. As always, shot placement matters more than the last extra 100 fps or so to the game animal, anyway. Better the accurate .22 than the cannon that misses.

If you are going to shoot in very cold climates, I recommend doing load development with the Federal 215M primer. This is a bench rest (match grade) magnum primer. The military uses magnum primer charges because they work better in extreme cold. Magnum primers are less conducive to accuracy, but if you buy the BR grade they will still load to match accuracy. You can buy yourself some additional advantage by borrowing a lab grade scale (0.001 gram (0.015 grain) resolution) and sorting the primers by weight before loading. I also recommend you deburr your case flash holes. You should absolutely do that for using any ball powder, even in normal temperature conditions. I've seen it cut good weather groups by 40% with ball powder. For stick powder it doesn't normally get you anything detectable, except in bench rest guns. But with extreme cold shooting conditions, it is worth the added effort even for stick powder. Extreme cold makes anything you can do for ignition consistency helpful. You may even want to go the full BR case prep route and add primer pocket depth and profile uniforming and flashhole reaming, as well as using a hand primer seating tool that has good bottom touchdown feel. K&M Precision's Markel priming tool fills that bill without costing an arm and a leg (<$40, last time I looked). You just loosen the shell holder to adjust how positive the feel is.

That puts enough on your plate, I hope. One last thing. Some guns just never learn to like some individual bullets, and for no good reason anyone can tell. If you never get the SST to shoot, try Nosler Accubonds and Sierra Gamekings. I've never heard effectiveness complaints about either, and you need to find what your gun likes.

[jnh]

Thanks all for the help. The gun is a ruger mk II LH 22in bbl. With h4350 and 180 it one of the most accurate guns I own. I was just looking to get a good field load for deer. So now I got to do some testing. When I got the rifle new it had a nick in the crown. I took it the a gunsmith and he took the nick out for me. I tryed some w760 with lr primers but it looked like it didnt burn the powder completly. Ill try some mag primers and the h414 at starting and go to max and see if the sst will shoot. If not Ill use them in another gun. Thanks again.