Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Is ther a node here?

Today I fired my son-in-law's 6.5RUMLN. It is built on a Savage with the original "tupperware" stock and a Lilja 28" 9 twist barrel. Fifteen of sixteen loaded rounds were fired at the 409 yard target. This is across a canyon with a breeze blowing. The first eight shots were all over the target. To me this is very impressive shooting considering they all did what I call a hang-fire. There was a delay of about 1/3 to 1/2 second between the firing pin strike on the CCI250 Magnum primers and the powder igniting!

I used to say it holds 109 grains of water to the top of the neck. I change the method. It holds 101 grains of water under a seated Nosler 140 AB. The bottom of the bullet is even with the shoulder body junction. I started one grain above the .26 Nosler starting load for this bullet and to 92.5 by .5 grain increments to make sure I got to its pressure point. The 140 AB's were loaded .020" into the lands; according to the suggestion of one of our .com friends. Shot #15 gave the slightest bolt lift resistance so I didn't fire #16. I backed off one grain and chose #13 with its 91.0 grains to check for velocity and accuracy tomorrow at the range. They will be loaded to touch the lands. By the way I will use Federal 215 Magnum primers. I tried some a while ago and everyone fired correctly.

I wish the picture showed the entire ladder, but at 400 yards, #11 through 14 is a node For sure!

Which powder?

Shoot groups at 400 with every load in the node #11-14

Pick the best

Shoot that one at 100 for group.

Adjust seating depth away from the lands if necessary in .010" increments till you find accuracy you can live with.

My hunch is that one of the loads at the test depth will shoot great. You'll have to decide if you can live with .020" jam for hunting...

rcamuglia,



It's all over the place, but okay. Check out #15 down by #2 and #8 up at the top.



You suggested I use UA869 and that I start low, so I did. I think you suggested I check water capacity with a seated bullet. I did that, too.

What do you think of the follow through with every shot being a hang-fire?

Beats me.

Shoot all the loads in the node at each range and report back with pics, por favor...

Correct me if I am wrong, but if changing components ie primer, you may need to work the ladder again?

Yes.

I being experimenting with Quickload, Chris long's Optimum Barrel Timing and chronograph to find a node. Adjust powder burn rate to coincide with actual velocity vs calculated, then start plugging in powder charges to the 100ths of a grain to find a node. Seems to work well so far.

Axtell,

Awhile back I tried to get Quickload, but discovered my strong suite in life, ignorance, didn't allow me to figure it out.

That "hangfire" issue is baffling.

No way can you get good groups like that, IMO.

I'd definitely change primers and do it all over.

WLRM primers are reportedly pretty hot. Try them or CCI magnums.

You getting good firing pin indention with the 215's, they not seated too deep, etc.?

DF

I used CCI250s for the ladder. Of the ten Fed215s not one hang fire. I got a group of 1/2" at 100 and a 3" at 300 with the 215s. In a moment I will put a couple more down range.

Maybe you need to go back with 215's.

Whatever makes it go bang when you pull the trigger and without hangfires would be the way to go...

DF

Too bad, the software is complicated but the interface is not too bad once you play around with it.
Once you get all the weights,measures and volumes inputed then you have to adjust the burn rate in some cases. That is easy enough as you adjust burn rate from theoretical velocity that the program gives to what you actually get from your chronograph. Once you got that you adjust velocity (with powder charge) to get on a node, Chris Long has a chart of Optimal Barrel Times to get on a node.
No playing with primers , various cases, seating depths ( I default to 0.015" off the lands) and generally you get a very good load within safe operating pressures.

100th of a grain?

Sounds obsessive compulsive to me.

Not really, I use a jewelers scale that defines to 0.02 grains, knowing that a grain of powder (stick powder 4350, 4831 4895 etc) is approximately 0.02 grains I dump a charge into the pan from the powder measure if its under I trickle in, if over 'say' 0.06grs then I subtract 3 kernels from the pan when charging the case. Accuracy is ~ 0.00 to +0.02grs using this method.
I just carry over the techniques from long range work to hunting rounds. For offhand plinking the powder measure alone works well enough.

So, you can see a difference in loads that vary by 1/100th of a grain?

Measuring to the 1/100 of a grain is completely unnecessary and a waste of time.

The Beauty of the Audette is that the node is usually 1 to 1 1/2 grains spread. All of the loads in the node go to a common POI. Many just pick the charge weight in the middle of the node and go with it no matter what. In fact, the entire reason Creighton Audette came up with the method was so he didn't have to weigh his charges to the N'th degree of accuracy once he found the node. He wanted to simply throw them from his measure from what I've read...

Dang rc, this was just getting good.

There's the infamous "Mall Ninja" thread. It was looking like this could become the infamous "Reloading Ninja" thread.