6.5 Creedmoor Berger 140 grain Elite Hunter and Reloader 16 Load Development

[rockchalk06]

Probably should have just started with this bullet in the first place, but I tinker.....

Rifle:
Tikka T3x D-18. 24.3" Stainless 1:8. Barrel is clean. Round count is 261

Brass:
Alpha OCD Large Primer. X3 Fire Formed to this chamber. Shoulders bumped .002". .003" neck tension. Trimmed to 1.910" & chamfered

Primers:
Federal 210M

Powder:
Reloader 16

Projectile:
Berger 140 Grain Elite Hunter

Muzzle Device:
Yankee Hill R2 .30 Cal w Cover

 

[rockchalk06]

Alliant is calling for 43.6 grains of Reloader 16 as a max charge in their 24" test barrel with an estimated 2821 FPS.




I'm going to start at 42.1 grains and work up to 43.9 grains.

 

[rockchalk06]

Bullets arrived today. Got lucky and all had the same lot#. 300 should last me a bit with this rig should all go well.


Jam on this bullet is 2.322" CBTO. The Tikka mags allow a loooong seating depth, but not this long


I like to have about .003" clearance in my mag fed rifles to ensure proper feeding. To get this, I had to seat down to 2.260" CBTO. I've always stuck with the 50/50 when seating. 50% (off my eye) of the bearing surface inside in case neck. This ended up being 2.256". This also keeps me above the shoulder junction and the bearing surface of the bullet out of the bottom part of the neck should a donut appear. This should give me good solid smooth seating.

I did the bench and feed test I do and I had zero set back. My jam test I set the neck to 005" neck tension. I set another case to .003" where I will be at for testing. Moved my bench from the wall and pushed it with the bullet. Then cycled it 5 times from the mag. No set back at all.

Seating depth for this test will be 2.256" CBTO jumping .066"

 

[rockchalk06]

Ladder test went about as well as I imagined it would. I reached 2878 with zero signs of pressure.


Aside from shots 4 and 7, these may have all been under an inch across the spread.


Shots 1 and 2 were within less than .3 FPS, but the shot placement wasn't as good as others. I'd also like to be at a higher speed with this load. That will be one I'll fall back on. Same with shots 7 and 8. They were 6 FPS apart, but shot placement wasn't as good as the next node. 9 and 10 really did it for me. I exceeded max posted velocity within .1-.3 grains of published max. Did this at 79° and I don't remember ever hunting medium game over this temp before, so I should be fine. Shots were also touching.

 

[rockchalk06]

I settled on 43.8 grains of Reloader 16 to test out. I loaded up 10 rounds at this depth and will shoot these slowly for group and spread. Normally, I would run just 5, but I ended up dropping powder in 7 cases before I noticed how many I had done. I went ahead and loaded 10. Figure if 5 shot good, then I could confirm it with another 5. If 5 go to shit, but I have 5 to seat deeper at this charge or I have foulers/sighers loaded.

 

[rockchalk06]

I'm reminded of why I love this bullet. Tuning it is a trip!

I'm going to call this good for now. I will push this out to 200 and 300 on paper then some steel out to 546. I'd like to see that ES a little lower, but I can work with this. I will note, that on shot #6, I did not extract #5 and leave the bolt open while I settled the rifle in. I chambered another round and left it there. That was the highest velocity of the spread. I took note of it as I broke my routine and bitched at myself. If you excluded that shot, the SD drops to 7.9 and Spread drops to 22.3. No telling if that caused it or not, but I will take note when I push this load out further.

 

[JCann]

That’s interesting. Years ago I loaded 43.8 grains of H4350 in Remington brass behind Berger 140 grain Hybrid in 260 Rem. MV was 2,887. It shot < 1/2 MOA AT 100 yards and it held 3/4 MOA out to 910 yards. I couldn’t shoot this in Lapua brass (don’t ask me how I know) and never tried it in any other brass.

Good shooting BTW!