03-09-2020, 02:34 AM
JCSC,
there are a bunch of F-Class midrange shooters at the club. mid range 600 yard because that's the longest we have. a bunch of them go to the southwest national though and shoot at 1K. the best of them win by x-count. they all shoot 200 at 600 yards. that's a 3" circle at 600 yards. they offer a precision reloading class once a year. i went with open ears.
1. same lot for everything. brass, primers, bullets, powder. of course not while working up loads and such, but once you find "the load" for your rifle, buy as much of the same lot number of everything as you think you'll need.
2. use one of those neck bushing type sizing dies mentioned above that use the various size neck bushings. of course most all these F-Classers are using bolt guns, but they are bumping shoulders and squeezing down necks just as absolutely minimal as possible. they do not use a neck expander mandrel common in most reloading dies.
3. they all anneal necks. they're striving for SDs in the low single digits. like 2 fps.
4. Lapua brass is popular. Peterson is gaining.
these guys try a bunch of various primer brands, brass. they mostly come back to Lapua brass. but Peterson is starting to pick up share. primers seem split between Federal Gold medal match, and russian primers. powders are mostly temp insensitive ones. lots of hodgdon products. the new IMR Enduron 4166 and 4451 are starting to see a bunch of use. H4350 very popular. so i'd look for temp insensitive offerings. i understand that Alliant now has a few too, as well as some new Winchester offerings. Unfortunately not a ton of temp insensitive offerings in the burn rate for 6.5 Grendel. I'm working with APPV which is NOT temp insensitive, but gives decent velocity, H4895, and Benchmark for the temp insensitive ones. for bullets, almost all have gone to Berger match bullets. there are also several top guys that use those boutique small lot benchrest bullets by individual makers. and a smattering of Sierra matchkings of some flavor and Hornady eldMs of some flavors.
their focus is on consistent everything. velocity, BC, etc. and they go to great lengths to insure it's all as consistent as possible. some guys even are using the prometheus. and most of them use the AMP annealer. talk about OCD. but they win big. usually the top 12 shooters each week are getting 200s (10 ring 6") and the top 6 are all between 16x and 20x. x ring is 3 inches across. two weeks ago one guy recorded his first 200-20x. I am NOT in that class. not even close. and with the way work goes i will likely never get the time to get that good.
but the reloading class was very interesting. runout measurements. jump / jam discussion. case neck uniformity. avoiding seating into the "donut". primer pocket uniformity, flash hole uniformity. humidity controlled reloading room (it does affect powder burn rate). they use special seating tools with springs and dial indicators to try and catch any case that has bullet seating into a case with a pressure that is different than all the rest (different neck tension). those "culls" are practice loads. and likely more accurate than anything i can load yet. and a 2 page discussion on chamber specs for most consistent accuracy. seems like they all run custom reamers on the best barrels they can procure.
anyway the point is, if you want super accurate ammo, all those PIA details that you don't want to deal with are what gets you from the 9 ring to 200-20x. i'm sure if there was a way to do it differently these folks would do it differently. they do experiment with any new gadget that comes out to see if it gives them a competitive advantage. so far, it's just as you'd expect. make everything repeatably consistent. what ever the effort or cost.
-tdbru
there are a bunch of F-Class midrange shooters at the club. mid range 600 yard because that's the longest we have. a bunch of them go to the southwest national though and shoot at 1K. the best of them win by x-count. they all shoot 200 at 600 yards. that's a 3" circle at 600 yards. they offer a precision reloading class once a year. i went with open ears.
1. same lot for everything. brass, primers, bullets, powder. of course not while working up loads and such, but once you find "the load" for your rifle, buy as much of the same lot number of everything as you think you'll need.
2. use one of those neck bushing type sizing dies mentioned above that use the various size neck bushings. of course most all these F-Classers are using bolt guns, but they are bumping shoulders and squeezing down necks just as absolutely minimal as possible. they do not use a neck expander mandrel common in most reloading dies.
3. they all anneal necks. they're striving for SDs in the low single digits. like 2 fps.
4. Lapua brass is popular. Peterson is gaining.
these guys try a bunch of various primer brands, brass. they mostly come back to Lapua brass. but Peterson is starting to pick up share. primers seem split between Federal Gold medal match, and russian primers. powders are mostly temp insensitive ones. lots of hodgdon products. the new IMR Enduron 4166 and 4451 are starting to see a bunch of use. H4350 very popular. so i'd look for temp insensitive offerings. i understand that Alliant now has a few too, as well as some new Winchester offerings. Unfortunately not a ton of temp insensitive offerings in the burn rate for 6.5 Grendel. I'm working with APPV which is NOT temp insensitive, but gives decent velocity, H4895, and Benchmark for the temp insensitive ones. for bullets, almost all have gone to Berger match bullets. there are also several top guys that use those boutique small lot benchrest bullets by individual makers. and a smattering of Sierra matchkings of some flavor and Hornady eldMs of some flavors.
their focus is on consistent everything. velocity, BC, etc. and they go to great lengths to insure it's all as consistent as possible. some guys even are using the prometheus. and most of them use the AMP annealer. talk about OCD. but they win big. usually the top 12 shooters each week are getting 200s (10 ring 6") and the top 6 are all between 16x and 20x. x ring is 3 inches across. two weeks ago one guy recorded his first 200-20x. I am NOT in that class. not even close. and with the way work goes i will likely never get the time to get that good.
but the reloading class was very interesting. runout measurements. jump / jam discussion. case neck uniformity. avoiding seating into the "donut". primer pocket uniformity, flash hole uniformity. humidity controlled reloading room (it does affect powder burn rate). they use special seating tools with springs and dial indicators to try and catch any case that has bullet seating into a case with a pressure that is different than all the rest (different neck tension). those "culls" are practice loads. and likely more accurate than anything i can load yet. and a 2 page discussion on chamber specs for most consistent accuracy. seems like they all run custom reamers on the best barrels they can procure.
anyway the point is, if you want super accurate ammo, all those PIA details that you don't want to deal with are what gets you from the 9 ring to 200-20x. i'm sure if there was a way to do it differently these folks would do it differently. they do experiment with any new gadget that comes out to see if it gives them a competitive advantage. so far, it's just as you'd expect. make everything repeatably consistent. what ever the effort or cost.
-tdbru