@woogie_man here's how I reload, step by step, and my SD and ES are typically below 8 and 15, respectively:
After cleaning brass, I use a Redding Type S full length die with a bushing that is 0.003" below the diameter of a loaded round. I bump my shoulder back 0.001" to 0.0015" according to my Mitutoyo calipers and my Hornady Lock n Load comparator with the 400 datum body.
After I've resized my brass, I run the necks through a Sinclair expander mandrel. There are two mandrels: the expander, which is 0.001" below the caliber, and the neck turning mandrel, which is 0.002" below the caliber. Since we're discussing 6.5 Creedmoor, obviously the two mandrels are 0.263" and 0.262", respectively. Personally, I happen to find my best SD and ES numbers come with the expander mandrel, but your mileage may vary. Remember I had the bushing set my neck 0.003" below the loaded round? Now I'm using the mandrel to open up the neck to set my tension to 0.001" to 0.0015" (there's some springback in there). The mandrel also ensures the interior of my neck is perfectly round and any deformities are pushed to the outside of the neck.
After running the necks through the mandrel, I run them through my Giraud power trimmer. I'm not necessarily trimming, since I don't see much growth, but the Giraud does give me a nice chamfer and debur.
I prime with my old, cheap RCBS hand primer that I've used for probably six or seven years now. It's had the spring replaced a time or two, along with both of the primer rams/seating stems/whatever they're called, but it still works fine.
Next is throwing powder charges. I have used the ADFX120i and Auto Trickler for a couple of years, and while it's fantastic piece of kit, it didn't give me remarkably better numbers than my old Chargemaster, according to my MagnetoSpeed V3. It is, however, quicker, and it gives me far fewer overthrows. Really, all the FX120i and Auto Trickler give me are convenience.
Now it comes to seating bullets. I seat with the Redding Type S micrometer seating die that came with my FL die. All I did was swap to the VLD seating stem.
You'll see I didn't do any voodoo, or sort my brass or bullets by weight, etc. I will recommend sorting in a second, but only as an alternative.
If you really want to shrink your SD and ES numbers down, here are my suggestions:
1. Revisit your load development. Having SD/ES that high for two charge weights leads me to believe you might not yet be in the node. You should see your values really shrink when you've reached the node.
2.Ditch the Hornady brass, or at least sort it as best as you can. I don't think it's terrible brass, and I've used Hornady's 6.5 CM brass for years, but my biggest reduction in SD and ES came solely from switching to Alpha brass. If you don't want to switch brass, at least sort your Hornady brass, preferably by internal capacity (I know, it takes forever to do it right), or at least by weight.
3. Pick up a mandrel die and a set of mandrels. This was where I saw the second greatest slash in SD and ES. I use Sinclair because I'm cheap. Others use the titanium or whatever mandrels from 21st Century. But setting my neck tension consistently really improved my SD and ES numbers.
Edit to add: There's some truth to following the target and not the chrono, but that typically comes in when you're deciding between a 5 SD load and a 7 SD load, not when your choices are 25 and 18. Congratulations! You happened to shoot a couple of good groups. Chances are you can't repeat that five times, ten times, every time. You didn't say if those groups were 3 rounds or 5 rounds, but regardless, what's happening for that one group at 100 yards isn't representative of what's happening at 800 or 1000 or beyond because with an extreme spread of 66, your average MV of 2700 becomes anywhere from 2667 to 2733. At 1000 yards, the difference between your low velocity and high velocity is almost 20". Someone else said the magic recipe with H4350 and Hornady brass is right around 42.0 grains of powder, and that's really true. You can look at the start of this thread and see guys using Hornady brass with H4350 and almost all of us were between 41.8 and 42.2 grains of powder with a 140 grain projectile.
