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Prime Ammo 6.5 Creedmoor and high SDs

Dirty D

Dirty D

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Mar 29, 2010
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#1
I took a class this last weekend and due to circumstances wasn’t able to hand load enough rounds for the class so I bought 200 rounds of Prime 130gr 6.5 Creedmoor. At the class we verified zero then went straight to a target at 1073 to true the Kestrels, my windage at 1073 was dead on but my elevation was almost perfectly bracketing the target but very few hits, lots of long and short. Not knowing WTF was going on I took out my Magnetospeed V3 and threw it on the rifle and after 10 rounds my SD was 25.3! I had a box of Prime from a different lot of ammo that I kept separate so I chronoed 10 rounds from that box and the SD was 27.2! Thank God I brought a backup rifle and ammo and proceeded to hit 5/5 on a torso sized plate at 800 with a RRA Predator Pursuit and 73gr ELDMs.
I took another box from the same lot out today and got this.
1538687805077.jpeg

To say that I am disappointed is an understatement.

One thing that I do want to mention is that LowLight repeatedly has said that you need to shoot much farther than 100 to know what your rifle and ammo are actually doing and I can’t agree more. With an SD in the 22s (which is bullshit) I shot this group at 100 but with that variation in muzzle velocity couldn’t hit a cow at 1000.
1538688016547.jpeg

I came back to the house and decided to do a post mortem on 10 of my remaining rounds.
1538688090210.jpeg

All weighing was done on an RCBS Chargemaster, cases and powder were centered on the tray before weights were recorded.
1538688191392.jpeg


I reloaded all of the rounds to exactly 42.5gr and the same seating depth and will go shoot them with the Magnetospeed when I can get back out to the range and report back on the findings.

I’m not saying that all Prime is crap, LL and others have had very different results. Decide for yourself based on data.
 
#4
I had similar experiences but didn't go to the detail that you did. My ES and SD's were high and groupings poor. I wasn't worried because I was simply trying it as a backup to my handloads running low. For what it's worth my barrel was cut for a 140 AMAX bullet.
 
#6
It's barrel related,

I had the Tikka with an SD of 18fps for the factory barrel using factory Prime. (18fps is pretty common, I generally experience 12fps to 18fps with the 6.5 stuff)

I switched to the Bartlien Gain Twist Barrel on my Tikka and the same ammo shot single digit SDs, dropped it to 7-8fps. I not only gained a few fps going with a Gain Twist Bartlien the replacement barrel was 2" shorter, the factory Tikka was a 24" the replacement a 22".
 
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#7
The thing is I can take one of my 260 loads and shoot it in 4 different 260 barrels I have and go from single digit sd's to upper 20's. It sucks that it doesn't work in your gun but doesn't mean the ammo is crap.
 
#8
The SD’s of 25 and 27 were shot through a Savage factory barrel, the 10 rounds that I shot today that had an SD of 22 were through a Shilen Select match barrel. Different but still not what I would call acceptable. If I had a Bartlein available I would happily chrono 10 rounds to see what kind of results it shows, this is about the data and not my opinion.
 
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#11
Lowlight said:
It's barrel related,

I had the Tikka with an SD of 18fps for the factory barrel using factory Prime. (18fps is pretty common, I generally experience 12fps to 18fps with the 6.5 stuff)

I switched to the Bartlien Gain Twist Barrel on my Tikka and the same ammo shot single digit SDs, dropped it to 7-8fps. I not only gained a few fps going with a Gain Twist Bartlien the replacement barrel was 2" shorter, the factory Tikka was a 24" the replacement a 22".
Click to expand...
Do you think chambering has much to do with it?
 
#12
I got some high SDs in an old barrel but I'm getting around 10-13fps SDs in my current barrel that has the prime cut chamber from PVA. honestly, it shoots every thing well.
 
#18
I shot Prime in my factory Tikka CTR, and it was fantastic. Low SDs, and tight groups.

I rebarreled the Tikka with a Criterion prefit, and I get 1.25moa groups at 100. I chrony'd 34 rounds, with an SD of 25.2, but they were the first 34 rounds through the barrel.
 
#19
You're not alone. I've tried several lots in 4 different 6.5 rifles/barrels (Bartleins, JPEnt and the Fix (Tooley/Bartlein) and I’ve never gotten good SD and ES with Prime. Several friends have had the same experience, except one who has a PVA barrel w/ their Prime specific chamber.
 
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#20
Lowlight, I too would like to know if your comments about performance gains are limited to bore consistency and gain twist rifling independent of chamber, or if certain chamber dimensions will augment a barrel’s ability to shoot box ammo with more consistency.
 
#21
I loaded 9 of the pulled cases to 42.5gr to the individual kernels of powder and re seated the bullets to the same length and shot them today from the same bench in the exact same seated position with the same rear bag making every effort to duplicate the recoil management of the chrono results above. I even fired 5 rounds before I chronoed because the first group was from the middle of my original shooting string. The results are better but I’m still not satisfied.
 

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#22
And to reiterate what @Lowlight has told us repeatedly, shooting a 100 yard group doesn’t tell you much at all about what your rounds are doing past 1k. This group is from the same lot that was giving me an SD of 22 and change from the same barrel, looks great at 100 but still lands 8-10’ short or long at 1073.
 

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#23
My chambers are not cut for Prime Ammo,

I can alternate between Prime and my McCourt Handloads and they shoot equally well. As I have mentioned, both the 130gr and 136gr load zero in the exact same location. I can mix 10 rounds, 5 of each and alternate the shots at 100 yards and you would not know the difference as which round is which round.

The barrel is what matters, as well the chamber cut will too as evidence of the results PVA gets using a Prime Reamer. My LRI 6.5CM barrel was originally cut for Hornady AMAX bullets, it shows a difference in results vs other rounds. So yes Chamber Cut does have an impact.

I just use the normal SAAMI Match spec for the caliber, off the shelf from MHSA who has done my last several barrels. The main difference is Bartlien, Gain Twist...
 
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#24
Lowlight said:
...The main difference is Bartlien, Gain Twist...
Click to expand...
I wasn't really leaning that way but the data is what the data is and after reloading the rounds at a consistent charge weight and seating depth and getting an SD of 20.9 which is a change of less than 2 from the original results the barrel is the only remaining variable. I'm generally a cheap bastard by necessity but I think that I will blow the budget out on my next barrel to see if I can duplicate your results.
 
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#27
Lowlight said:
My chambers are not cut for Prime Ammo,

I can alternate between Prime and my McCourt Handloads and they shoot equally well. As I have mentioned, both the 130gr and 136gr load zero in the exact same location. I can mix 10 rounds, 5 of each and alternate the shots at 100 yards and you would not know the difference as which round is which round.

The barrel is what matters, as well the chamber cut will too as evidence of the results PVA gets using a Prime Reamer. My LRI 6.5CM barrel was originally cut for Hornady AMAX bullets, it shows a difference in results vs other rounds. So yes Chamber Cut does have an impact.

I just use the normal SAAMI Match spec for the caliber, off the shelf from MHSA who has done my last several barrels. The main difference is Bartlien, Gain Twist...
Click to expand...

That's the info I was looking for, thanks! I'm not sure if a Bartlein gain twist blank can be scooped up off the shelf anywhere, but when I get a new barrel I may just have to go the extra mile to get one.
 
#30
That looks nice. We have to tune our loads to different barrels pretty often. Usually we adjust powder charge then OAL. Sometimes we have to go find another bullet, do some voodoo, slaughter a chicken and go back to the range with a bone through our nose.
 
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#33
@Lowlight i have one more theory to test. I noticed that the case I got was shipped out of Tempe AZ in the middle of the summer, depending on where/how the ammo was stored in Tempe some places like a conex can get over 170 degrees in the middle of the day. I’ll order another box in January or February when I’m hoping that any stock that was stored over the summer is gone and what I get hasn’t had the powder cooked in a conex or back of a semi, I’m really hoping to get better results.
 
#35
Dirty D said:
@Lowlight any word on Primes issue with RUAG/Norma getting resolved any time soon? I would like to give Prime another shot (see what I did there) but their website still shows everything out of stock.
Click to expand...

I second this question...down to my last few cases of 6.5 Creedmoor...don't plan on shooting any of it until the drought ends
 
#37
I had a Tikka that shot the 130gr 6.5CM lights out. Single digit SD's and ES's in the mid to high 20's.

My factory AIAT hasn't faired so well, results below. My PVA TL3 barrel was somewhere in between them 2 extremes

Prime 130gr
Max 2858
Min 2814
Avg 2840
SD 15.9
ES 44
 
#39
I used to shoot PRIME ammo at large PRS style matches and finished pretty good with SD's much higher than that. I don't worry about it that much. If you run the average it you should be good for most any target shooting outside highly competitive BR/F-Class.

I just changed my MV 30 fps and at 1K yds it was .2 different. So being in the middle should only be .1 up or down and most of us can't hold that. I take that as good for factory ammo. If I expect better then I expect to handload. I mostly shoot Hornady it shoots great as well.
 
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#40
Like Frank said, its up to your barrel. Chamber, harmonics, etc...

Load 1 wont shoot the same in every barrel. It may have a SD of 10 in one barrel, and SD of 30 in another.
This is why for factory ammo finding a load (handloading and factory) that your barrel likes is important.

Like 308, you can pretty much bet that 175smk and 44gr Varget will be a decent load, but fine tuning the charge weight will bring your SDs up or down. Prime 130 is just "out of the node" for that barrel.
 
#41
I had the opposite experience in a RPR. SD was great but it wouldn’t group. Don’t think it was the ammos fault though. It never shot well with anything but 140gr+ bullets.
 
#42
gconnoyer said:
Like Frank said, its up to your barrel. Chamber, harmonics, etc...

Load 1 wont shoot the same in every barrel. It may have a SD of 10 in one barrel, and SD of 30 in another.
This is why for factory ammo finding a load (handloading and factory) that your barrel likes is important.

Like 308, you can pretty much bet that 175smk and 44gr Varget will be a decent load, but fine tuning the charge weight will bring your SDs up or down. Prime 130 is just "out of the node" for that barrel.
Click to expand...

It's been "out of the node" for 3 barrels thus far. I really miss having PRIME available
 
#43
My brother went shooting with me the other day and he had opened a new case of prime 260 ammo. I know stuff changes lot to lot but I have to say that I wasn't impressed with the results. The velocity jumped quite a bit compared to the last case he had but the extreme spread for 5 shots was over 80 fps. I had him shoot a few more just to double check and they were all over the place as well. I'm going to see if they will shoot any better in one of my rifles and if they don't, I will pull them down and work up a load with h4350.
 
#45
Resurrecting an old topic, todays results were from a box of Hornady 140gr ELD-M, I’ll get my booger hooks on a box of Prime this fall and see what results I get now that they aren’t using Norma as their manufacturer.

1692228162305.jpeg
 
#50
I never had good SD results from Prime ammo through any of my custom barrels. Shot okay, not amazing. Hornady was better for my barrels for precision, but SD still high, and some lots could be off the planet with their SD's.

The best SD I get from factory ammo is FGMM through my TacOps. About 6-7 SD. I can't recall ever achieving that kind of SD from factory 6.5 Creedmoor through any of my barrels. Reloading is your friend if you want small SD's.
 
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