Welcome to Shooters Forum, Booshway. Sounds like you've been down the river a time or two.
I don't agree that free floating or glass bedding are a "must", but I do think the most important aspects of accurate cartridges are careful, consistent case prep and concentricity in your bullet, neck, chamber and bore. Once you've made sure those details are tended to the only thing left is to use one method or another for load development.
Have you ever used the OCW method?
Optimal Charge Weight makes sense. Each rifle may have different scatter nodes. Depending on the barrels harmonics and bedding interuption, just another reason to free float and glass bed. Sounds like he is having a flyer occurence. That can be very aggravating and is usually an indicator of a problem. The good ole challenge and process of elimination begins. Not all of the OCW's proove accurate, above the scatter node seems to be the ideal window of accuracy for a step in the right direction. Find that point, then seating depth can play a major role.
I'm not saying you can't get rifles to shoot excellent without free floating and glass bedding, but more often than not, it is a main ingredient for superb accuracy. Once you have done it, you won't be thinking about that as a potential problem causing your flyers. I think all the comments on this post have validity. All good rifles can shoot well and have their own hidden idiosyncrasies, it's up to us to hunt them down!
22-250 shooting left with reloads
I am fairly new to reloading but wonder how this could have anything to do with the bullets I loaded. Lots of variables because gun is new Savage varmiter with a Weaver Grand Slam 4.5x-14x 40mm scope. First round, I shot Remington factory loads with hollow points 50 gr.
I got it to shoot OK but newness of gun and especially the trigger led me to think most of the error was of my own doing. I checked the scope for level and found it to be a bit off so adjusted that.
Went to the range with Rem ammo and first shot understandable was off from the adjusting I did. Dialed in the change and fist shot just a bit right of center dot. Second shot touching on the high side. Satisfied it was dialed in properly.
First shot with reload of 36gr Varget using hornady v-max 50 gr head a bit low but almost two inches left. The wind was pretty strong and had shifted some from in my face to maybe 2:30. Fired again and this bullet hit at the same height abut a little bit more left maybe 1/4 or 1/2 inch. I thought it had to be the wind.
Then tried same bullet and head with 36.5 Varget. This bullet hit at the same height as the factory loads but once again was left. Second one left a bit more.
I gave up thinking the wind was just too much and it was cold as **** too.
When I got home went to the Winchester site and to their ballistic table. At 100 yards the wind pretty much has no impact at all.
I weighed each charge with two scales to make sure I was exactly on the number. I mic'd each case to make sure it was at the COL. The barrel is a very thick barrel so I do not think the heat was going to make it move. I did take time after each shot to check where the shot hit so there was at least 1 minute between shots and it was pretty cold. I had a thin barreled 243 that would start moving around if you shot it too much but do not expect this, especially on the 4th shot.
If I had any reason to believe that the movement was not the wind I would have fired another factory round but regrettably I did not.
I read that boat tails could be a bit finicky in the 22-250 so is this what I could expect. Oh shotting the 36 gr load the two hits were pretty close but left. The 36.5 was spread out a bit more. So I am thinking of loading some more with 36 gr but want to have a good handle on what happened before I do that. Any ideas, or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
I got it to shoot OK but newness of gun and especially the trigger led me to think most of the error was of my own doing. I checked the scope for level and found it to be a bit off so adjusted that.
Went to the range with Rem ammo and first shot understandable was off from the adjusting I did. Dialed in the change and fist shot just a bit right of center dot. Second shot touching on the high side. Satisfied it was dialed in properly.
First shot with reload of 36gr Varget using hornady v-max 50 gr head a bit low but almost two inches left. The wind was pretty strong and had shifted some from in my face to maybe 2:30. Fired again and this bullet hit at the same height abut a little bit more left maybe 1/4 or 1/2 inch. I thought it had to be the wind.
Then tried same bullet and head with 36.5 Varget. This bullet hit at the same height as the factory loads but once again was left. Second one left a bit more.
I gave up thinking the wind was just too much and it was cold as **** too.
When I got home went to the Winchester site and to their ballistic table. At 100 yards the wind pretty much has no impact at all.
I weighed each charge with two scales to make sure I was exactly on the number. I mic'd each case to make sure it was at the COL. The barrel is a very thick barrel so I do not think the heat was going to make it move. I did take time after each shot to check where the shot hit so there was at least 1 minute between shots and it was pretty cold. I had a thin barreled 243 that would start moving around if you shot it too much but do not expect this, especially on the 4th shot.
If I had any reason to believe that the movement was not the wind I would have fired another factory round but regrettably I did not.
I read that boat tails could be a bit finicky in the 22-250 so is this what I could expect. Oh shotting the 36 gr load the two hits were pretty close but left. The 36.5 was spread out a bit more. So I am thinking of loading some more with 36 gr but want to have a good handle on what happened before I do that. Any ideas, or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
41 - 42 of 42 Posts
I am so anxious to see what happens when I try this method. The barrel is free floated, I do not know about glass bedded but if that is not standard in a savage it is not. I did some more reading on ballistics and the impact of wind on a bullet including some sites that have some really intricate calculators and they are suggesting that a 10 MPH 90% wind can affect impact by as much as .75 inches at 100 yards. The wind on my last time out was at least 20 and moved from maybe 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock. So the change in impact could in some part be due to the wind if these most recent site is more accurate than the winchester ballistic calculator which pretty much showed no deflection no matter how strong the side wind was.
No matter I will see what is going on Today or tomorrow. I also was checking for loads and I saw that 36 grs is the max load for some types of bullets so 36.5 is at or very near max load and the bullets fired with that charge went all over. Factory Remington very close, reloaded 36 very close 36.5 nothing close. Some very well could have been me because of frustration at that time because I was wondering what the **** was going on. I understand a bit better now but then I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. I have a 243 that would be very accurate until you fired one to many bullets and then it would fire all over the place.
When I was younger we would just fire away at the target not considering how the barrel might be heating up or fouling up. I have been around a pretty long time so there was not Internet then and who had money to buy books or magazines. My father did not hunt so most of what I learned was from other kids like me.
No matter I will see what is going on Today or tomorrow. I also was checking for loads and I saw that 36 grs is the max load for some types of bullets so 36.5 is at or very near max load and the bullets fired with that charge went all over. Factory Remington very close, reloaded 36 very close 36.5 nothing close. Some very well could have been me because of frustration at that time because I was wondering what the **** was going on. I understand a bit better now but then I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. I have a 243 that would be very accurate until you fired one to many bullets and then it would fire all over the place.
When I was younger we would just fire away at the target not considering how the barrel might be heating up or fouling up. I have been around a pretty long time so there was not Internet then and who had money to buy books or magazines. My father did not hunt so most of what I learned was from other kids like me.
41 - 42 of 42 Posts
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