Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles The quality of Reloading Guides

I am tired of pet cartridges getting better ink than they deserve. A case in point is the .308 Winchester in both the Nosler and Speer manuals. 150 grain bullets in excess of 3000 fps when a .270 win and a 30:06 cannot come close. Even the .270 WSM cannot exceed this cartridge it seems. Speer even has a 7:08 beating a .280 Rem and a .284 Win. The 7:08 Rem is a superb cartridge but Horsefeathers!

I've handloaded for a long time and I find the data from the Speer and Nosler manuals to get worse with each edition. Nosler getting 2780 fps with a 250 Partition out of a .338 Winchester with 71.5 grains of H-4831 is nonsense. Getting 3002 fps out of a 30:06 with 165 grain pills and 63 grains of Reloder 22 is equally incredible. The sub-7mm caliber data shrinks with each edition. It's a wonder that any of us are still alive. I could go on.
I no longer trust either of these two manuals. I like their products for the most part. Their manuals are a waste of money.

I think it is remarkable how the published loads always are faster, meaner and tougher than mine with the same ingredients. I guess my chrono is slower, my barrels shorter, and my propencity to lie does not equal the editors of the manuals. I generally load for accuracy with a premium bullet and just ignore the FPS part of the bullet makers books.

I always look and see what barrels they are using, seems like nosler always use custom barrels with tight chambers. DK

Several points:

1. For liability reasons, the manuals have to go by SAMI specs. The pressure the 30/06 was originally designed for is lower than that of the 308 Win.; hence the apparently better velocities obtainable with the 308 than with the 30/06.

2. My favorite manual is the Hornady manual. I've found very good correlation between its published loads and what my chronograph sees. I've perused the Nosler manual and never thought it was worth the money. I've found the Speer manual very useful on a number of occasions when I wanted to try a different powder. Also, for some cartridges, Speer loads are hotter than those listed in other manuals which gives me a better idea of how much I can push a cartridge.

I agree with all of the before mentioned reasons for the watered down current loading manuals. Some older cartridges were loaded to lower pressures, the 30-06 is 100 years old, the .280 Remington came out in pump and semi-auto rifles which lack the primary extraction found in most bolt action rifles, hence lower pressure for easy extraction. If you can get one of the older manuals and don't mind using some of the older powders, load away. Most all of my older loads exceed the current crop of loading manuals. If all you had to use as loading data for the Weatherby cartridges is the current crop of data, you might ask, "What was all the hoopla about Weatherbys in the beginning?" Free boring, 26 inch barrels, cartridges loaded to 71,000 psi, translates into higher velocity, pretty simple!

I load all of the Ultras and a couple of the Ultra wildcats and they are only loaded up to 65,000 psi. The Weatherby loads of 1970 exceed most of the newer crop of wonder mangums. I chronograph all of my accuracy/hunting loads with my Oehler 35P. It is obvious that the lawyers have won with the SAMI specs. I remember when the .350 Remington Magnum came out. The loads that my Father and his dad worked up were far more than the factory loads. I wished I had his notes on that load, I remember he said it developed about 4600 ft lbs in a six and a half pound rifle, what a kick!. The factory ballistics were no where near what he had worked up, but he never would share that data with me.

In much more recent times when I got my first .338 RUM there was no loaded ammo or brass to be had. I resorted to fired brass from Remington's test range in Arkansas. After I cleaned, sized, and polished it I called all of my loading buddies at the bullet companies and worked up some loads. These were cold loads with no test data, just the computers from bullet and powder manufactures, and my pressure calculator - a slide rule. My loads were very accurate, but exceeded the factory ballistics by about 200 fps. By the time their specs were set in stone I was a little disappointed. Another case in point, the new .325 WSM (8mm WSM)I have seen data which exceeds the 8mm Remington Magnum (one of my favorites), what a joke! The truth is the top pressure for the .325 is 65,000 psi, as I recall from about 30 years ago the 8 mag is 62 or 63,000 psi. I think I got my seed data for the 8 mag from a guy at "Gun World" in August or September of 1977. Needless to say all that data exceeded all of the factory specs, even of 1977.

To avoid a flame war on this subject I do not recommend exceeding recent published reloading data, but I am not sold on the SAMI specs, they are just a safety guideline. If you want to load, you have to make your own decisions!
Good shooting,
Marcus.

There are many reasons for the variations in loading data from manual to manual, not just today but from earlier manuals.

The Speer data is worked up in a pressure barrel, then fired for VELOCITY in a sporting rifle. This the velocity that gets into the manual. It may be shot in a rifle with a tight bore and chamber, or a loose bore and chamber. Who knows? But that is the big reason the Speer .308 data is faster than their .30-06 data. The .308 they shot it in probably has a tighter chamber and/or bore than their .30-06 sporter. The Hornady manual data is tested in the same way.

If the manual lists velocity data from the actual pressure barrel (as is done in Nosler and Sierra manuals, and some others) muzzle velocities are likely to be realistic, but powder charges might be a little light for obtaining the same speed in a "looser" sporter barrel.

Powder varies considerably from lot to lot as well--which is probably the reason the Nosler manual lists the high speeds with 165's and Reloder 22 in the .30-06, and 250's and H4831 in the .338 Winchester Magnum. There is no doubt they got those results, but that doesn't mean our lot of powder will produce the same results. This is true of every manual ever published.

Until maybe 20 years ago, the publishers of loading manuals worked up loading data the same way many handloaders work up loads: They kept adding powder until the encountered signs of high pressure, then backed off "a little." This is the reason you can find 7x57 loads that produce 2900 fps with the 154-grain Hornady bullet in older Hornady manuals, but not anymore.

At HANDLOADER magazine, the office gets many letters from handloaders who bitch about how the newest loading manuals are too wimpy--and letters that bitch about the new manuals listing velocities that can't be reached.

All any loading manual consists of is a list of what happened with those loads in that rifle on that day. It is almost a total accident if the same thing happens in your rifle, especially with a different lot of powder and a different bullet.

I use the Nosler manual for both my 338WM & 30-06� I have found it to be very close to my Crono Results.
That said I have not spent much time looking at the 308 win.

Mule Deer--I have personally found your loading data very helpful when you list maximum expected velocities for a specific cartridge/bullet weight/powder type (such as the sidebar on the 7x57 a couple months ago in the Wolfe magazines).

Then it does not matter who got what on which day, so long as I know what can be expected and I can load toward that expectation.

The only rifle I have that matches the data in a reloading guide is my Win M70 in .243. The same rifle is listed in Hornady's Fifth Edition as giving 2900fps with 41grs of H4350 and 45grs of IMR7828. I get those same results with CCI200 primers from my rifle and they are quite accurate. The only issues I have with regards to reloading manuals is some of the charge weights they list. In my 375 H&H I can get 78grs of IMR4350 under the 300gr RN bullet, but only 73grs under the 300gr BTSP. One is max and the other is the starting charge weight, and both are at a full case. I filled a fired case with IMR4064 and got 69.7grs under the BTSP which is over the max so I know that since that bullet takes up more space than any other I use, I wont run out of case capacity with that powder.

Your want to see a manual that has backed way off over the years take a look at the new Lyman 48th Edition. It isn't worth the money don't bother.

You have to look at the details, and understand that some producers of data are loading to lower pressures than others. Nosler loads right up to SAAMI, while most of the data you'll see from Hodgdon is VERY conservative.

If you talk to many seasoned loaders on this sight, you'll find that 3000fps or near it is possible with 150s in the .270, .280, and 30-06. One poster here is running 3200 in his 30-06.

If you just look at numbers on a page, and arbitrarily decide what you'll accept and what you'll debunk, then you're just failing to understand the details of reloading.

Data varies for too many reasons to list here. I personally have seen "twin rifles" ,rifles of the same make and model and same chambering, with consecutive serial numbers, vary as much as 150fps shooting the exact same load.

The producers of this data use much more sophisticated equipment than you have available to you and run many more bullets down the bore and burn much more powder. I'd think twice about dismissing any data out of hand just because YOU say it can't be so.

Muledeer,
Good response! Happy Easter!
Take care!
Good shooting,
Marcus.

if I had read MD's first, I wouldn't have posted...perfect response.

Thanks for weighing in. Most of my favorite hunting rifles are custom barreled sporters. My .338 Winchester's chamber is so tight that I had to machine 12 thou off a shell holder so I could resize the brass to fit my chamber. My data and Nosler's do not agree. The first custom barrel I played with in .338 did not either.

My own .270 WSM shoots factory ammo at the listed velocities. The data from the Speer and Nosler manuals(which have it neck and neck with a .308 Win)shoot a LITTLE slower than their data would suggest.

Kind regards

Well some of the older data is very hot. For example I have loaded for the 350 Rem Mag for 15 years and the 4600 ft-pounds reported above is likely an indication of some combination of the following:

a) 100,000PSI
b) a 45" barrel
c) a broken chronograph
d) ingestion of loco weed
e) a misremembrance

3600 ft-pounds on the other hand might be possible with very high pressure and/or a long action and barrel.

Many of the older manual loads and past and present home developed loads are riding the pressure curve IMO.

I use a micrometer and a chronograph and still rely on the somewhat discredited base expansion method along with speed. If my velocities are getting too good to be true I back off and if expansion gets up there I back off. I use a variety of reloading sources and am very leery going up to or over the upper loads even if velocity and expansion are ok but I will carefully move up if everything is ok.

I never try to wring the last foot/second out of the round and if I want more speed I get a bigger case or a longer barrel and don't expect to much. The Barsness 1-4 rule does seem pretty close to what you can expect and so if my 358 Norma has 20% more case capacity than my 35 Whelan I expect 5% more velocity. At 2600ft/sec this means 130 ft/sec.

SO....If it is safe to hit 2600 with a hot loaded Whelan with 250 grain bullets I should get 2730 with the Norma. This is about where I am with both cartridges. Some of the older data has the 358 Norma getting close to 3000 ft/sec. The pressure must be very high! It looks 20% bigger than the Whelan and so people expect more from it but it just won't do it safely. In older days folks really leaned into the safety curve and I am glad that a newer generation of manuals and reloaders have throttled down a bit.

Interestingly a longer barrel is maybe the easiest way to get more speed and the same 35 Whelan with a 4"-5" longer barrel can match the 358 Norma with much less kick and more efficiency. My Lightweight Norma with 21" of unported barrel is in a very similar ballistic company with a man with a Whelan and a 26" tube. I am eating 30% more kick to cary a rifle that's a bit shorter. As I get older I wonder if that's a good trade off?

I use all manuals as a reference only.. I look at the powder charges they use, not the velocities that they get..

I think some of the older manauals were more realistic in their velocities and powder charges jiving...

I still work up in my own rifles and record my own results...
at times my loads exceed factory manuals and other times fall way short...

That is why I purchased a choronograph and use it often..
Then I know what velocity MY rifle is actually doing...

Folks should use reference manuals as a guide for powder capacity, not velocity.... besides none of that is cast in stone away...

ya wanna know what velocity your rifle is getting??? spend $89.00 and get yourself a low cost, Shooting Chrony...I've had mine 8 to 9 years now..cheap investment in the long run...

I understand the reasoning behind the manuals staying below industry spec pressures for a given chambering, but sometimes you can use common sense and very safely reach above the manuals listed maximums,..... especially when loading for an old chambering that's being used in a modern rifle.

The 7.5X55 Swiss is a good example. The case capacity of the 7.5X55 is much larger than a .308 and will produce higher velocities at the same pressure as the .308 as a result. But most load data has velocities significantly lower than the .308 even though many K31's were chambered in .308.

The manuals have to keep their load date a bit on the calm side in deference to the people who will be shooting the old, weaker 1889 Schmidts.

Essentially, it boils down to how much pressure an action will safely handle,... and an action which will safely handle 52,000 CUP from a .308 will safely handle 52,000 CUP from the 7.5X55,... and generate higher velocities in the process.

Still,... I don't hotrod my loads very often. My idea of a fun afternoon is sitting at a benchrest out at the club,... and that isn't enjoyable for very long if you're shooting slammers out of every rifle you brought with you,... but it's interesting to tweak a rifles capabilities every now and then,... provided one has a good understanding of the principals involved.

I think I've developed that over the past 25 years.

I don't think it's any sort of bias really, just a case of too many variables in play.

Usually I find the reloading manual speeds to be a little high, especially Nosler's. Recently I was able to match Nosler's speeds at the same powder charges in my 270 WSM with AA3100 and a 130 gr bullet, but that was the first time ever for me to do so. Matching Nosler felt weird and I really examined those cases for signs ...

The best reloading accessory I have ever bought is a Chronograph.

Shortly after the chrono purchace our own Rick Bin put it as best I've heard.

With bullet/powder/primer/barrel length the same;

"I stop at near published velocities or max. powder charge whichever comes first."

I've done the same for the last several years. Good advise.

GB

Somewhat different approach on my part. If it says a certain powder brand will give X velocity in a particular legnth bbl, I work to near that, but not over, regardless of powder charge. In most I load for I'm within 2-3 grains of book max powder charge to get said velocity...with some I'm right on or a little less than book max. When I reach that velocity, I'm done "max load" or not.