I have been looking at these for a long time, thinking that they would make a great hunting rifle. So I bought me a Browning X bolt and a buddy bought a Sauer 100. We have shot just about every hunting round that we can find out of them from 125 to 140 grains. While most have shot well some coming in around an inch some in the 3/4 range nothing that was really wow. So I worked up some loads with sierra gamechangers 130 gr and RE 17. I started at 40.4 gr and worked up to 43.2 the max with this powder. With the x bolt the first group was .419 so I was happy about that, but wanted to little more velocity I did not shoot them over a graph yet, but book says about 2700. The next load was .444 at around 2800 something I was happy with. The max load was around an inch. So we tried them in his everything was the same. His with the starting load as showing faint ejector marks, just enough that you could tell. On trying the next load they shot .769 and .649. The ejector marks are the same and no other signs of over pressure. Any ideas on what the problem may be or is it something to worry about? Also anyone have any ideas on another hunting load to work out.. We are going to start with Hornady 129 SST to see how they do.. thanks
Hello Matt,
I don't know anything about precision shooting, but my brother is pretty handy with it. I texted him your question, and this is what he texted back. I don't know if it is right or not, but it is what he said.
"If it was not shot over chronograph then there we have no idea how fast they're going. You cant go off what a book says. Every barrel is different and also lots of powder. Don't need to be shooting reloader 17 out of a 6.5 creed anyway.
Dump the RL17, it goes crap fast if you're running it anywhere near max in hot temps, its unstable. Shoot H4350 or reloader 16.
Don't even worry about shooting groups when he does powder charge, just shoot across a chrony into a berm.
Go up .2 grains at a time and shoot 4-5 rounds at each charge and average the speed and extreme spread. it should go up every charge and have sparactic ES and then there will be a couple of charges in a row where the speed stays relatively close and the ES is low then it will start going up again. Load to the middle of that and you're done.
You can get it to shoot good when you do a seating depth test. Load 4-5 rounds again at each depth from 10-40 off the lands in. 003 increments. There will be a couple of depths in a row that shoot good, load to the short side of it and go with it, you're done."
I don't know if it answered your question, but I hope it helps. Chancey