Results with Savage 12 FV 6.5mm Creedmoor

[CFJunkie]

Some of you asked about whether I loaded for jump for this rifle. I had a good idea of where the various bullets would perform based upon my results with my other two Savage 6.5mm Creedmoor rifles.
I admit that I didn’t even bother shooting the Sierra 140 gr SMK #1740 bullets because they shot so poorly in my other two rifles and I didn’t bother with Berger’s 140 gr Long Distance #26409 and Hybrid #26414 because they didn’t perform much differently than the 140 gr Berger #26401 Match bullets. I still had 200 of them and didn’t want to spend another $60 a box to buy more of the LD and Hybrids hoping for a miracle.

For the 12 FV 6.5mm Creedmoor results since inception, I did an analysis of the effects of seating depths for all the groups shot with the 35 in.-lbs. torque settings so the results would not be skewed by the poor performance at 45 in.-lbs.
The results are shown in O.A.L. measurements because the ogive to tip measurement varies for each bullet type.
The 130 gr Hornady ELD-M #26177 data was limited by having only one half-box of bullets left when I started data gathering with the 12 FV 6.5mm Creedmoor rifle.

The column headings - except for the last two columns - are in increments of thousandths away from SAAMI recommended O.A.L. of 1.910.
Normally I like to keep the jump around 0.015 to 0.020 to minimize the chance of getting the bullet touching the rifling.
(The poly tips on the TMKs and ELD-M bullets add to the bullet overall length but the ogive determines the jump.)
“Avg Diff” is calculated difference in group average at each depth range by the using the average minus the best load average at the seating depth (underlined).

Group Averages by Bullet by O.A.L. Range - 35 in. Lbs. Torque
--------------------------------- 5-10 -- 11-20 -- 21-30 -- 31-40 -- 41-50 -- 51-60 Avg Diff. Jump for best load avg.
Hornady ELD-M # 26177 130 0.374 -------------------------------------------------- - ------- 0.024
Sierra TMK #7430 ------- 130 --------------------------------------- 0.393 -- 0.341 - 0.024 - 0.005
Berger Match # 26401 -- 140 0.378 0.386 -------------------------------------------- 0.026 - 0.056
Hornady ELD-M # 26331 140 0.404 0.415 ------------------------- 0.401------------ 0.008 - 0.024
Sierra SMK #1742 ------- 142 0.370 0.379 ------------------------ 0.357 ------------ 0.013 - 0.014
Hornady ELD-M # 26333 147 0.387 0.337 -------------------------------------------- 0.042 - 0.024

As you can see, the 130 TMKs like to be seated out so the jump (0.005) for the best load average was shorter than I normally try to achieve.
The 140 gr Berger Match bullets are baffling. They seem to shoot better with a longer jump than expected.
(I’m going to remeasure those bullets to see if I made an error in measuring the bullet depth into the chamber on this rifle.)