Wednesday, May 04, 2005

I finally got to the range today to try out some new bullets and older bullets loaded differently. All bullets are 300 gr.

Hornady XTP-Mag, 22 gr. H110, 1423 fps, 1366 fpe, 5 fps AD, 7 SD This load was a bit stickier to feed than I expected but was pretty accurate. Also, it was on at 100 yards.

Beartooth WFNGC, 22 gr. H110 1480 fps, 1459 fpe, 6 fps AD, 8 SD Fed smooth as silk, just a little low at 100 yards, sub 2 inch group at 100 yards, just 4 inches low at 150 yards! I'm going to try to work this up to 23 gr. That big flat point really slaps the target backing. You can hear it through muffs all the way back to the firing line.

Sierra JFP, 23 gr. H110 1504 fps, 1506 fpe, 9 fps AD, 11 SD Another smooth feeding load despite the fact that it is the longest COL of any of these loads. 1" or so low at 100 yards. This bullet has the best BC of any of these 300 gr. bullets.

Hornady XTP-HP, 22 gr. H110, 1446 fps, 1393 fpe, 11 fps AD, 17 SD This time I seated to the topmost cannelure and it fed better but it also struck lowest on the target at 100 yards. I'm going to work these up to 22.8 gr. (the Hogdon manual max) and see how they do. However, it is the XTP-Mag that is most suitable for these velocities (of all the XTP bullets).

I need to restake the front sight and zero. Today, by paying attention to the front sight, lateral variation of all loads did not exceed 3". It was the vertical disbursement that varied.

Free recoil energy of these loads varied from 18 to 19 fpe.

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