OK,
I am very much new to this. I have been reading for the last half a year or so, bought the equipment two months ago, and just started reloading a week ago.
Reloading for .308, I did a small ladder test on Sunday that showed promise with 43.0 grains of RL-15 over a CCI 200, seating a 175 SMK at 2.81 OAL. This was using twice fired Gold Medal brass that had previously been prepped and reloaded by jbell (a member here) who has much more experience and knows much better what he is doing.
Anyhow, after the test showed that 43.0 grains should be where my accuracy node is (I went up to 44.0 grains, zero pressure signs but I stopped there.) I loaded up 25 rounds that night for group testing at the range the next day, all loaded to 2.81 OAL.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Here is what I ran into- shooting groups of 5, 4 would go into the same hole, with 1 round way out of the group, about .75 out.</span> I know that it wasn't me, I have enough experience on my rifle and am familiar enough with it to know that the shots weren't ones I pulled. This leads me to believe it was some inconsistency with my process- something was making that one round go outside an otherwise TIGHT group.
I didn't have a chrono to see if it was a muzzle velocity variance.
Here is my reloading process-
1.) I cleaned the brass with steel wool and a brush in a drill for the inside case neck.
2.) Sprayed the cases with Hornady One Shot.
3.) resized the neck of one case to .336- .003 less than a Gold Medal Match round measures at the neck.
4.) Tried to chamber it but it was too tight. Bumped the shoulder back with my body die set 1 full turn back from flush with the ram. Chambered fine, so I resized the whole batch for consistency with my body die.
5.) Neck sized the whole batch with my .336 bushing.
6.) Cases measured 2.018, didn't have a chamber measurement tool available, so I trimmed them all to 2.010
7.) Chamfered the inside of the mouth, deburred the outside of the mouth, uniformed the primer pocket, and cleaned off the sizing lube with lighter fluid.
8.) Primed with CCI 200 primers
9.) Threw all my charges at 42.8 grains and trickled up to 43.0 grains, using my digital scale as a measure. I thought the scale was accurate to .1 grain, but the resolution is actually to .2 grains.
10.) Seated the rounds using my Redding micrometer die.
11.) Inspected all of the loaded rounds, didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Thank you in advance for reading my lengthy thread, I'm hoping you can help diagnose where I went astray. It could be that the load was off for my rifle, but if that were the case, I would expect more dispersion with the groups- not 4 shots in the same hole and 1 flyer way outside, correct?
I am very much new to this. I have been reading for the last half a year or so, bought the equipment two months ago, and just started reloading a week ago.
Reloading for .308, I did a small ladder test on Sunday that showed promise with 43.0 grains of RL-15 over a CCI 200, seating a 175 SMK at 2.81 OAL. This was using twice fired Gold Medal brass that had previously been prepped and reloaded by jbell (a member here) who has much more experience and knows much better what he is doing.
Anyhow, after the test showed that 43.0 grains should be where my accuracy node is (I went up to 44.0 grains, zero pressure signs but I stopped there.) I loaded up 25 rounds that night for group testing at the range the next day, all loaded to 2.81 OAL.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Here is what I ran into- shooting groups of 5, 4 would go into the same hole, with 1 round way out of the group, about .75 out.</span> I know that it wasn't me, I have enough experience on my rifle and am familiar enough with it to know that the shots weren't ones I pulled. This leads me to believe it was some inconsistency with my process- something was making that one round go outside an otherwise TIGHT group.
I didn't have a chrono to see if it was a muzzle velocity variance.
Here is my reloading process-
1.) I cleaned the brass with steel wool and a brush in a drill for the inside case neck.
2.) Sprayed the cases with Hornady One Shot.
3.) resized the neck of one case to .336- .003 less than a Gold Medal Match round measures at the neck.
4.) Tried to chamber it but it was too tight. Bumped the shoulder back with my body die set 1 full turn back from flush with the ram. Chambered fine, so I resized the whole batch for consistency with my body die.
5.) Neck sized the whole batch with my .336 bushing.
6.) Cases measured 2.018, didn't have a chamber measurement tool available, so I trimmed them all to 2.010
7.) Chamfered the inside of the mouth, deburred the outside of the mouth, uniformed the primer pocket, and cleaned off the sizing lube with lighter fluid.
8.) Primed with CCI 200 primers
9.) Threw all my charges at 42.8 grains and trickled up to 43.0 grains, using my digital scale as a measure. I thought the scale was accurate to .1 grain, but the resolution is actually to .2 grains.
10.) Seated the rounds using my Redding micrometer die.
11.) Inspected all of the loaded rounds, didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Thank you in advance for reading my lengthy thread, I'm hoping you can help diagnose where I went astray. It could be that the load was off for my rifle, but if that were the case, I would expect more dispersion with the groups- not 4 shots in the same hole and 1 flyer way outside, correct?
