215m might give you better results like your looking for, and I plan to run 215's in mine to start. Also with the 153.5 LRHT, according to Berger their seeing 56.1g's of H1000 to be the Max Load giving them around 2883 FPS.
I actually started my process with my 6.5 PRC. Shot 90 rounds this past Thursday, and have an average velocity out of 13 rounds of 2775.6 fps, & today I sent another 50 down the pipe, & my barrel has finally sped up!
Your results are quite a bit faster than what I'm getting. Maybe my barrel will speed up too, right now it's about 80fps lower than your first outing.
This seems quite hot of a load? Any pressure signs?
Nope. Primers look fine and all my bolt lifts have been easy. I tested all the way up to 59.0gr without issue! I was able to find load data for the 153.5 A tip and that listed a max charge of 57.5gr for H1000.
What action are you running? Looks like a big horn or one with mechanical ejection. Looks like ejector slot marks on edge of primers and brass. If so, that is a warm load, very near or over max. I have run a similar load and it was right at max. I have since backed down to 2955 with 57.4 of Retumbo.
I sent 140 rounds down mine over the last 4 days. The barrel was brand new, and did a minor break in procedure during this process.
My round count is only at 68 for this 6.5 prc barrel. I just loaded another 133 rounds with virgin brass.
I'd say most barrels should show some sign of speed change after the first 100-200 rounds.
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Nice target man, great 5 shot groups. I Plan to load my recipe up again and shoot a few 5 shot groups, and see how many I can put into one ragged hole like my 3 shot group above. Once I do that, then it will be time to test at distance.Yeah, I know the following is not the thread's listed projectiles ( do have 153.5's, but not finished load development yet with them), but I thought some viewing here might like to see what some 140 Hybrids did for me out of my RPR (fooling with tuner adjustments 6.5 to 4.0). 5 shot groups (a couple 3 shots groups were in the .0's, but then the following 2 didn't follow
Edit: Powder was not N565, it was H4831SC
View attachment 8421692
Thanks.
- .020 off lands. . . nope, it doesn't fit in mag). Out of m 26" barrel that gets my MV at ~2,980 fps. But the problem I have with that is that the bearing surface will be in contact with the donut area.
I would give N560 if you have some on hand a shot. You might be able to load it to 2.955 COAL which I believe is the basic measurement for it to fit the AI mags.Thanks.
Last August I did find a load that looks very promising for the 153.5's, where I got 5 shot groups very much to those 140 hybrids. But I haven't really tested the load to really see if I can get those results on a consistent basis. I had loaded 57.4 grs of N565 (COAL 3.096
Then, I also tried the H4831SC with 53.3 grs and loading the case to the same configuration as above and got a very good result. But 5 shot MV was down 90 fps from that N565 load.
I might try to see what load works for a cartridge that fits a mag.
Even with a COAL of 2.955 the bearing surface on the 153.5's is well into the donut area, which is something of usually try to avoid. But . . . we'll see.
Usually, I clean my 6.5 PRC at ~100 rounds. As I approached 1900 rounds fired and with a new barrel waiting to be mounted, I've let the cleaning go ~300 rounds thinking it's probably the last round of use for this barrel. But, Sunday's results make me wonder just how long the barrel will keep shooting nicely before swapping it out.
Wow! I would love to get 1900 rounds of life out of a 6.5 PRC barrel. I was expecting them to die around 1000-1200 rounds.
Yeah, I was expecting maybe 1400 or so if I was lucky and have a Krieger barrel I ordered about a year ago in the closet waiting to be mounted. I don't shoot mild loads either, close to the max very often. But, I do keep a close eye on barrel temperature using a temperature strip mounted on the barrel and don't let the temperature get above 122°F. That and a decent cleaning regiment I think has helped more than I expected.
