Im going to work a hunting load in the near future for a 150 grain bullet. I decided to fireform the brass which seems will be a little overdo for hunting load but a good excuse to shoot more. I decided to use a 110 grain bullet as is less expensive and less recoil than the premium 150 ballistic silver tip. Plus I can start practicing how to work a load and make this my paper shooting load for now. So here is what I have done, advice, opinions, ideas welcome.
The way I worked this load was using a system I read about (i believe in this forum but the old version) somewhere in the net. Instead of shooting 5 to 10 bullets per each .5 grain in a range of powder grains you will use only one bullet per every .5 grains. Then look for the tighter consecutive group and then you can do a more in detail (3, 5 or 10 bullets per grain change) test. This should save you some bullets, in theory....

Bullet: Hornady Varmint .30 cal 110 gr SP
Brass: Winchester
Powder: IMR4895 (Safe loads per manual from 49.0 to 54.5)
Primer: CCI 200 Large Rifle
Savage 110 22" barrel Twist 1-10" A&B Sporter
100 yards range.

This is the order in which I loaded the cartridges, the grain and the speed on the chronograph (about 20 feet from rifle). The charged was verified by a beam and an electronic scale. I stopped 1 grain before the maximum load.
1. 49.0 - 2801
2. 49.5 - 2783
3. 50.0 - 2867
4. 50.5 - 2911
5. 51.0 - 2917
6. 51.5 - 2949
7. 52.0 - 2943
8. 52.5 - 2989
9. 53.0 - 3051
10 53.5 - 3044

1 hi 3051
1 lo 2783
These other values dont hold much water as these are not cartridges with the same load but still I present them here.
1 au 2925
1 es 268
1 sd 90

I do believe I did pull a bit on one shot but failed to note that. I will do better on that. Here how the target looks:

[img width=600 height=450]http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn215/nandy_temp/utf-8BSU1HLTIwMTEwOTIzLTAwMTIwLmpwZw.jpg[/img]

My better group is 5-6-8, not sure if 7 is the shot I pulled. I think I need to start working the loads withing the range or 51 to 5.5 grains.

Now, interesting to me is that comparing shots #1-#2 and #6 -#7 the loads with higher grain has slower speed than the lower grain... Any insights on that?

I am not crimping these bullets in the cartridge. They do not have a crimping cannelure, neither does the 150 bullets I want to use for hunting. I do have some 165 that have the crimping cannelure. So, do you crimp only when the crimping cannelure is present? When is it good/bad to crimp? I dont have a crimping die but since Im placing an order on midway might as well order it if it is necessary...

Any input is welcome...