Did some 6GT ladder tests with H4350, Varget and IMR4064

[rockchalk06]

81° with zero wind this morning. Great day for some tests. I want to stay under 3000 FPS and closer to 2900 with this 109 Berger LRHT. I'd like to keep barrel life past 3k.

Started with H4350. Speeds started off nice and peaked really fast. I wasn't happy with the spread at almost 150 FPS with 1.8 grains of powder. Had two speed nodes between shots 4 and 5 then again shots 9 and 10. Neither were close on paper. Also had pressure signs pretty quick. Flat primers at 2913 and pretty decent cratering at 3002. No heavy bolt lift, no ejector swipes. She was a spicy meatAball!


Varget was next. Spread was better. everything under 3k and closer to 2900. Couple of speed nodes between shots 1 and 2, 5 and 6 then 9 and 10. Shots 1 and 2 looked bad. 5 and 6 gave me a little shotwood! 9 and 10 looked really good too. I had very little cratering of primer around 2900. Primers were had a tad flatness, but no swipes or heavy bolt lift at all. Varget looks promising. VERY PROMISING


I really didn't need to test IMR4064 or did I want to, but I have a metric shit ton of it and works in just about everything. Like H4350, speeds started off slow and peaked really fast. Only had one identifiable node between shots 2 and 3. Shots were almost on top of each other. Would have made a figure 8. Should Varget not produce or I run dry, I'll circle back to 32.4-32.8.


6GT sure beats the hell out of shooting magnums

 

[rockchalk06]

Also wanted to note, I needed 5 foulers last minute as I cleaned my barrel before these tests and wanted a halfass zero. Loaded 5 rounds with some left over StaBALL 6.5. Hodgdon is calling for 40.4 as a max load. I loaded 5 at 39 grains even. 2996 low to 3051 high. Noticeable thump over everything else. If you want to burn a barrel out quick, mess with StaBALL 6.5 a bit!

 

[ClintC]

I’m still running Berger 105’s and pushing almost 3k per sec with 37.4 gr of H4350. Can wait to see which way you go.

 

[rockchalk06]

I’m still running Berger 105’s and pushing almost 3k per sec with 37.4 gr of H4350. Can wait to see which way you go.

I've got the hopper loaded with Varget right now. Those two nodes looked promising.

H4350 will probably be my 2nd choice. IMR4064 doesn't have the temp stability at all

 

[rockchalk06]

Loaded up 20 tests loads this weekend for the 6GT with Varget. 10 at 33.3 and 10 at 33.9. Will shoot these at 200 this week. Both were in the middle of possible speed nodes. Should put be around 2875ish and 2925ish. Reading a ton on this this bullet/powder combo, these ranges seem to be on par with others success.

 

[rockchalk06]

I loaded 20 jumping .029" and 20 jumping .023" last night. Decided to shoot 10/10 at 100 yards and 10/10 at 200 yards. What I thought was going to be the better jump, ended up not being it.

.029" Jump at 100


.023" Jump at 100. Like an ID10T, I didn't hit "ok" on the Garmin for the first shot. I can only assume it was close as the group was pretty tight.

 

[rockchalk06]

.029" Jump at 200 didn't have a ton of vertical, but it was wider than I like.


.023" Jump at 200 was almost the same, but the vertical was less after I looked. Those first 3 shots over the OKBalls name had me with a stiffy. The POI is down some as I dialed down 1 on my turret to bring it to paper. Should have dialed 2.

 

[rockchalk06]

I'm pretty happy with this. I have 61 pieces of virgin brass I'll load up today and go ring some steel to fireform them. If I can duplicate the above off x1 fired, I know I can dial that in. I have another EC Tuner Break I won on eBay should be here next week. The Hawg break on this rifle kinda blows and I was going to replace it anyway. Might as well have a tuner to play with.

Round count as of today is 233 on this barrel. It's speeding up as it should. I have about 60-70 on this clean cycle. I'll fire the remaining 61 and clean it again. No throat erosion or fire cracking that I can see as of today. Barrel is breaking in very nicely.