Originally Posted by
Wide Glide
Buying a good rifle to begin with goes a long way... would I expect an axis with Tupperware stock and cheap mounts/ optic and pencil barrel to do .5 reliably? He'll no
My 10 and 110 fcp-hs have been reliable .5 occasional .2 with full load workup. Stable barrel temp from shot to shot and amount of time a round sit in the chamber heating the powder also makes a difference. It took allot of rounds down range and allot of time at the reloading bench to realize that though. Also when I say full load workup I mean full load workup not trying 5 loads and picking the best I'm talking 2-3 powders 5-10 charge weights each then seating depths from 0.050 off the lands to 0.010 into the lands.
I could probably skip allot of that with a more expensive rifle but the cheaper the rifle the more milking it takes to shrink groups. This is why I don't shoot barrel burner calibers. I'd have the barrel shot out before I found the load I was after. For what I spent on components doing load development for 2 rifles with a target load and hunting load for each it would have probably bought another short action or aftermarket barrel.
My .338 lapua is the only savage I have that I'm not reliably getting better than .5 with. It's currently doing about .85 but only has about 100 down the tube. Haven't done a load workup for it because I haven't figured out how much barrel life I'm willing to sacrifice doing load workup.
Load workup is the fun part for me. After you find the right load for each it gets boring and I end up buying/assembling a new one. I joined here when I was selling my remington 700 and buying my first savage, it hasn't been long but I went from no savages to 6 since then and I've got another action and xcaliber barrel on the way lol.
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