bladeracer wrote:I was right about the wind, it's blowing a gale today.
My Ruger is 8-inch twist so I'll let you know what I find.
I've loaded up 200rds of your 52gn, 55gn RooMax, 35gn NTX and the 80gn ELD-M, but I want to wait for perfect wind to test them properly. I'm looking for optimum accuracy to begin with.
Although it wasn't as still as I'd like I was too sore to do much else so I did some shooting with a wind from about two-o'clock but gusty. My chronograph seems to be stuffed so I don't have any velocities. My loads generally run fairly in line with ADI figures though so I can estimate them.
Unfortunately, I think my 8"-twist is too much for the thin jackets. I fired fifty full-power loads and twelve of them disappeared between the muzzle and the target. Those that reached the target showed reasonable accuracy.
I shot two five-round groups at 100m of 25.5gn, 26.0gn, 26.5gn and 27.0gn of AR2206H.
25.5gn (~3220fps) I lost one bullet but managed a 38mm group of five.
26.0gn (~3270fps) I lost two bullets and got a five-shot group of 46.5mm and a three-shot group of 45mm.
26.5gn (~3325fps) I lost three bullets and got a five-shot group of 40.5mm - the other group of two shots were almost touching each other.
27.0gn (~3380fps) I lost five bullets and got a three-shot group of 36mm.
I fired another two five-shot groups at 27.0gn and lost one bullet, getting a five-shot group of 47mm with neck-sized brass and a 33mm four-shot group with FLS brass. I''m going to shoot these cases over and over to see if there's a difference in case life between FLS and neck-sizing.
So a fairly consistent 1.25MoA to 1.5MoA (for those that don't come apart at the muzzle) runs about the same as the 55gn RooMax and 35gn NTX (under today's conditions). I'll make up more loads working down from 25.5gn until all bullets start arriving intact, and then look for accuracy tuning.
The bullet has a pretty sharp bottom edge as I had three that folded one side of the neck during seating. A heavy chamfer can probably sort that though.
I shot the same loads with the 55gn RooMax, except I forgot to shoot the 27.0gn load.
25.5gn (~3220fps) first group of 58.5mm but possibly affected by the brass in the bore from the 52gn bullets. Then I managed a 38mm group.
26.0gn (~3270fps) gave groups of 40.5mm and 17mm.
26.5gn (~3325fps) gave me a group of 44.5mm - the second group I pulled one very badly but dropped four into 17.5mm.
I also shot the same loads with the 35gn NTX.
25.5gn (~3680fps) managed 36mm and 38mm groups.
26.0gn (~3750fps) two groups of 45mm.
26.5gn (~3820fps) groups of 29mm and 36mm.
27.0gn (~3890fps) groups of 37.5mm and 44mm.
And I shot ten loads of the 52gn bullet on 3.6gn of Trailboss. Definitely subsonic, about 480mm low, and roughly a 120mm group for five rounds at best. It was very windy at the time though which may have bothered such slow heavy bullets, but the holes were perfectly round. Bullets showed minor deformation of the points only.
Lastly I shot a three-shot group with the 80gn ELD-M on 23.5gn of AR2206H for a group of 30.5mm at 100m (15mm high), and then a 72mm group at 180m (standing against a tree) (55mm low). The long shot was a very windy shooting position with 60mm of drift. I was extremely impressed to put three rounds into 1.5MoA under those conditions.
Far from perfect conditions but a nice relaxing afternoon putting 136rds down range