The wind finally settled down enough so I ventured out to the rifle range on Wednesday afternoon and spent 2 1/2 hours testing some 39 gr. Sierra loads in my Savage 12VLP and some loads for my .17 Remington as well.
On to the .204 Ruger testing. The powders I tested on Wednesday's range trip were AA2230, a couple loads with N540 and one load of H4895. I shot three different weight powder charges with AA2230, two different charges of N540, and just one charge of H4895 (23 total rounds of .204 Ruger were fired Wednesday). I was running out of time and still had three more powder weight charges of H4895 to shoot, but had to get back to town.
Here are the targets and information for the test loads with AA2230, Sierra 39 gr. BlitzKing, new WW brass, and Rem 7 1/2 primers.
The 25.5 gr. load gave me a real nice group, .263", but 3,699 fps was a little below the speed I wanted. The 26.0 gr. load gave me 100 fps more and a tidy 3-shot group that measured .280". The last load I tried is listed as the maximum load and was 26.2 gr. I was so excited after shots 1 and 2 nearly went into the same bullet hole that I couldn't hardly breathe right and shot 3 went a tad bit low and opened the group up to .360". I was surprised to see that the average speed of the 26.2 gr. load was 48 fps slower than the 26.0 gr. load. Strange things do happen when you have the use of a chronograph and maybe a couple more tenths of a grain of AA2230 might cause an accident or, then again, it might give me a node of superior accuracy and speed???? I don't think I'll go there though
The N540 loads were all WAAY below the max of 28.3 grains. I had three loads ready to go, but when I saw the velocity of the 27.2 gr. load at 3,611 fps, I skipped the 27.5 gr. load and went right to the 27.7 gr. load. There is nothing wrong with the .305" group I got from 27.2, I just wanted to see if I could get good accuracy with a faster load. The 27.7 gr. load was not too bad, giving me a .403" three-shot group and velocities that average 3,674 fps. Still not quite fast enough for me. I went home after the session and loaded up three casings with 28.0 gr. of N540 and three casings with 28.3 gr. of N540 (28.3 is listed as the max load). These six casings were once-fired and neck sized WW brass. I would use the load of 27.5 gr. of N540 that I skipped over as fouling rounds before firing the 28.0 gr. and 28.3 gr. loads. Here are the two targets and info for the N540 rounds fired on Wednesday afternoon.
My last shots of the afternoon were with 27.0 gr. of H4895. I shot one fouler and my second shot was a called flyer. Velocity wasn't too bad at 3,746 measured at 11' 9" from the muzzle--probably 3,760 or so at the muzzle.
I'll post the targets/results from Thursday's range session in another thread because I'll likely wind up with too many images to get them all in this one thread.
I fired 12 different powder weight charges in the .204 Ruger on Thursday (40 total .204 Ruger rounds were fired Thursday). I also tested some 26 gr. RBT HP Genco bullets (just 6 rounds) in my custom built .17 Remington and got less than satisfactory results. I also fired eleven different powder weight charges (34 cartridges in all) with the 30.8 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets and had some pretty pleasing results with those.
Thursday's results are coming soon.
On to the .204 Ruger testing. The powders I tested on Wednesday's range trip were AA2230, a couple loads with N540 and one load of H4895. I shot three different weight powder charges with AA2230, two different charges of N540, and just one charge of H4895 (23 total rounds of .204 Ruger were fired Wednesday). I was running out of time and still had three more powder weight charges of H4895 to shoot, but had to get back to town.
Here are the targets and information for the test loads with AA2230, Sierra 39 gr. BlitzKing, new WW brass, and Rem 7 1/2 primers.
The 25.5 gr. load gave me a real nice group, .263", but 3,699 fps was a little below the speed I wanted. The 26.0 gr. load gave me 100 fps more and a tidy 3-shot group that measured .280". The last load I tried is listed as the maximum load and was 26.2 gr. I was so excited after shots 1 and 2 nearly went into the same bullet hole that I couldn't hardly breathe right and shot 3 went a tad bit low and opened the group up to .360". I was surprised to see that the average speed of the 26.2 gr. load was 48 fps slower than the 26.0 gr. load. Strange things do happen when you have the use of a chronograph and maybe a couple more tenths of a grain of AA2230 might cause an accident or, then again, it might give me a node of superior accuracy and speed???? I don't think I'll go there though
The N540 loads were all WAAY below the max of 28.3 grains. I had three loads ready to go, but when I saw the velocity of the 27.2 gr. load at 3,611 fps, I skipped the 27.5 gr. load and went right to the 27.7 gr. load. There is nothing wrong with the .305" group I got from 27.2, I just wanted to see if I could get good accuracy with a faster load. The 27.7 gr. load was not too bad, giving me a .403" three-shot group and velocities that average 3,674 fps. Still not quite fast enough for me. I went home after the session and loaded up three casings with 28.0 gr. of N540 and three casings with 28.3 gr. of N540 (28.3 is listed as the max load). These six casings were once-fired and neck sized WW brass. I would use the load of 27.5 gr. of N540 that I skipped over as fouling rounds before firing the 28.0 gr. and 28.3 gr. loads. Here are the two targets and info for the N540 rounds fired on Wednesday afternoon.
My last shots of the afternoon were with 27.0 gr. of H4895. I shot one fouler and my second shot was a called flyer. Velocity wasn't too bad at 3,746 measured at 11' 9" from the muzzle--probably 3,760 or so at the muzzle.
I'll post the targets/results from Thursday's range session in another thread because I'll likely wind up with too many images to get them all in this one thread.
I fired 12 different powder weight charges in the .204 Ruger on Thursday (40 total .204 Ruger rounds were fired Thursday). I also tested some 26 gr. RBT HP Genco bullets (just 6 rounds) in my custom built .17 Remington and got less than satisfactory results. I also fired eleven different powder weight charges (34 cartridges in all) with the 30.8 gr. BTHP Hammett bullets and had some pretty pleasing results with those.
Thursday's results are coming soon.