Need advice on 6.5 load development..be gentle..newbie

[Fweedombypepe]

So I went out and tested loads yesterday..brand new Howa 1500 6.5 CM hvy 24'' factory barrel..virgin starline srp brass..cci 450..reloder 16..140g ELD-M..coal of 2.84.
Didn't measure length to lands cause I don't have guage yet. Picked the oal so it works good in PMAG.

took two shots to zero..afterwards I shot these groups from low charge to high. As of now the gun has only 19 rounds thru tube. These shots here are the last 17(had one dud from 42.3g group.

I was getting slight primer cratering starting with 41.7..started flattening with 42.6..but no other pressure signs.

I guess my question is..should I load some more around the 42 gr and test again and see if I can duplicate the single digit es's over a greater bullet count or should I reduce charge weight and find lower accuracy node? I realize my barrel is not broken in yet and brass is still virgin...any help would be appreciated.

 

[Sniper260]

Put some more rounds down the barrel to help it settle in. Then start over. Clean the barrel good now and shoot it some more first with a load that doesnt show any pressure signs. New barrels tend to speed up a tad. And it needs seasoned a bit to smooth out the lands and bore.

In the mean time buy a guage to set up seating depth. Its a waste of time not factoring in that factor too.

 

[Fweedombypepe]

Thanks for the advice....I have the Hornady oal length guage but don't have modified case for it yet. Ill get one coming. in meantime ill use a once fired case and see if I cant get a reading out of it. After more closely examining the fired cases I noticed the 42.9 had faint ejector ring marks and just a tiny bit of ejector wipe.

 

[Fweedombypepe]

I measured my oal using a fired case with projectile seated long and closing bolt and slowly extracting..got 2.889 consistently..i guess that means the loads were jumping .049.

 

[canezach]

First, I'd do what Sniper260 said and send some more rounds through your barrel. After a hundred or so, your barrel will settle in and you'll have to redo the entire process, but you might pick up a little velocity. Also, as stated, pick up a comparator so you can seat to the ogive of the bullet instead of jut cartridge OAL and find the distance to your lands so you can determine your jump lengths and seat bullets accordingly.

When you revisit the process, I see some plateauing in your velocities that I'd look deeper into, assuming your chrono is accurate. See how your velocity jumps by 23 fps when you go from 41.7 to 42.0, but only climbs by 7 when you add another 0.3 grains to 42.3, but then it jumps again by 29 fps at 42.6? If your barrel were settled in, I'd suggest loading right in the middle of those two charge weights and start testing for seating depth. The 140 ELDMs shoot really well for me at a 0.020" jump in every rifle I've used them in.

 

[Fweedombypepe]

I used a magnetospeed sporter.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Thanks to Rexwagon for shipping me what I hope are going to be my match ammo for this season. Sure are some long suckers.

38.0 grains H4350 with DTAC 115's
Hornady cases
Full length resized
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New to reloading so hoping you guys could take a look at my neck prep after trimming. See anything I'm doing wrong?
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