I load for several buddies. One of them is coming to the end of his FGMM pile. He asked if I could duplicate Hornady TAP with the 168 ELD.
A couple of years back I had loaded him a ladder with 168 ELDs and Varget. I figured I’m part way there already.
He’s always had good luck with Reloader 15. So, we ran another ladder with Re15 instead of Varget. The velocities were very similar. The results on paper could not have been more different. These were the impacts and speeds of each test at 300 yards.
Using 45.0 grains of Re15 exactly matches the velocity on the TAP ammo box. The factory load’s magic just couldn’t be recaptured.
I tried multiple lengths to try to tune that Re15 into something good, but it just cannot be done. At first, I worried that his barrel had gone south, but after testing FGMM, we knew that the barrel was fine.
I’ll load the next test rounds with Varget instead. Despite working great with other 168s, it’s not working in this specific rifle with this specific powder. That’s why we test.
A couple of years back I had loaded him a ladder with 168 ELDs and Varget. I figured I’m part way there already.
He’s always had good luck with Reloader 15. So, we ran another ladder with Re15 instead of Varget. The velocities were very similar. The results on paper could not have been more different. These were the impacts and speeds of each test at 300 yards.
Using 45.0 grains of Re15 exactly matches the velocity on the TAP ammo box. The factory load’s magic just couldn’t be recaptured.
I tried multiple lengths to try to tune that Re15 into something good, but it just cannot be done. At first, I worried that his barrel had gone south, but after testing FGMM, we knew that the barrel was fine.
I’ll load the next test rounds with Varget instead. Despite working great with other 168s, it’s not working in this specific rifle with this specific powder. That’s why we test.
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