Kid,
Sounds like an awesome set up and well suited for it's intended purpose.
I made it to the range yesterday for some load testing. I anticipated moderate velocity from this little rifle but I was surprised that velocities were dramatically lower than either the Hodgdon manual or Quick Loads estimated. Most loads were running nearly 300 fps slower than expected and in one case a full 500 fps slower. I ran some know loads from another rifle over the chronograph to check it and they ran just what I expected. And my powder scale is accurate, I checked it before loading these just like I do before I load any test loads.
Most of the loads I tested were with Speer's 80 grain spitzer and various powders. Here's a few examples all with the Speer 80 grain;
21.5 gr. H4895 2374 actual, QL estimated 2722, Hodgdon puts a 75 grain at 2660 with 22 grains.
20 grains of H322 2371 actual, QL 2689
23 grains BL-C2 2352 actual, QL 2728, Hodgdon puts a 75 grain at 2915 with 24 grains.
21 gr. 3031 2463 actual, QL 2758.
I tried a few other bullets with AA 2495 since I have a lot of it.
22 gr. 2495/Hndy 80 FMJ 2358 actual, QL 2800
21 gr./Sierra 85 GKHP 2215 actual, QL 2735
21 gr./Hndy 87 SP 2213 actual, QL 2673
21 gr./Nosler 85 PT 2234 actual, QL 2700
23 gr./Sierra 70 MKHP 2456 actual, QL 2988
22 gr./Speer 80 SP 2442 actual, QL 2817
These were all loads that Quick Loads indicated were near max loads and they turned out velocities that I expected from starting loads. The starting loads I tested were correspondingly low in their velocities.
I'm thinking I may have to switch to some of the faster powders as most of these are acting like they are on the slow end for this cartridge. None of these loads indicated any difficulty on extraction and no shiny spots on the bases and the primers are all still tight.
I am not looking for every fps I can squeeze out of this round but did expect a bit more out of it. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
