What do you do when most of your normal components have had limited(Sierra 120 gr pro hunter)or no availability(8208 XBR)? You test with more readily available products. Ram shot TAC and Hornady 123gr ELD-M have been available to me locally for some time. I started at 26 gr and worked it to 28 gr in .5 gr increments using hornady brass and Cci 450 primers and a slight crimp. COAL is 2.25. 27.5gr was good on initial testing so I went back and tried 27.4,27.5 and 27.6 gr. This round confirmed 27.5 gr as the load I would choose even though I wasnt focused on one shot and blew the group but my previous test of the load was just as tight without the flyer. 27.6 as a close second.[ATTACH=CONFIG]19988[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]19989[/ATTACH]
This is why I keep several powders stocked with pressure ladders documented and some accuracy testing.
My go-to is CFE223, which seems to be plentiful and on shelves.
Back-up is actually N530 just because I had a friend who backed the truck up on 6-8 kegs of it, didnt have any use for it, and we did some horse-trading.
I also have TAC, Leverevolution, 8208 XBR, and a bunch of other 1lb kegs.
Theres a convenient set of shooters notes pages in the Grendel Handbooks for you to record personal load data and any observations and instrumented readings so you and anyone you pass on your equipment to can have that for reference.
NRA Basic, Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, RSO
CCW, CQM, DM, Long Range Rifle Instructor
6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbooks & chamber brushes can be found here:
My initial trip to my lgs when I started the Grendel journey led to a choice. 2 one pounds containers of 8208 or an 8 lb of AR comp. Glad I picked the 8208 as both my sub moa loads, Sierra 120 gr pro hunters/Speer 90 gr tnt, like it. I do have 1 pounders of ar comp and h4895 I tried on 129 ablr which yielded less than stellar for me groups(2-3 groups). Perfectly fine for reasonable range deer but not what I was after. I did use the AR comp in the recent round of testing with the 123 gr ELD m but again not up to my standard.
I do keep good records and have a target library I keep for reference. Probably need to thin that out though.
