RBHarter
West Central AR
I told him that when I got here we would work out some cast loads for everything even if all we got was 50 yd squirrel slayers for the 500 yd elk cannon . Unfortunately his time ran out before mine freed up . Yesterday was the day .
Dad's rifle of choice was a 1972 built Rem 700 BDL made in May and by it's lifetime performance all Wednesday parts that came together on a Wednesday . It's original name I guess was probably a varmint master , it also aside from the optic and walnut / ebony tipped stock matches the description of a 25-06 chambered M40 . It has the factory target trigger and the 1.1-.890 barrel taper and has always been MOA or less as long as 120s were avoided and in truth it was much happier with a 100 gr Game King than the 115 Nos Part .
Dad shot H4831 with everything at 3100+- fps , I think it was probably a little faster with the 26" barrel .
I had a few Herters 25-80s aka 257388 and a bunch of 257312s taking up space . So I slapped some checks on them and ..... My available sizers are .258 and .265 Buckshot editions of push throughs . No biggie the 25-80s touched the .265 and moved the check a little , the checks were tight and scuffed on the 257312s so it's a win . Right ?
Appearently I don't have a set of 25-06' dies , I have them but they're not in hand and the bag of brand new WW brass is with them and both of the good trimmers .
Not to be detoured from this (I don't know why it was so important to do this but it was) I sorted some RP 270 cases from the 1x bags of there's not enough of these to mess with file . I ran them in and 06' sizer for the body and the 6.5-257 AI sizer for the neck . I used a Lyman quick trim type 270 stop to get them down to 2.248/9 before necking them down . A good chamfer and the necks were perfect for the bullets .
I loaded 5 of the 25-80s with jacketed data start loads of 4831 ..... Because I guess . I'm pretty sure this rifle has the 1-10" . As 1 would expect the bullets didn't find the paper . However I wasn't unhappy with their groups from 9.0 Unique . Seen in blue .
The green were the 10 rounds of 9.0 Unique , 257312s and were fired first , 5 on the bull X and 5 at the X by 6:00 .
Disclaimer here . No solid rest , bipod etc just me and a rolled up hoodie . I haven't fired this rifle in most of 40 years and I was a dedicated southpaw then . Also from a clean , dry , never cast fired barrel with no prep .
I think I have the lube about right , there's no star but no fouling , just a little antimony wash on the crown .
Plenty of room to play with this and for 50 yd , first rounds it's not bad . I'm going to load a few 260-120 NOEs today . I'll root around and see if there's any 4895 left in the stash . 9.0 Unique worked well for the 80/85 gr so it's a place to start .
I was pleased at how quickly I was able to settle down to just the sideways pulse bump and mostly clear it long enough to squeeze the shot . It didn't help the groups but it did help with my follow through and recoil response . The guy with the 7RM BAR wasn't helping any either .........
Dad's rifle of choice was a 1972 built Rem 700 BDL made in May and by it's lifetime performance all Wednesday parts that came together on a Wednesday . It's original name I guess was probably a varmint master , it also aside from the optic and walnut / ebony tipped stock matches the description of a 25-06 chambered M40 . It has the factory target trigger and the 1.1-.890 barrel taper and has always been MOA or less as long as 120s were avoided and in truth it was much happier with a 100 gr Game King than the 115 Nos Part .
Dad shot H4831 with everything at 3100+- fps , I think it was probably a little faster with the 26" barrel .
I had a few Herters 25-80s aka 257388 and a bunch of 257312s taking up space . So I slapped some checks on them and ..... My available sizers are .258 and .265 Buckshot editions of push throughs . No biggie the 25-80s touched the .265 and moved the check a little , the checks were tight and scuffed on the 257312s so it's a win . Right ?
Appearently I don't have a set of 25-06' dies , I have them but they're not in hand and the bag of brand new WW brass is with them and both of the good trimmers .
Not to be detoured from this (I don't know why it was so important to do this but it was) I sorted some RP 270 cases from the 1x bags of there's not enough of these to mess with file . I ran them in and 06' sizer for the body and the 6.5-257 AI sizer for the neck . I used a Lyman quick trim type 270 stop to get them down to 2.248/9 before necking them down . A good chamfer and the necks were perfect for the bullets .
I loaded 5 of the 25-80s with jacketed data start loads of 4831 ..... Because I guess . I'm pretty sure this rifle has the 1-10" . As 1 would expect the bullets didn't find the paper . However I wasn't unhappy with their groups from 9.0 Unique . Seen in blue .
The green were the 10 rounds of 9.0 Unique , 257312s and were fired first , 5 on the bull X and 5 at the X by 6:00 .
Disclaimer here . No solid rest , bipod etc just me and a rolled up hoodie . I haven't fired this rifle in most of 40 years and I was a dedicated southpaw then . Also from a clean , dry , never cast fired barrel with no prep .
I think I have the lube about right , there's no star but no fouling , just a little antimony wash on the crown .
Plenty of room to play with this and for 50 yd , first rounds it's not bad . I'm going to load a few 260-120 NOEs today . I'll root around and see if there's any 4895 left in the stash . 9.0 Unique worked well for the 80/85 gr so it's a place to start .
I was pleased at how quickly I was able to settle down to just the sideways pulse bump and mostly clear it long enough to squeeze the shot . It didn't help the groups but it did help with my follow through and recoil response . The guy with the 7RM BAR wasn't helping any either .........