Reply With QuoteWhen you say dont clean, do you use a power solvent? Or do you literally mean do not clean it at all?
yep, stop cleaning.
When you say dont clean, do you use a power solvent? Or do you literally mean do not clean it at all?
The farm I hunt has the potential for shots over 600. The fact that the eld-x exits is why I want it for hunting. I'm sure the other bullets kill em just fine, but if I dont see them go down, tracking might be tough.
Seems to me that if your rifle is already shooting factory ammunition in .5-.75" that it would be more than adequate for hunting.
How often have you been cleaning?
Every 20 to 30 rounds I clean to bare steel. This is when my factory load groups seemed to start opening up. I've never gone more than 40 rounds before cleaning to bare steel.
You're 100% right, but I'm kind of a perfectionist. I also shoot this rifle 1200 yards at steel. I'm not a "settle for adequate" kinda guy...
You're going to clean your barrel till it quits before you ever shoot it out..... Let it settle in, you're beating yourself with that cleaning regime. I usually go 400-600rds before cleaning and I switch back and forth between BoreTech C4 and Eliminator. I never clean to bare metal, the copper fouling is needed for barrels to gain consistency.....
In fact the more copper you clean out the more rounds it will take to settle back in.....
Last edited by LoneWolf; 09-06-2018 at 09:01 AM.
I've personally seen both sides of this coin with several of my own personal rifles. I'll stop cleaning the copper out! Thanks for your input! I'm assuming that you still use a powder solvent semi regularly? How frequently do you remove carbon fouling?
Good luck.
BoreTech C4 is a carbon or powder Solvent. BoreTech Eliminator is a copper and carbon solvent. I alternate between the 2 of them every couple hundred rounds, but I've also ran barrels without cleaning for 2k straight before I cleaned them. I've shot out about 10-12 barrels in the last 4yrs and have found constant cleaning leads to much less consistency.
Basically every time you start to see consistency in your groups you're cleaning the rifle and the next range trip the condition of the bore is no longer the same as when you started to see good groups. You don't know what load is actually working best in your rifle because your bore condition has never been the same twice due to all the cleaning. I did a 15rds break in cycle on this current barrel and then started to see it get tighter and more consistent every session up to 125-150rds. Then between 150-175rds it gained about 20fps and tightened up to where it is in the picture I posted earlier. It now has 290rds on it after the first match I shot it in and placed 2nd only because I got lazy in the later part of the day and missed some shots that I normally wouldn't. I likely won't do anything to it till after the Gap Grind in October when I'll put 300+ rounds through it that weekend.
Once the rifle settles in and you can find a load just shoot it. when you run a carbon solvent through it, it shouldn't take more than 5-15rds to tighten back up. If you do a light copper cleaning (Never to bare metal) it should take more than 20-30 rounds to tighten back up.
IMHO, if factory ammo shoots well and your handloads don't, you are doing something wrong. I thought fouling, but if factory shoots .6 it isn't fouled. Are you shooting VLD type bullets, long and pointed, you may have to go down in weight. The VLD type are temperamental as to jump. Some barrel like them jamed and some like them jumping 1/8 inch. Check the Berger site, they recommend you find the seating depth before you work on load and powder. My 6.5x47L likes 130 Bergers and Varget, .010 off.
Bill
I have mostly been shooting eld-x. I would really like to try 140 gr vld hunting bullets, but they're nowhere to be found.
I am not an inexperienced handloader, and have worked up successful handloads for a half dozen other rifles. I am using all premium reloading components, dies, scale, etc. I'm certain that as far as my handloading process goes, I am not doing anything "wrong". That said, obviously something is not right or else I wouldn't be having such difficulties.
I would consider the 135grs classic Hunters before messing with the VLDs. They are very forgiving much like the Hybrids.
more thoughts; This thread has me baffled also when factory ammo outshoots a variety of handloads and testing. We all know that every barrel has a mind of its own. case point; my better barrel loves 41.8 gr h4350 in Starline (heavier brass with no pressure signs). The same load in the shorter barrels shows bad pressure signs (hard lift & ejector marks) and didn't shoot well besides.Originally Posted by Delhiguy91
Using FC brass (12-13 grains lighter than Starline) the two short barreled rifles showed no pressure with more powder (42.5) and shot faster as well as better group wise than anything tested in the Starline. Maybe the Lapua brass is not an answer in your case.
What velocity did chrono show with the factory loads compared with your testing? Trying to pin point any one single cause is frustrating at least, finally finding the solution is where its all at. The guys on this forum all work pretty hard with problem solving, you've come to the right place.
Pardon my ignorance- OP---- Have you found the best seating depth yet?
So far that would seem to be the case.I've gone through a pound of h4350 a half pound of rl16 and a half lb of rl17. After all this, I haven't been able to find a load that consistently matches what I can accomplish with factory ammo....I guess what I'm looking for here is to see if perhaps my expectations for this rifle are unrealistic? Is this gun only a .75" gun?
Personally I think the problem may lie in harmonics as much or more so than cleaning regimen or component choices.
What are you doing for resizing the brass?
Thing is, factory ammo shoots well, so you might need to think a little outside the box, as it were, rather than take the position you're doing everything right and there's no reason your well crafted ammo isn't printing groups as good as over the counter stuff. Really need to step back a bit, IMO, and comments about running factory ammo and your own over a chrono would sure provide some additional useful information.
I'm also shooting 143 gr ELD-x (same 6.5mm bore but in a .260 Rem) and I have to seat mine 0.090" beyond the SAAMI maximum overall length measurement to get a "proper" free travel/jump of 0.015"
That's almost 7/8" of exposed bullet ahead of the case mouth! And partially because of that I also check run-out with a concentricity dial indicator. I also found that decapping separately, forming without a deprimer/cherry (I use Redding dies) and then using a K&B Neck expander mandrel in separate steps made working with those copper pencil bullets much more consistent. Though none of those steps would make 1/10th of an inch difference in group size - but the free-travel might make some difference if you're hopping 0.20" instead of 0.02" to get to the rifling.
You also want to make sure you are using a bullet seated insert designed specifically for VLD style bullets.
When you say Factory Loads shoot better are those also with the ELD-x bullet?
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Last words of Gen. Sedgwik
I like where stump went. Bullet run-out can be an accuracy killer.
I'm a new member of this forum but a long time Savage owner and shooter
I have a 12 LRP with well over 3250 rounds through it and measured every group. 5 round groups average around 0.35 and I have shot 20 round groups under 0.7 even with my shooter induced variations.
It is my most accurate rifle, including 10 Savage centerfire rifles, and I have hand loaded for it after shooting about 50 factory rounds through it.
It shoots hand loads much more accurately than factory, about 33% better.
The chamber was very tight and still is very close to SAAMI recommended length.
I initially had a problem with high pressure due to the tight chamber and Savage bored it out by a few thousandths and fixed the problem.
Even with the tight chamber it shot just as accurately as it does now.
My best results come with Lapua small primer brass using CCI BR-4 primers.
BR-4s shoot slightly more accurately (10%) than CCI 400s, and a lot more accurately than large rifle primers (25%).
The primer pockets also last longer with the SRPs than with LRPs.
I recently retired 100 Lapua brass after 21 reloads. Never got more than 6 reloads with LRPs because the primers got loose.
I get the best results with IMR4451 Enduron powder, followed in order by IMR4350 (12%), RL-17 (20%), IMR4064 (30%) and N150 (36%).
My best bullets are 147 gr Hornady ELD-M, 142 gr Sierra SMK, and 140 gr Hornady ELD-M.
Berger 140 gr Match, Long Range and Hybrid bullets also shoot accurately.
It hates 140 gr Sierra SMKs - probably because the bullet body in the lands is shorter than the other bullets.
The 12 LRP has a 26 inch barrel so the loads are different than with the 24 inch barrels in most loading manuals.
You need to use your chronograph to see if there is a difference between factory and your hand loads.
I load for a muzzle velocity of 2663 to 2665 fps for the best accuracy.
I clean my barrel after each session (usually 100 rounds). I use Patch Out to clean and take out copper.
First round out of a cold unfouled barrel is high by about 0.5 -0.6 inches at 100 yards.
By the 3rd round, it is a tack driver.
Mine didn't you good till I had at least 20 or 30 rounds down the barrel and I would clean every four to five hundred rounds. Stop cleaning or get yourself a CBI 28 inch bull barrel. Then see what happens half inch or better .3 should be. Just the other day I messed around with reloader 17 130 grain Berger AR hybrids shot one and a half inch group at 400. today I shot two and a half inch at 600 yards 2.566 the other group with 2.966. It's a 28 inch bull barrel shilen select match. lrp action HS Precision stock. And a Leupold TMR... Load 44 grain reloading 17 CCI benchrest primer Hornady brass muzzle velocity 3030.
As many have noted, every rifle is different. I have found that my LRP, has shot best, so far, with a 142 Nosler Long Range Accubond bullet. Federal Match primer, 37.0 grns of H4350.The cases are Hornady annealed, neck turned, and neck sized only. The bullet is seated at .015 off the lands. The result was a .154 center to center 3 shot group at 100 yds. The only cleaning done is running a bore snake before and after each session. After starting to neck turn the cases there was a noticeable improvement in the groups. Also, I bench rest using a lead sled. Going to start playing with seating depth to see where that leads. Don't give up on the LRP. They are great shooters.
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