You literally said that hunting is unknown distance shooting. By implication, this indicates that you do not know distance to target when hunting. Which would only be the case if you don’t use a range finder. My reading skills are fine. Perhaps you should sharpen your writing skills so as to not connect yourself to practices that are not representative of your reality.
Its ukd. Rangefinders all have error built in and the longer the greater the error. Unless you are running a PLRF or LRAS3. Cheaper rangerfinders most people use can be off by 25% or more past 500 yards. Even better ones like lieca and EL range can throw bad numbers depending on atmospherics, target ect. Just becuase you get a number return doesnt mean that number is correct.
You will most definitely not see 2700 fps out of a 16" 6.5CM shooting 129ABLR's. I get that out of a 20" with nearly a full case of H4350. Not happening out of a 16".
I exclusively use suppressors for hunting now, including hunting out west. It tucks away on the side of my pack easy and is quick to put on. I used not to have suppressors and didn’t know any better, I now know they are the best thing ever invented for hearing protection and preventing ringing headaches.
I was getting 2550-2650 from my 16" AR10 upper on various factory 140 grain loadings, i dont think that 2700 with a basically 130 class bullet is too much to ask for. From a 24" tikka to the 16" faxon big gunner barrel in the AR10, average loss was 150 fps across 4 different loads. Magnetospeed and a OSS helix old generation on the end of both
Yes, its a 20" CTR. And I know they run a bit slow, but still I just don't see a 16" generating that much velocity. I"m running Peterson brass and nearly a full case of H4350 and its right at 2700FPS with both 129ABLR's and 130 Gamechangers. Good hunting load for inside of 300 meters still though.
My Proof barreled 20” 6.5 with peterson brass and 42 gr RL16 goes 2775. Thats an everyday year round load. The barrel matters.
Yes, I know that different barrels have different speeds. I just don't see 2700fps coming out of a 16" barrel. Mine will run 2700fps any day of the year also. I'm gonna try a load with 6.5 StaBall also and see if it makes any difference. Even if it doesn't I'm happy with that speed from a 20". It's exceptionally accurate. If I hunt past 300 meters I'll use my 280AI anyways. Probably inside of 300 meters too.
A 16" .223 is plenty accurate to 600 and beyond assuming the shooter can shoot well at that range. In DM training they shoot to 800 meters with an M4 paired with an ACOG. And these aren't special, accurized M4's, they're standard. A 16" bolt gun will shoot considerably better than those, especially with some quality ammo.
What was your target size and general conditions for reference?
I was shooting 142s at 3050 with H1000, the same load gave me 2850 at 16"
You only lost 200fps with cutting off 9" of barrel? Dang. I just got a custom 280AI with a 24" Bartlein barrel and I'm getting 2774 with 59.1 grains of RL26 and Nosler 175ABLR's, Peterson brass, and Federal 210M's. I was hoping for a bit more speed, but the accuracy is phenomenal and the ES is 1 right now.
For 7mm I really think the 7 wsm is the best choice.
43.5 gr of reloader 17 and 130gr nosler rdf. That’s max charge according to my manual and they estimate 2953 in a 24” barrel. So basically I lost 21 FPS per inch. I’m my experience 4350 would probly be 50-75 FPS slower than reloader 17. Just had a couple pounds laying around to kill.
