Squeeze
New member
I have a question for the knowledgeable loaders on the forum.
Background: I won a Tikka T-3 at a DU Banquet, and having a number of good bolt guns already, I gave it to my grandson. It is chambered in 308 Win, and at the tender age of 8, I started loading "reduced recoil" rounds for him to learn how to shoot his rifle. I went to the Hodgdon Website, and found a data sheet on loading, where they recommended taking the max. load for a given cartridge(that had H4895 data), reducing the charge by 40%(max load x .6), and use that as a starting load. I picked the Sierra 125 gr. SP bullet, and loaded 28.0 grains of H4895. All good so far. We shot a few of them, and the rifle shot them MOA, so I loaded enough for practice and hunting. This year he is 10 years old, and able to "mentor" hunt under WI deer hunting laws. So we got the rifle on the bench, he shot maybe 20 rounds to zero the scope, and to log the bullet trajectory from 50 to 150 yards. On one 100 yard group, he put them in the same hole! BUT, he mentioned that one of the shots had more recoil...Hmmm, I discounted that as just fatigue, and we wrapped up the range time, with a blessing that he was ready for real deer.
So I am cleaning the cases, and out of the 20 rounds he shot, 4 of them clearly have imprints of the bolt face on the case head! Primers weren't flat, but I did notice an unusual amount of sooting on the case neck, and shoulder. Also both he and his father(also shot the rifle checking scope zero) mentioned they had "specks of stuff" hitting them in the face. They wore eye protection, so there was no issue, but that sure gave me pause! I checked the rifle bore, and there was a lot of powder residue in the bore. There was no sticky bolt lift, and the few cases I looked at on the range didn't have flattened or pierced primers, and I didn't notice any extractor/bolt face marks on the case heads, on the range. I found that when I had the cases clean, ready for de-priming, and annealing.
So my question to the old wise ones is, "Is this reduced recoil round experiencing the phenomena of detonation?". Or is there another explanation?
Squeeze
Background: I won a Tikka T-3 at a DU Banquet, and having a number of good bolt guns already, I gave it to my grandson. It is chambered in 308 Win, and at the tender age of 8, I started loading "reduced recoil" rounds for him to learn how to shoot his rifle. I went to the Hodgdon Website, and found a data sheet on loading, where they recommended taking the max. load for a given cartridge(that had H4895 data), reducing the charge by 40%(max load x .6), and use that as a starting load. I picked the Sierra 125 gr. SP bullet, and loaded 28.0 grains of H4895. All good so far. We shot a few of them, and the rifle shot them MOA, so I loaded enough for practice and hunting. This year he is 10 years old, and able to "mentor" hunt under WI deer hunting laws. So we got the rifle on the bench, he shot maybe 20 rounds to zero the scope, and to log the bullet trajectory from 50 to 150 yards. On one 100 yard group, he put them in the same hole! BUT, he mentioned that one of the shots had more recoil...Hmmm, I discounted that as just fatigue, and we wrapped up the range time, with a blessing that he was ready for real deer.
So I am cleaning the cases, and out of the 20 rounds he shot, 4 of them clearly have imprints of the bolt face on the case head! Primers weren't flat, but I did notice an unusual amount of sooting on the case neck, and shoulder. Also both he and his father(also shot the rifle checking scope zero) mentioned they had "specks of stuff" hitting them in the face. They wore eye protection, so there was no issue, but that sure gave me pause! I checked the rifle bore, and there was a lot of powder residue in the bore. There was no sticky bolt lift, and the few cases I looked at on the range didn't have flattened or pierced primers, and I didn't notice any extractor/bolt face marks on the case heads, on the range. I found that when I had the cases clean, ready for de-priming, and annealing.
So my question to the old wise ones is, "Is this reduced recoil round experiencing the phenomena of detonation?". Or is there another explanation?
Squeeze