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been to the range four times now (200 rounds) with a new f/tr in .223. at 200 yds it's shooting double moa with both 77 bergers and 80 smk using rl-15 from 23.5 to 24.1gn, seating from jammed to loose. can't come close. any suggestions? thanks
What's the twist on your barrel? Sounds like there not stabilizing. Try 65-69 gr. bullet and see what happens.
If its a stock barrel with 1-9 twist then forget those long heavy bullets.. Also the 223 chamber has too short of freebore for the long bullets. You need a 1-7 or 1-8 twist with a 556 or Wylde chamber. You migjt try the 75 bthp hornadys though.
that's the thing. it's a 7 twist. thought 77's and 80's would be the sweet spot bullet-wise. my lrpv 9 twist would shoot 69-73's fine. i'll try a bunch of 70 and 73 berger's, but I bought the f/tr to shoot 75's, 77's, 80's and 90's.
ahh. Hmm, that does suck then.. Maybe its the 223 chamber with the short freebore being the problem then??
short freebore is how this gun is made.... 30" barrel and 7 twist. what load should I try? shouldn't make a huge difference with varget right?
Have you checked your concentricity? Long bullets are more sensitive to runout that short ones. If they are not loaded straight, they won't shoot straight.
don't have a concentricity tool. had one, but finger pressure changed the reading. ordered a new neck sizing die. the lee collet may be the problem. hope so. going to shoot 70's and 73's tomorrow.
one thing. been only using new hornady and rp brass. they both measure 1.750. shouldn't new brass be 1.760?
I have yet to have the Lee Collet cause me any problems on any caliber and so far I use them on all most all of mine. 95% of my guns are shooting .5MOA and better.
Hope you figure it out.
I highly doubt the Lee Collet die is the problem... mine in .223 Rem loads ammo that will shoot better - out of a 12 F/TR - than I can hold.
The chamber isn't as long as I'd like for a 90gn, and it could stand to be a little longer even for 80s, but it ain't *that* short. From what I can measure of the fired brass, they come out nearly identical in headspace, case head, shoulder, neck, etc. as the stuff from my WOA 26" spacegun with a Wylde chamber. Savage uses JGS reamers, so its possible thats what they used - never cared enough to ask, personally.
My load that works for me: B82BT, 24.5gn N150, Lapua brass that is weight sorted, neck-turned, etc. Rem 7-1/2 primers.
Varget & RE-15 should work as well, just never bothered since the above shoots so well.
Pick a seating depth, and stick with it. For that matter, pick a bullet and stick with it. Forget the 77s, they are not what you want to shoot. They may be very accurate out of a given rifle, but people running 80-82gn bullets will eat your lunch in the wind. Sit your bullets say 0.020" off the lands, leave 'em along and play with the powder charge. *Maybe* try some other primer.
I will include the caveat that I had a pretty good load worked up with the B82BT seated 20 thou off the lands, and 'accidentally' loaded up some with no neck tension, which caused the powder charge to seat the bullets 30 thou longer - like +0.010" jam. Shot even better, so I ran with it and haven't looked back.
I wouldn't sweat the case length. The loading manuals I have list 1.760 as 'max' and 1.750 as 'trim to' length. If its already 1.750", set your trimmer to take a light buzz on the shortest case to get them all pretty much the same length and move on. Its a non-critical dimension in my experience, with the caveat of not being so long as to run into the leade of the throat - and you're a long ways from that at either measurement.
i'll go back to the 100yd range and shoot from there until I figure out what's going on. hope it doesn't have to go back to Savage. thought they would be all clover leafs @200 with this gun. It took four months to get the darn thing. now this. sorta down about it.
What primer are you using? Your overall brass length of 1.750" is just fine. Max case length is 1.760". I doubt your Lee collet die is causing the problems. I use a Lee and my neck runout is in the .2" and many times less. What is you neck runout, your bullet runout? These measurements can tell you a lot about how your load is going to perform. How many times has your brass been loaded? Primer pockets uniformed and flash holes deburred? Are you using a benchrest seating die or a standard one? Asking questions trying to get a handle on what your problem may be. I'm loading for a 223 Ackley and I'm getting 1.4" at 300 yards using the 75 grain Berger VLD pushed by Varget in Winchester brass and BR 4 primers.Quote:
Originally Posted by tvtv
this may sound crazy have you cleaned the rifle ? my new savage was a copper mine at first
What do your groups look like? What is the ES and SD of your loads?
Also don't forget to check the silly little things that will make you want to rip your hair out like action screws and scope mounting screws, not to mention the scope itself.
As mentioned, forget the 77gn SMK for any kind of range. They are a compromise design made to fit in an AR magazine and have a short fat ogive resulting in a terrible BC for their weight. The Bergers are excellent bullets as are the Hornady A-Max and the 80gn SMK.
yes, the gun is clean. much much easier to get clean than my lrpv when it was new. just ordered 200 privi rounds (75gn) from Widener's as a check........ only have 73,70 bergers and 69smk left so I guess I'll play with them today. here's the chrono data from yesterday.
77 berger, 23.8 rl-15, 1.970 (off ogive)
hi 2812
lo 2772
av 2792
es 40
sd 12
77 berger, 24.1 rl-15, 1.940,
hi 2861
lo 2818
av 2835
es 43
sd 11
77 berger, 24.1 rl-15, 1.945
hi 2855
lo 2818
av 2836
es 37
sd 10
77 berger, 24.1 rl-15, 1.950
hi 2849
lo 2818
av 2836
es 31
sd 9
80 smk, 23.5 rl-15, 1.978
hi 2760
lo 2726
av 2744
es 34
sd 13
how does that look to you guys? thanks
What's the sample size on each of those chrono groups? Just curious. Those don't look too bad, certainly not enough to be causing your problem.
What is the shape of the groups? Random scattering, vertical stringing, horizontal stringing, nice group with a flier?
yesterday, totally random "groups" with the 77 bergers. no strings. no groups with fliers. today, with 73 bergers all over the place again, but in total frustration cleaned the gun after 40 rounds and came up with what started to look like groups. one group had four touching with two wild fliers. the gun has about 250 through it. still too soon to tell whether it's shooting?
thanks....
Why not try h335 with your 69 grain bullets.That is what shoots best out of mine.The other thing is to have the bore scoped in case it is so rough that it will never recover from poor machining.You might know but sometimes it takes alot of rounds to settle those barrels in.It shouldnt but have heard that 2-300 rounds can do it.I would try tubbs final finish if the factiry wont do anything for you.It works quite well smoothing the high spots off.Dont use final finish if you think you might get a warranty claim on it.
Usually when I have a gun start acting all sorts of stupid like this, I take the whole thing apart - barreled action out of the stock, scope off, scope base off, etc.
Generally... I'll find the problem at some point during this disassembly - loose stock bolt, loose scope ring screw(s), loose scope base screw, something.
If nothing obvious (like a loose screw or bolt) presents itself, next thing I check is the scope - shake it, literally. Listen for rattling noises. I'm not kidding.
If you *still* haven't found anything, I'd take a close look at the bedding area. See if there are wood chips or shavings in the area where the action rests, or someplace where the wood was not properly relieved in the barrel channel and would be contacting the barrel nut or barrel or recoil lug, etc.
If you don't find anything at all, re-assemble the gun carefully and methodically, using a little dab of blue loctite on the scope ring and base screws (no sense in having to do this all again later) and tighten the stock bolts carefully. I'm not a huge proponent of torquing everything to some exact spec. Tight enough, but not too tight, most people can do that by feel well enough to get the gun functioning and putting the shots reasonably close to one another. Go buy some known-good quality factory ammo like Black Hills blue-box 75 or 77gn loads (not sure where Privi ammo falls relative to that), and take your loading out of the equation. Re-zero the gun, and shoot a box test to *verify* the scope isn't completely tanked.
In my experience, it's usually a) loose stock bolts, b) loose scope rings or bases, c) debris in the bedding area / bad inletting or d) a scope going south. Mechanically its pretty hard to screw up the barreled action bad enough that it won't shoot *anything* well - though sometimes it does happen.
The last ditch test/check is have someone else who hasn't been involved with the project thus far (and therefore not prejudiced) but is generally a decent shooter take a stab at shooting it. Obviously they'll know that you are having issues with it, but they really don't need to know all the gory details as posted here so as to not taint their perception of the gun before they even pull the trigger.
great advice...did all that. read a guy who says to torque the front screw to 30lbs, then bump the butt of the gun on the floor, tighten the middle to 30, tighten the back to 5, go to the range and shoot 5 shot groups tightening the rear screw 5 lbs at a time. don't know if this is overkill. my lrpv was 65,55,65lbs. why would the ft/r only take 30lbs?
I'm going to wait for the ammo from Widener's and take it from there. Also changing out my rear bag to heavy Protektor with rabbit ears. Been using faux suede. Don't really believe there can be that much difference, but might as well take it out of the equation too. front rest is a sinclair gen II. not happy with the way the front stop is designed (have to tilt it to either side of the barrel to catch the front of the stock).
guess my previous post didn't make it about wishing i hadn't run out of H335. worked great with 69smk in my lrpv. almost so good that it was hard to screw up a group. when a gun starts shooting that good it does feel like the a truly magic recipe was discovered. like finding the perfect diet for a racehorse. i will report back by next week. tnx