Federal 308 Gold Medal No Longer Match?

[celltech]

For what it's worth....shot some 175 GMM over the weekend to compare. Rifle is a Howa 1500 with 20" barrel. 2539 fps, 9 SD, 27 ES for a 5 shot group that was .75"

[eddiesindian]

Good information! And it gives me more to look at for possible fine tuning. My initial load was 168 ELD-M's while waiting for SMKs to arrive. I found 43.0 Varget shot a ragged 4 shot hole at 100 yds, but again, it's the nut behind the bolt that is the biggest factor. I'm shooting at a public range, off a bi-pod that's not the best, no proper squeeze bag and a far less than stellar scope.

In my limited experience I've come to the following conclusion:

Shooting MOA is so easy a cave man could do it.
Shooting 1/2 MOA takes hand loading skills (or at least finding excellent factory ammo) good rifle tuning skills, better rests & bags, decent glass and lots of PRACTICE.
Shooting 1/4 MOA takes excellent hand loading equipment, all the above plus custom barrels and stocks, better than decent glass, and even MORE PRACTICE.
Shooting sub 1/4 MOA takes a commitment to the sport that supersedes almost all other considerations, including a very sizable financial investment, shooting thousands of rounds per year and the BRAINS to analyze and improve your skills.

I'm currently averaging about 1/3 MOA and hope to someday get that down to 1/4 MOA knowing I'll probably get run over by the beer truck about then.

Roger that

[Robinhood]

What was the velocity of your 41.2 grain load?

Man I have no idea. That was back a few years and I worked the load up without the benefit of a chrono. Come to think of it I was probably using a 10X SS too.

[Texas10]

Just got my box from Brownells with two boxes of FGGM 168 match ammo and a box of 168 SMKs to do some load matching.

First things first was I measured the CBTO of the FGGM and found it varied between 2.226 and 2.230 on the several samples I checked and an OAL of 2.800 plus or minus a few thou. I did not check all 40.

Next I set up a dummy cartridge using my FF brass drilled and tapped 6/32 and a 168 SMK from my new shipment loaded and found touch at 2.220 which means in my Shilen match barrel the FGGM is .006 to .010 IN the lands. No wonder is shoots so well!

To confirm, I slid a live FGGM round up the chamber with the bolt out and gave it a firm push. With a cleaning rod down the muzzle, it took a firm push on the rod to dislodge the round confirming the factory load is in the lands in my barrel.

Since I'm developing this load for 300 and under, I'm considering finding a lower and more accurate node. Maybe somewhere around 38 or 39 grains. Any comments on where to start or where that node might be?

26 inch, 10 twist Shilen, 205M's, Varget, Hornaday match brass.

Edit: I pulled down a new FGGM 168 Sierra Match today and to my surprise it had 40.0 grs of "special" powder. I expected to find 42.0 grs IMR 4064 but i guess they don't use that any more. Listed velocity is still 2650 fps.