New Brass Prep

[Muley Buck]

What other efforts would you suggest? I recently added the following equipment to improve ammo consistency over the standard reloading I was doing before.
-Redding match seating dies
-Redding S bushing dies
-Benchsource anealer
-Autotrickler V3 (still in the mail)
-Magnetospeed V3

I just figured I was covering everything else I read about, i might as well neck turn too.

The other efforts I would suggest would be:
Consistent primer seating
Properly annealed brass (looks like you have that covered with the benchsource)
Consistent Neck tension
Consistent trimmed and chamfered necks
Consistent powder charges
Consistent bullet seating depth
Lubing necks and or bullets prior to seating (this can be an eye opener, it was for me)
Being a consistent operator while putting all the components together also plays a big role as well.

 

[punkur67]

The other efforts I would suggest would be:
Consistent primer seating
Properly annealed brass (looks like you have that covered with the benchsource)
Consistent Neck tension
Consistent trimmed and chamfered necks
Consistent powder charges
Consistent bullet seating depth
Lubing necks and or bullets prior to seating (this can be an eye opener, it was for me)
Being a consistent operator while putting all the components together also plays a big role as well.

Good call on the primers. I Just ordered a K&m precision priming tool for more consistent priming.
I also got the K&m neck turning tool to help neck tension consistency
The new autotrickler V3 should help with powder charge consistency.

Do you use dry lube on your bullets?

 

[NBK]

No lube for rifle

I use the K&M tools. Excellent to say the least.

Concentricity gauge- What brand do you recommend. - Sinclair is good and the new Redding is excellent. There are many.

Wilson is one of the only production case trimmers that cut square. A square cut insures even neck tension. Everything else doesn't matter (as far as neck prep) if you don't have a square cut.

 

[Aeon]

careful with the neck turning. There are some good videos online about how to do it. Do not turn them down so far you open up the distance between the brass and the chamber.

 

[Aeon]

and no lube here.....

 

[Muley Buck]

Good call on the primers. I Just ordered a K&m precision priming tool for more consistent priming.
I also got the K&m neck turning tool to help neck tension consistency
The new autotrickler V3 should help with powder charge consistency.

Do you use dry lube on your bullets?

Yes I do use dry lube. I use this, it works great. You can feel the bullets seating smoothly and consistently. I won't skip this step anymore. This alone dropped my ES by 30fps! It can and will help at preventing the bullet cold welding to the case.


I'm jealous of the V3. I'd really like to add that to my bench. Its probably coming in the near future.

 

[Aeon]

longer answer to my "no i do not lube" i do not compete with virgin brass. I do not use SS media to clean so the inside of my cases still have carbon in them. remember its not important what you do its that you do it all the time the same... kinda. i brush my necks one time and load. Bullet seating is a slow and deliberate action. in 100 rounds 3 or so will seat funny. normally excessive pressure to seat. They get set aside as fouling rounds.

i have been tempted to go down the moly coating or graphite in the neck route but eh its messy and with correct neck tension its not a problem.

 

[NBK]

The Forster press solves funky bullet seating.

 

[punkur67]

I was pretty surprised how much brass I got just from using the K&M primer pocket uniform tool and flash hole deburring tool. This pile of brass is from 150 ADG 300wm cases.

 

[JakeSCH]

I decided to not neck turn the ADG brass since my largest run out was 0.0015, pretty happy with that since mine is a hunting rig.

So far I have put 40 rounds down range 25 Barnes 127 gr LRX and 15 140 gr Berger Elite Hunters. I loaded up some hammers for when I hit the range next Wednesday as well.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
127 LRX
57.3 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .050” off lands
Velocity: 3218 fps, ES: 24, SD: 10*
Groups: ~0.9”

* I had one outlier in a 5 shot group that increased ES / SD by 50%. I bet that was a user error.

From my testing 57.8 had the lowest SD (4) and ES (6) but my featherweight barrel was hot and the groups was terrible. I am going to try 57.5 gr 5 shot group next week pushing the bullet to 0.7" off the lands. If that doesn't tighten up the group I will probably jump over to some H1000 i got from fine firearms.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
140 gr Berger Elite Hunters
56.8 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .030 off lands
Velocity: 3013 fps, ES: 13 SD: 7
Groups: ~0.5”

Too bad I cannot shoot those bergers at deer here in CA.

308 WIN - Tikka T3x - 22.4"
153 gr HH
43.5 gr AR-COMP
Lapua
Federal 210M
Seated .100" off lands
Velocity: 2815 fps, ES: 6 SD: 2.5
Groups: ~0.9”

The 308 is simple and just kills animals, I cut the group in half when I push the velocity up but then the SD / ES increase quite a bit. I haven't decided what load I am going to stick with.

Hoping to improve these once I get through all my virgin brass.

 

[punkur67]

I decided to not neck turn the ADG brass since my largest run out was 0.0015, pretty happy with that since mine is a hunting rig.

So far I have put 40 rounds down range 25 Barnes 127 gr LRX and 15 140 gr Berger Elite Hunters. I loaded up some hammers for when I hit the range next Wednesday as well.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
127 LRX
57.3 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .050” off lands
Velocity: 3218 fps, ES: 24, SD: 10*
Groups: ~0.9”

* I had one outlier in a 5 shot group that increased ES / SD by 50%. I bet that was a user error.

From my testing 57.8 had the lowest SD (4) and ES (6) but my featherweight barrel was hot and the groups was terrible. I am going to try 57.5 gr 5 shot group next week pushing the bullet to 0.7" off the lands. If that doesn't tighten up the group I will probably jump over to some H1000 i got from fine firearms.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
140 gr Berger Elite Hunters
56.8 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .030 off lands
Velocity: 3013 fps, ES: 13 SD: 7
Groups: ~0.5”

Too bad I cannot shoot those bergers at deer here in CA.

308 WIN - Tikka T3x - 22.4"
153 gr HH
43.5 gr AR-COMP
Lapua
Federal 210M
Seated .100" off lands
Velocity: 2815 fps, ES: 6 SD: 2.5
Groups: ~0.9”

The 308 is simple and just kills animals, I cut the group in half when I push the velocity up but then the SD / ES increase quite a bit. I haven't decided what load I am going to stick with.

Hoping to improve these once I get through all my virgin brass.

I spot checked a few cases and they look pretty consistent but I already have the tools so I am going to turn them anyway.

 

[NBK]

Good data Jake. You may have better luck with a magnum primer in the PRC. The slow powders like RL26 and H1000 tend to burn more consistently with the 215M's.

And dont be afraid to run the Elite Hunters closer to the lands. I am running them 11 thou of the lands with a super low SD' as well as excellent groups etc.

 

[punkur67]

Neck turning tool
Concentricity gauge
Flash hole uniformity tool
Hand primer
VLD inside neck chamfering tool
Wilson case trimmer
Forster co-ax press

Just ordered my Forster co-ax too. Just want to make sure I do everything the same way now instead of changing things down the road

 

[JakeSCH]

Good data Jake. You may have better luck with a magnum primer in the PRC. The slow powders like RL26 and H1000 tend to burn more consistently with the 215M's.

And dont be afraid to run the Elite Hunters closer to the lands. I am running the 11 thou of the lands with super low SD' as well as excellent groups etc.

A lot i've read on the PRC is that guys were getting better results with the 210M's, but will definitely give the magnum primers a try if my next round doesn't get me the results I am looking for. I am limited to about 20 thou off the lands with the Elite Hunters due to my magazine box.

I loaded up the 124 HH from 56.8 to 58.2 with RL26 every 0.2 grs to test out this week. Excited to see how well they perform. Steve said he was running 60 gr of RL26 getting 3235 fps but I don't see a need to go up that high since I was getting similar velocities under 58 gr with the 127 LRX.

Hopefully I will have some good results this Wednesday.

 

[JakeSCH]

Just got back from the range and trying to process my results.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
127 LRX
57.5 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .070” off lands
Velocity: 3207 fps, ES: 15, SD: 8
Groups: ~0.7” - (3 touching cloverleaf with 1 flier - shooter error - group size drops .25" without the flier)

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
124 HH - Ladder Test
RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .030” off lands
56.5 - 3141
56.8 - 3179
57.0 - 3193
57.2 - 3174
57.4 - 3202
57.6 - 3229
57.8 - failure
58.0 - 3240
58.2 - 3258
58.5 - 3277

No pressure signs and it was
57.0 and 57.2 grains were touching - looks like there will be solid node 57.3 gr

It also appears that there may be a node between 57.6 and 57.8.

 

[KoozeDeer]

A lot of good comments and recommendations, I would agree a good brass is a must.

 

[JakeSCH]

I wanted to follow up on the 140 gr Berger Elite Hunters on two separate 5 shot groups.

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
140 gr Berger Elite Hunters
56.9 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .010 off lands
Velocity: 3068 fps, ES: 13 SD: 6.1
Groups: ~1.25" - I think some of the issue was due to the shooter because I was not leaning into the rifle

6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
140 gr Berger Elite Hunters
56.9 gr RL26
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .030 off lands
Velocity: 3056 fps, ES: 10 SD: 3.9 (3049, 3056, 3059, 3058, 3056 - in that order)
Groups: ~0.5" (the last three shots went into a 0.2" group once I realized I was not leaning into the rifle)

Ladder Test using H1000
6.5 PRC - Christensen Arms Mesa - 24"
127 HH - Ladder Test
H1000
ADG
Federal 210M
Seated .020” off lands
56.0 - 2973
56.5 - 3026
57.0 - 3036
57.5 - 3033
58.0 - 3068
58.5 - 3102
59.0C - 3097
59.5C - 3127
60.0C - 3162

I know the barnes recommends placing the LRX starting at 50 thou off the lands but figured I would try 20 to start. H1000 definitely does not get near the same velocity as RL26 for the LRX. I'll had a velocity node at 3100 FPS with the 127 LRX for both powders (makes sense). Going to load that one up pulling and see what kind of groups I get compared to RL26.

 

[Aeon]

so based off your semi ladder the
56.5 - 3026
57.0 - 3036
57.5 - 3033
is your sweet spot,

Step it down to .2gr increments. the half a gr jumps are a bit far and shoot at one target to watch the vertical dispersion find the ones that are close and you have your node. its not just velocity its also getting the sweet spot with barrel whip

 

[JakeSCH]

I’ve noticed my dispersion is not pure vertical but more of a 2 o’clock to 8 o’clock. Haha is that normal or is that on me not holding steady (indoors @ 100 yards)

 

[Aeon]

Do it at 300 yards, it will open up the vertical more and show you the node.

with out seeing what you are doing its hard to say. Have someone video you shooting. Watch how the gun moves is it the same every time?