130 Berger OTM Tactical - REALLY low velocities compared to Berger Manual

[FightingMajor]

Just curious if anyone else has experimented with the 130 Berger and gotten really low velocities. I have Ramshot TAC and Win 748 and in the Berger book those have decent published velocities so I thought I'd give them a try.

Berger says that TAC max load is 25.0 with a velocity of 2366 from a 24" barrel. Win 748 has a max load of 25.5 with a velocity of 2424.

My 20" barrel? I got 2017 fps from 25.0 gr of TAC and only 2026 from 25.5 gr of Win 748. When my chronograph said 1911 fps when I started at 23.5 gr of TAC I didn't believe it at first. On the bright side some of the groups looked really great!

I did some online searching and reading here and found that CFE223 worked really well despite not being listed in the Berger manual. To give some reference at 30.3 grains (an accurate load in my barrel) I got 2351 fps. So has anyone else here experimented with those powders and gotten really low velocities? Is the Berger manual just very conservative? How high could someone go? I found an article in Handloader magazine that complained about the same thing in the Berger manual but they didn't mention what powders they tested.

https://www.handloadermagazine.com/6-5-grendel-handloads

[biodsl]

I did a work up for the 130 Bergers with CFE and Leverevolution. I stopped at 30.6 grains loaded to an COAL of 2.265. I was shooting a 22" Black Hole Weaponry barrel. CFE netted me 2508fps in 60 degree weather. Lever was 2512fps. This would be slower in winter. Accuracy hovered around 1 moa.

The 9th edition of the Hornady manual lists a max for 31.7 grains for CFE under their 129 grain bullets. I don't know if that's a typo or what because they list 31.2 as max for a 123 grain bullet.

ARComp was more accurate for me but I lost around 20-60 fps.

EDIT: Failing memory; ARCOMP was more accurate with the Nosler 130 RDF. I don't have group data with the Berger and ARCOMP.

[FightingMajor]

[kmon]

That is the frst bullet i worked up a load for in my CZ, when there was really new and there was no load data for it. 30 to 30.6 gav real good accuracy and since 30.6 was very good on a 90+ degree day I went with it. 2550 fps fps with a COAL of 2.285. I have since changed that to 2.265 for use in the AR which also works well with that load.

One difference between the 129gr Hornady and the 130 Berger is bullet profile with the Hornady bullet being flat base and shorter it eats up less powder room in the case.

The same load has worked well for me with the 129gr Nosler Accubond Long Rang. Nosler lists 31gr CFE as Max load and it is quite compressed at 2.260 COAL. https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/65-grendel/

My loads above were in lapua brass, once fired in my chamber with the shoulder pushe back .002 inches.

[Drillboss]

Keep in mind that a lot of Berger's load data is from QuickLoad. This thread made me think about ARComp data again, so I just called Berger to see if they had some. He gave me a starting load of 23.5 gr at 2223 fps and a max load of 26.3 gr at 2453 fps from a 20" barrel.

For what it's worth, I saw 2466 fps using 26.2 gr of ARComp under a Hornady 123 gr SST from my 20" barrel.