Reloading 6br

[Drewdemon]

I’m loadin 6BR w/varget with 31.6g (2,890fps)but hear a slight crunching noise when I seat the bullet. There must be no space in the cartridge and the bullet is pressing down on the powder. I haven’t run into this before. I plan on reducing the load but will the ones I seated already damage anything?

Thanks

 

[KnowNothing256]

Depends on many things, but you can start reading up:

6mm BR

Running 26” Stuteville 1-7.5 twist barrel. Planning on Varget with CCI 450s. Looking for some starting loads for 107 SMKs and 105 Nosler RDFs. Any helps appreciated. I’ve tried searching but not seeing a lot on 6br loads so I figured I start a thread. Thanks for any help.

www.snipershide.com

 

[Heffo]

31.6gr Varget is high for BR did you work up to that? My go to is 29.6 @ 2810fps. 30gr is usually a safe bet!

 

[spife7980]

That’s more varget than I put in my dasher and faster…

Crunching by itself doesn’t hurt but that much powder in that case might.

 

[M4orturnate]

What bullet are you using? My load is 29.7 with a 110 atip a d 29.6 with a 108. You seem quite high

 

[DownhillFromHere]

OP, what bullet and brass are you using? Your rifle must have a really long throat, or be shooting a really light bullet, or both, to even fit 31.6 Varget without having to figuratively pound it into the case enough to seat a bullet.

I'm doing brass & barrel breakin with Alpha brass 108 ELDMs seated .050" off the lands. The base of the bullet bearing surface is at the neck-shoulder junction, and the boattail is into the powder at 30.1 grains.

At 30.4 grains of Varget, the load is mildly compressed and I'm getting seriously hard bolt lift, although the primers (CCI-450) look fine. At 30.2, there is an occasional hard left. Barrel is steadying down a bit with 200 rounds through it, and I'm seeing 2810fps with 30.2 Varget (15-20fps slower with virgin brass). I'm going to run one more test to see if I want to back off a tenth to eliminate hard bolt lift completely.

I'm really curious about what bullet is being used here, and COAL.

 

[Drewdemon]

So here’s what happened. I was replacing a burned-out barrel (Brux). Breakin process; ran 200 rounds through it, cleaned it at the range, ran 20 more rounds through it, then did my load devolvement (Figure 1). The results were much slower than the previous two brux barrels. So, I did another load development test (Figure 2). This was better (SD/Spread), but the MV speeds were higher than normal or what I was expecting. Later that day, I ran more rounds past my lab radar, and it was different again (figure 3). Finally, the next day at 300+ rounds I clocked ten more rounds and it seemed to normalize for a BR/Brux (figure 4). The SD/EX Spd at 31.6 (fig 2) is really good but I heard that crunch noise and that concerned me a lot, so I backed down to 31g. Im guessing it took more than 200 rounds to break in the barrel. My last Brux was 30g varget at 2,830. At this point, I'm not doing another load dev, I'm going to stick with 31g @2,870 as long as another labradar shows consistent results.

Thoughts?

 

[Drewdemon]

That’s more varget than I put in my dasher and faster…

Crunching by itself doesn’t hurt but that much powder in that case might.

I did load about 10-15rounds at 31.6. I just want to fire them off w/out doing any damage to the rifle (or me), so I can reload them next time around with 31g. Sounds like that is okay at this point.

 

[spife7980]

I did load about 10-15rounds at 31.6. I just want to fire them off w/out doing any damage to the rifle (or me), so I can reload them next time around with 31g. Sounds like that is okay at this point.

Dont quote me when you say it sounds okay. Thats certainly not what Im saying but you do you.

 

[TylerN]

31.6 is of varget is close to my Dasher load (31.8.) I'd probably pull the bullets and work up a BR load closer to 30gr and 2750-2800fps myself. Better to be safe and not trash your brass.

 

[M4orturnate]

I concur with tyler. I know probably 30 or more people that shoot br and none of them are over 30.5g. Its your rifle but youre probably pushing your luck