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145 grain 6.5 Barnes Match Burner
- Thread starter Rumblingdwarf
- Start date
Same thing here. January Ordered 2 boxes, Then a few days later I got an in stock notification, wouldn't let me put it in the cart. Not sure if it's a calendar month thing as I ordered again early February.
Oh it might be longer, I just assumed it was only for a day. Nonetheless, they are/were in stock
I have my account with my name and address and then an account for my wife with different card and my dads address so I guess I’ve never tried. I know I’ve ordered the same item twice in one week on my account on there but that was before everything got super hot and heavy, maybe 9 months ago.
Appreciate that, ordered some. Looking forward to LD and see how these shoot compared to 147 ELD-M which shoot lights out in my SJA barrel
Tried the 145gr Match Burners at 500 yards today. They are showing some promise...
John
John
Pic above is from 8” twist 6.5 Creedmoor.
John
John
I've been doing some load development with these this week. They have been truly unremarkable in my 8 twist Creed. I am going to clean my barrel and try jumping them. How far off the lands are you? What is the bc looking like? thx
I am waaay off the lands at BTO of 2.070” in my 6.5 creedmoor. thats a 2.85 OAL, which is as long as I can fit in my Magpul mags. I haven’t tested any different lengths yet But will once I settle on a powder charge. Hard to say on BC as all I’ve tested so far is load development and I have more of that to do. Initial impression is that they don’t shoot as well as Bergers do for me, but then again, I’ve never found any Bullet that shoots as well as Bergers have for me.
John
John
I hear you on the Bergers, definitely the easy button. In these challenging times having back up projectile plan seems prudent. I need to get some bullets jumping. Thanks John.
You have to try them for yourself. I’ve heard many good things too. I just ordered 500 so hopefully my barrel likes them. I’ll post my findings in a week or two.
I've got 1K of them for a 28" 7.5t Bartlein. Sherman Max case w/ 3.065 coal. Hopefully they shoot - going to try 8133 and N570.
Yes, please don't let my experience prevent you from trying them. I am going to try them in another barrel and see if I can get them to work. Looking forward to what you discover.
I’ll grab a 500 box when I can find one (missed the last midway drop). Even if they are a training load that’s similar to my eld load I think that will be a win.
Yup. Bummer they didn’t work for your barrel, but as we all know, every barrel is different. Everyone’s standards for accuracy are different too.
A semi-related note - the 120gr version of this bullet is the most accurate thing I’ve tried in my 1:9 twist 6.5 Grendel, better than any of the ELD or SMK flavors.
If it helps, my Bergara with a 1:8 twist likes them with most loads and LOVES them with the load I’m running at the moment. I even pulled a rookie move and have been using the wrong seating stem in my seater this whole time so they have been all over the place as far as bullet run out and seating depth
I went ahead and bought another 500 box and was able to get 2 more 100 round boxes from midway
If they're anything like the 112gr MB in 6mm I'll be thrilled. Those HAMMER in my 6 creed.If it helps, my Bergara with a 1:8 twist likes them with most loads and LOVES them with the load I’m running at the moment. I even pulled a rookie move and have been using the wrong seating stem in my seater this whole time so they have been all over the place as far as bullet run out and seating depth
They’ve been pretty consistent for me out to 500. Need to stretch them further. Way better than RDF’s for me. Those were my headache.
StaBall 6.5 has been working awesome for me. It’s definitely a dirtier powder. But seeing how I can get it fairly easy and it’s cheaper, I don’t mind having to clean my rifle more. IMR 4451 works good too I’ve heard. I have 5lbs of that but just haven’t tried it yet.
Doing some QC testing the other night at work, shooting a 10 shot group from the 6.5x47. Nine shots went .3 and the 10th opened the group to .4". I used them in the 6.5x47 last week in New Mexico for the NRL Hunter match. The rifle and bullets were hammering the steel. Took a Brux barrel certificate off the prize table. New 6.5x47 barrel in my future.
Alan
Alan
I am curious if anyone has tried any of the VV powders?? I live in AZ and have a place near me that just got a decent assortment of powders... N165, N310, N140, N320...unfortunately no 4350. The shop owner recommended N310 for these bullets out of my 6.5 Creed
I have seen the load data released for the 6.5 Creed by Barnes. You might want to suggest that they also test some VV powders, or just other powders in general due to todays' conditions where you cant always find what you want, and have to settle for whats available. Providing more load data will help shooters try it...and ultimately sell more projectiles.
The other questions I have, is Sierra currently producing these bullets under the Barnes name, and did they develop them??? When I mentioned that I had bought some a friend who founded EBR ammo, was a bit skeptical..
These have been okay for me so far in a 24" 6.5 creed over H4350. First of all, like Allen, I have to stuff them in really deep to fit my magpul mags, so pulling them all the way back out to single feeding lengths may be a completely different story that I'm just not excited about exploring. I found a nice flat velocity section 0.7 grains wide at 2670 fps but the accuracy there sucks even after trying a total spread of 0.03" different seating depths all the way down to the Barnes COL recommendation. I started to get very faint ejector marks at the barnes max of 21.1 grains (2729 fps in my rifle, almost exactly the barnes speed) and the accuracy still sucked so I'm not going to push further. I'm running them in virgin Peterson brass and the loads are quite compressed so I'm confident that is a contributing factor. Accuracy seems better where there is only very slight compression (~40.5ish grains) so I'm may go there next or give staball a try so I can get them well above 2700 fps without worrying so much about pressure.
Despite the terrible groups I did shoot a couple out to 1k and they seemed to fly straight and the BC was definitely better than 140 ELDM's.
Despite the terrible groups I did shoot a couple out to 1k and they seemed to fly straight and the BC was definitely better than 140 ELDM's.
That's a bummer I'm looking at a 26" Prefit Proof stainless and was eyeing these. Were you working in the confines of fitting them into your mag? I don't mind single loading and skipping the mag wondering if anyone has worked up their load this way. To get these MBs in love with StaBall whew tempting.
They won’t fit in my magpul mag the length I have them loaded but fit great in my mdt mag. Ran theses MB’s in a PRS competition this weekend and had awesome luck. Running them over 45 grains of StaBall. They’ve shot great for me but some people can’t get them to shoot
I shot a few this past weekend, fireforming new brass, unfortunately 2 of the groups in wind and rain.
6.5 max, 62-65 grains 8133, 3.07 coal @ 200 yards. Top right was 62 grains.
6.5 max, 62-65 grains 8133, 3.07 coal @ 200 yards. Top right was 62 grains.
Yes, I was loading to mag length. I did initial load dev .02 off then tested jump. Not enough freebore to really jump these with the Proof prefit.
Well for now I'm going to run them in my Bergara, but I'm ok with single loading so going to give them a rip they arrive Thursday pretty excited at the possibilities at least. Proof prefit on the list of possible replacements when Bergara gives up the ghost but not yet still a bugholer.
Considering I use StaBall and a Bergara as well this is pretty encouraging.
Let us know how it goes. I've been testing them in a Bergara HMR 24" (not Pro) at mag length. H4350 was a bust but some initial staball results look much better, but not yet into what I'd call good. That said, between me and the rifle it hasn't been anywhere close to a 'bugholer' other and the odd non-reproducible group.
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This particular Bergara is just a freak. HPBT, Berger Targer Hybrid, ELDM140/factory seconds and 147 and even SnB factory loads. The bolt face looks like a 2 toothed beaver got after it, but it's a shooter. I'd love to have a custom, but until this one says no mas will run it to the finish line.
Well don't feel too bad it was a cluster bang. Loaded just right under mag acceptable length and very low charge 42.3 was right on 1". After that working up to 43.3 it was like looking at a shotgun pattern target b/f turkey season. Not givin up this barrel has literally shot everything I've put in it like a champ just gotta do some work on this pill I guess.
I tried them over staball at mag length around the 44 gr region and they're much better, at least if you consider 2.5+ MOA -> 0.8-1.0 MOA much better. I tried seating them a little deeper and it was trending the right way so I may push it a few more hundredths past the book COL in before trying them at single-load lengths.
I'm crushing the tips a bit even with the hornady AMAX seater. Can't be helping with accuracy... Going to have to drill it out a bit. Hornady dies otherwise seem fine, but I would've opted for Redding or Whidden if they were available. Sherman Max...
I forget which bushing I have, but any less and I'd need to turn necks... without the bushing, the cartridges won't chamber.
Where did you get your load data? I have just gotten some of these 145 gn MB's as well due to no 140's. Using QuickLoad max load is about 42.6 and thats at 106% fill?? Can you list your specifics on your load data? I would like to try the IMR 4831 since I have some, but not at the loads you are showing - seems pressure would be thru the roof? I have a 24 inch Bartlein barrel w 1/7 in twist, using Lapua LR primer brass. Thanks, appreciate any further details you are willing to publish here.
Got some acceptable groups and a few great groups today at 100 yards with the 145 MB out of a 26” 6.5 Creedmoor, with an MPA/Curtis rifle, using RL-17, bullets are HBN coated (Tubb kit), so speed is higher than what would otherwise be achievable with this powder: 2895 fps. [Not recommending RL-17 as it is rather temperature sensitive. I usually have a summer and a winter load. Easy to drop out of the node when ambient temp changes. But this is what i have to work with.]
CCI450 primers in Lapua neck turned brass. COAL of 2.950”, single feed only. Around 65 thou jump. Lapua brass was annealed via AMP machine (at every reload), FL sized. Weighed via an FX120 scale + autotrickler to 0.02 gn (1-2 kernel) accuracy.
Best 3 shot groups today, after using the barrel tuner from Kinetic Solutions to minimize group size (recycling an old target):
Typical groups while adjusting the barrel tuner (doing that in place of seating depth optimization):
Not so great groups at the start of the tuning process were about 1” wide:
Quite a bit of vertical in these groups, might be my bipod hopping on the bench... The bench is too small to extend the bipod legs forward at 45 degrees. The Accutac bipod seems to work best in that configuration.
So yes - I think they show promise. SD for this load was around 7-10 over the past 3 range sessions. Ran out of daylight, and not done with the tuner optimization, might get some further improvement.
In the spirit of full disclosure: These bullets were first weight sorted (0.9 gn range was a little too wide for me), and then sorted base-to-ogive (found a 10 thou variability). Even so, post bullet seating, base-to-ogive varied 4 thou, a bit more than i would prefer.
My impression is that this is not quite a Berger replacement (not nearly as consistent), but mostly on par with the ELD-M line.
[I have no idea if all that sorting was really required or not, and i cannot promise that it made a difference. Just stating the experimental conditions in full.
]
Edit: BC is better than i originally calculated. Zero was off, scope probably got bumped. So please disregard the prior comment. Will re-zero and then retest at 600.
CCI450 primers in Lapua neck turned brass. COAL of 2.950”, single feed only. Around 65 thou jump. Lapua brass was annealed via AMP machine (at every reload), FL sized. Weighed via an FX120 scale + autotrickler to 0.02 gn (1-2 kernel) accuracy.
Best 3 shot groups today, after using the barrel tuner from Kinetic Solutions to minimize group size (recycling an old target):
Typical groups while adjusting the barrel tuner (doing that in place of seating depth optimization):
Not so great groups at the start of the tuning process were about 1” wide:
Quite a bit of vertical in these groups, might be my bipod hopping on the bench... The bench is too small to extend the bipod legs forward at 45 degrees. The Accutac bipod seems to work best in that configuration.
So yes - I think they show promise. SD for this load was around 7-10 over the past 3 range sessions. Ran out of daylight, and not done with the tuner optimization, might get some further improvement.
In the spirit of full disclosure: These bullets were first weight sorted (0.9 gn range was a little too wide for me), and then sorted base-to-ogive (found a 10 thou variability). Even so, post bullet seating, base-to-ogive varied 4 thou, a bit more than i would prefer.
My impression is that this is not quite a Berger replacement (not nearly as consistent), but mostly on par with the ELD-M line.
[I have no idea if all that sorting was really required or not, and i cannot promise that it made a difference. Just stating the experimental conditions in full.
]Edit: BC is better than i originally calculated. Zero was off, scope probably got bumped. So please disregard the prior comment. Will re-zero and then retest at 600.
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These are running great with H4831SC in a Proof carbon fiber barrel.
I thought that powder would have been too slow, but that's not what the chrono or target say.
I thought that powder would have been too slow, but that's not what the chrono or target say.
It seems many folks are getting higher than expected speed with this bullet. Wonder if the diameter is a little different, or if the jacket or lead alloy is new... Bearing surface is similar to the 147 ELDM.
Edit: From a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle.
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Not very familiar with RL-26, but clearly these double base Reloder powders are capable of impressive speed. You may well be right. Will try RL-26, got hold of one pound a while ago, but not used it yet.
HBN coating made quite a big difference for me. Max pressure with coated bullets in my rifle got way past 2900 fps, bright full moon ejector mark showed up at 3020 fps, with a medium hard bolt lift, and i backed way down from there. The max load was definitely a compressed load and i had to settle the powder with an ultrasonic toothbrush for the bullet to seat correctly. The top node was 100 fps lower at 2898 fps. Might he hard on the barrel but the micrometer says the brass head is not expanding in a noticeable way. Primer pockets have remainded tight.
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