Good success withe the IMR 4007ssc

**DanSavage** · 05-29-2013, 09:06 PM

I thought I'd try this powder out mainly for my 110 .243 as well as the .308. I haven't tried it yet in the .308, but the .243 really seems to really like it.

I've only been out twice with this .243 and seem to have a good load worked out, the barrel is a factory sporter barrel that has never seen hand loads before until now. Actually I wanted a little chopped off the barrel and re crown, but a local gunsmith was giving me a hard time about why I wanted to do that, well it's mid 90's and had light pitting at the end of the bore, probably from me being a kid when I first bought the rifle and I accidentally left it out side a few times as I got older I discovered it in my parents garage with light surface rust. When I was about 24 years old I started growing up and started being more responceable.

Anyway, recently I decided to butcher the barrel myself, I took the saw-zal and hacked off about 2 inches for a 20" barrel, I took the barrel to the bench grinder and held it square to the grinding wheel while spinning the barrel by hand, next I took a fine grit round ball dremmel about .30 cal and l let the bore center the the spinning ball as I let it cut down about .030. It looked good, I cleaned it good and checked for burrs,, good to go.

My loading components are
1X Federal brass FL sized
58 grain Z Max
CCI 34 Mil spec primer (magnum)
IMR 4007ssc

I started at 45.5 gr. and only went up to 47 in .2 increments (was a little nervous about the hotter primers). All the groups were a little over an inch at 100 yards, except 46.7 which was .75". So on my second outing I tried 46.6, 46.7, and 46.8, and all three groups were between .5" and .7" and the best part about it is I was in a hurry to get back home and didn't let the barrel cool between shots, I just let them rip. The barrel was pretty darn hot.

MOA accuracy is a wonderful thing with a pencil barrel and your own home rolled ammo. I'm not even going to mess with the seating depth, for I'm betting if I slow fire a 3 shot group it will be under 1/2 MOA .

The 4007 fills the case to the neck shoulder junction at around 47 grains. It's one of those powders you could just scoop the case in a bowl of powder filled to the top and press a bullet in and shoot. I'll also test higher charges to look for signs of pressure, 49 is max so I'm not sure if I'll make it using the primers that I'm using but we'll see. I'll have to get the chrono out too because my shoulder was getting soar from the recoil. I shoot a ton of .308 and some .270 so I know what decent recoil is.

Maybe if I back the barrel off to get max headspace I could get more powder and velocity out of it LOL.