Savage 10 fcp-sr....kind of

Got my show queen out to the range on Saturday and had 100 rounds worked up. I went with Vihtavuori N550 as my go juice. Read about a lot of powders online, in forums and hey, I just like stepping outside of the herd I guess. 100 bullets, Sierra tipped match kings, minus one with a damaged tip. Primers, looked at Federals, that are not available anywhere and went with the CCI lr 200. Also have the CCI lr magnum 250 for my big girl so figured why not.

Went with Vihtavuori's load data and then later found N550 in the new Lyman load data book. If you're looking for lower fps, 2200-2500 on your 308 use Vihtavuori's lower end data. Lyman starts out around 42-43 if memory serves me correctly. Vihtavuori starts at 39.6.

Cleaned, measured and all of the good stuff on my once fired brass, bought new from the sports store to abuse the factory barrel and break in the new Shilen.

I took a different approach to how I have traditionally heard or read about reloading. I have not teacher, went to no classes so self taught using what sounds logical to me and my inexperience. I started at 39.6 gr and went up in .5 increments until I hit 41.5(100 rounds). Figured this would keep me busy for a day at the range.

I loaded 20 rounds, all at the exact same load weight. Each load was individually measured because the RCBS powder measure is not anywhere near accurate, we'll call it close. But, like they say, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and poop fights. I measured my distance to the lands using the Sinclair tooling. After several measurements and an average I came up with 2.925". I then loaded each round with the correct weight, seated bullets at 2.905", 2.910", 2.915" and 2.920". Once I had the 20 rounds in 39.6 grains I moved up .5 for another 20 rounds and repeated the seating depths.

Paint and a small brush was used on the bottom of the case, a very thin stripe, four different colors. A lot number was assigned to the box with details on the tag. A book specific to this rifle was started and information was written down, brass color(red/white/dark blue/light blue, etc). Each colors information was recorded, OACL, powder weight, bullet type and so forth.

The night before range day I organized my targets into four quadrants indicating which corner corresponded to which color round. Each target had the lot number recorded on the bottom. All written in big enough letters to be seen clearly from 100 yards in the scope.

Range Day: Put targets up in front of my bench then went to work.....ok, went to play. All of the 39.6 groups were 1-1.5" except the longer rounds. The group tightened up more than the others. FPS was in the 2200 range, low and slow. As I worked up I started to notice that the 2.915" and 2.920" rounds seemed to have tighter groups. Once I got to 40.5 to 41.5gr area all lengths seemed to pull together more. All quadrants were shot with 5 rounds from a cold bore.

I was quite pleased with the groupings from all 5 boxes, well the first lot wasn't anything to write home about. I learned a lot watching the information given to me from the radar for sure.

Next phase I will start around 42.5, slightly below Lyman's recommendation and work towards the max or so and continue on with the alternating OACL. I figure at one point the groups will begin to vary while one with continue to get tighter or at least stay consistent as they did in the beginning. At least that's what I'm thinking, only experimentation will confirm or deny it, lol!!

http://i.imgur.com/KdLHAkJ.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/CyUuPOH.jpg

Those results look pretty terrific to me!

With those tipped matchkings, you will find that they shoot better when you seat them closer to the lands. I ran mine at 2.91 inches over all length for best accuracy - and they would still fit and cycle through the magazine.