Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Fav 26 Nosler load

I have a 700 with Shilen 26 Nos barrel. My current fav load is the 156 Berger EOL over 74 gr Vv 570 and Fed 215's. That combo shoots consistent sub MOA and without pressure signs.

Vv 570 is a real coarse stick powder, stacks up in my Uniflow measure, so I remove the drop tube, dump a load in a scale pan and tweak the load on the scale. It goes fast as I only need a very few particles to balance it out.

This is the only powder that I can't use directly thru the Uniflow. But, that's OK. I don't shoot that many rounds. 400 rounds down the spout has left it's toll as seen thru the Hawkeye borescope, some blackness ahead of the chamber. But, it still shoots MOA or better, so no problem. I shot it a bunch working up loads, Now that I have my current fav load, no need to burn the barrel.

I bought a used 700 7RM from gunsmith bud for $400. Gun had gone thru a fire, but the stock showed no fire damage, as you can see in the photo. I didn't do anything to it other than change out the pad. The bore was toast from the water. I took this action, got a Shilen 26" tube fitted, added a Timney as the OEM trigger was rusted and not useable. If the stock's not charred, the steel hasn't lost its temper, at least that's what I was told.

Gun has a Z5 3.5-18x44 with elevation turret. I mark the elevations with a Sharpie, can erase with acetone and do it again for different loads. The bolt handle knurled knob bumped my trigger finger on the bench, so I cut the bottom half off, polished it smooth, cold blued it. My trigger finger likes it way better.

It's killed deer and hogs with other loads, have not killed anything with the 156 EOL.

DF

I've been loading the Nosler 140 Accubonds ahead of 87 grains of WC 852 pull down powder- only suitable powder I could find at the time I had it built a couple years ago and it was cheap. Shoots just a hair over 1/2" groups and no pressure signs so far. They are pushing around 3430 fps according to the book and my chrono before the muzzle blast knocked it on the ground -again. Killed one elk year before last with it- high shoulder shot and dropped it in its tracks. For a heavy load on a Remington 700 the recoil is very tolerable with my custom stock. Experimenting with scopes at the moment but the Arken 6-24 I have on it now is a bit too much and I may change scopes right after elk hunting next week. Love the Arken reticles, but the scope is heavy and has a slightly smaller eye box than I'm used to.

26 Nosler

I seem to get into pressure signs, duplicating other’s pet loads with most popular powders including 869. My barrel may be a tad tight. Not sure.

I have big jugs of US 869 and WC 872, the latter I got from Jeff Bartlett. They have identical performance in my gun. The 872 is much cheaper.

Google Jeff (sounds like you already have). He sells surplus and military pull down powder. I’ve not tried 852.

To me, Vv 570 seems to show less pressure with performance loads The load I mentioned runs around 3K fps or a tad more. It’s faster burning than those two, but is high energy. Some claim those high energy powders burn hotter and are harder on barrels. I’m not shooting the 26 enough to make a difference.

DF

Mea culpa- it was WC872 I was using. Going by memory is an iffy thing these days for me... At the time I was looking for powder there was nothing to be had anywhere that was suited for this cartridge and someone gave me Jeff's info so I ordered some of the WC872. It has been fine for my uses, but like you, it isn't my everyday target rifle so once I settled on an accurate load I left it at that. I did try some Nosler factory loaded ammo I got from someone for basically the price of the brass and it shot like crap. Tried 140 AB, 142 ABLR, and some 129 and none of it shot worth a darn. Now I know why he sold the ammo....

I showed my loads just for my uses, but the book shows 86 grains as a max load. With large capacity magnums like this I like to sneak up on the loads until I show pressure signs and back off. I may be a tad over max on this one, but no real pressure signs are showing and accuracy settled in at this load in my rifle. Shaen built this one for me and I think the chamber is cut fairly tight, but not overly so. Everything chambers and extracts just fine...

869 and a 140 ballistic tip

That is a good combo, kills deer.

Next time you get ready to buy 869, call Jeff Bartlett and try a jug of 872. There may be some variation, lot to lot, but my 872 performs identical to 869 and when I bought it, $50 for a big jug. I'm sure it's more now and can't guarantee that it's gonna perform exactly the same as 869 like mine did.

DF