7mm08 Accuracy

[LongRange]

Gotcha....yep ive had several of those with winchester and remington and remington i had 5 or 6 in a batch of 50 rounds so i rarely use them any more. The only primers ive used without a miss fire are the feds and ccis.

[5spd]

The best powders/accuracy with 120g NHBT/140g NHBT/139g hornady in my 1/9.5 twist savage are imr4320/varget/h335/w760/blc2/h380.
imr4350, CFE, 2700 are at the bottom for accuracy & speed I want.
My go to antelope load is the 120g nosler HBT in front of 44g imr4320.

[Robinhood]

I am late to this but I think I will pile on. You have too many projectiles. You need a method. Get a box or two of 140's like Hornady Interlock SP's or SGK's. Grab a powder like R15, H4895, or some 4350I never tried R17 in a 708 but I have seen some awesome velocities out of other cartridges so W T Heck. Do a ladder or OCW test. You can start at the manufacturers suggested COAL or at the lands. Load in increments of .3 grains or their a bouts.

[gunrack]

I am late to this but I think I will pile on. You have too many projectiles. You need a method. Get a box or two of 140's like Hornady Interlock SP's or SGK's. Grab a powder like R15, H4895, or some 4350I never tried R17 in a 708 but I have seen some awesome elocities out of other cartridges so W T Heck. Do a ladder or OCW test. You can start at the manufacturers suggested COAL or at the lands. Load in increments of .3 grains or their a bouts.

Not to sound smart but I have a method and the reason for too many projectiles is that it will not shoot the light stuff. I thought I explained all that on the first post? I have shot all the factory 140 stuff that I can order or pick up. That and the fact that the bullet and barrel manufactures say this twist rate barrel should run 140 grain and above bullets thus the reason for going to a heavier bullet. The loads I loaded up and shot were just in effort to find a projectile that hopefully would shoot a little better group they were all loaded with starting loads out of the manual for each weight bullet. Now I plan on getting to one bullet and work the ladder test from there. I have three powders and if one of those does not get it then it's just going to shoot what it shoots. All three of them are in my loading manual so one of them is bound to work out I just haven't gotten there yet.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[gunrack]

The best powders/accuracy with 120g NHBT/140g NHBT/139g hornady in my 1/9.5 twist savage are imr4320/varget/h335/w760/blc2/h380.
imr4350, CFE, 2700 are at the bottom for accuracy & speed I want.
My go to antelope load is the 120g nosler HBT in front of 44g imr4320.

I have IMR4320, IMR4350, and Varget not interested at all in shooting under a 139 grain bullet in this gun. Do you have a load suggestion for the 139's with Varget or the IMR4320, IMR 4350?

Thanks!

[gunrack]

gun rack,
What is the load that performed the best with the 140gr bullets?

None, they all shot about the same 2"......

[gunrack]

Does the bullet fit into the muzzle of the barrel?
I realize this is a long shot but could the barrel be over sized (bored incorrectly)?

No Sir, it stops at the lands.

[Robinhood]

I have IMR4320, IMR4350, and Varget not interested at all in shooting under a 139 grain bullet in this gun. Do you have a load suggestion for the 139's with Varget or the IMR4320, IMR 4350?

Thanks!

Everyone I know that has used Varget with a 140 grain projectile has had to load them above the maximum published powder weight to realize great accuracy. Like 42-44 grains. The IMR 4350 has seen some success around 45.5 - 46 grains behind the same weight class. As for the 4320 ?

[olddav]

Some bullets are sensitive to seating depth Have you contacted the bullet manufacture for suggestions, Hornady provided me with some helpful info. Seating the bullet too close to the lands produced large groupings, correct seating depth produced sub MOA groups out to 200 yards. Admited I was not shooting a 7mm-08 but there ya go.

[gunrack]

Some bullets are sensitive to seating depth Have you contacted the bullet manufacture for suggestions, Hornady provided me with some helpful info. Seating the bullet too close to the lands produced large groupings, correct seating depth produced sub MOA groups out to 200 yards. Admited I was not shooting a 7mm-08 but there ya go.


That's a good idea. It's worth a shot.

[DocDoc]

gunrack, it looks like there is a problem with bedding, scope or something of that order. That is suggested by the two grouping in the targets.

[gunrack]

gunrack, it looks like there is a problem with bedding, scope or something of that order. That is suggested by the two grouping in the targets.

I will definitely check that out.

Thank you!

[Robinhood]

Gun Rack, I am a big fan of the 708 like so many others who obviously are trying to help. do you mind you identifying the scope you are using?

[gunrack]

Gun Rack, I am a big fan of the 708 like so many others who obviously are trying to help. do you mind you identifying the scope you are using?


It's the little cheapo Bushnell that came on it. I believe it's a Banner? Hopefully Santa Clause is bringing me a new one. :-) I asked for a Nikon

[gunrack]

gunrack, it looks like there is a problem with bedding, scope or something of that order. That is suggested by the two grouping in the targets.

DocDoc, I took the action out of the stock and found a few things that looked suspect so I ground out some material and just finished bedding the action. Everything went together well and I used plenty of release agent so hopefully I can put this variable out of the equation. As far as the scope I can't do anything about that right now because if my wife got me one for Christmas and I go buy one for myself then I will be in a world of crap. LOL

[gunrack]

Robinhood, thanks! I love that caliber and this rifle will get there eventually that I am sure. Man it gets frustrating but it will be well worth it when she starts shooting.

[Robinhood]

I think your problem will be solved if Santa makes a good choice. There have been many a shooter frustrated trying to resolve accuracy issues with package scopes. With the far east becoming a major supplier of sporting optics a lot of junk is floating around out there. Luckily there are some scopes that are reasonably priced that will fit the bill.

[gunrack]

The best powders/accuracy with 120g NHBT/140g NHBT/139g hornady in my 1/9.5 twist savage are imr4320/varget/h335/w760/blc2/h380.
imr4350, CFE, 2700 are at the bottom for accuracy & speed I want.
My go to antelope load is the 120g nosler HBT in front of 44g imr4320.


Do you have any suggestions on charge weights with the 4320 and Varget on the 139's?

[Patch700]

gunrack , what are you using as an aimpoint on your targets? If its merely a black dot with no coinciding Vertical and horizontal reference points then there's really no way you can rule out that you may in fact be canting the rifle.... You want to see something neat , take a look at a target 100yds downrange through a scope with upwards of 50X with both the rifle and the targets level and plumb and then cant the rifle , you'd be shocked at the small amount of cant it takes to make a group look like a shotgun was in the vicinity lol.

Generally speaking provided you done the usual steps such as bedding , trigger , proper torque on the action screws , float the tang and are positive you've ZERO parallax in the scope then you should be seeing something come together .


Good luck.

[gunrack]

gunrack , what are you using as an aimpoint on your targets? If its merely a black dot with no coinciding Vertical and horizontal reference points then there's really no way you can rule out that you may in fact be canting the rifle.... You want to see something neat , take a look at a target 100yds downrange through a scope with upwards of 50X with both the rifle and the targets level and plumb and then cant the rifle , you'd be shocked at the small amount of cant it takes to make a group look like a shotgun was in the vicinity lol.

Generally speaking provided you done the usual steps such as bedding , trigger , proper torque on the action screws , float the tang and are positive you've ZERO parallax in the scope then you should be seeing something come together .


Good luck.


Just the black dot because that is all I had and didn't want to drive 30 minutes one way to buy a target. I will pick up some of the good targets in a day or so when I get to the sporting goods store. I am pretty confident that I was squared up on the gun. I was on a bench with the gun level in a sled. I couldn't have gotten any more solid than what I was without strapping the thing down.

Right now I am letting the bedding dry for 7 more hours which will put it at 24 hours before I remove the action to check out my job. I loaded up some rounds in two batches last night to shoot as soon as I get the chance which will probably be Saturday. I loaded three powder charges using the same powder just a slight increase in each set of three rounds, using the same bullet in each set, the only difference between the two batches is .005" in seating depths. One batch is .020" off the lands and the other is .015" off. Hopefully this will tell us something.

I am really tempted to put a different scope on it but I am afraid if it shoots with the new scope I will not know what fixed the issue and I want to be certain I get to the root cause. Once I get the thing shooting I'm not inclined to go back and turn the problem on again.

Thanks!