Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ramshot powders and magnum primers

I've been using a good bit of Ramshot powders lately, for one, they're available and two, they have good recommendations from MD.

I've found good velocity, but not always the best accuracy. I've heard to try magnum primers to see if it makes a difference. Do I need to reduce the charge when using mag primers vs. standards? I mostly use CCI 200s.

Thanks in advance!

From my experience with Ramshot powders, push them hard. Groups seem to tighten as you reach max charges. To me they burn cleaner when pushed.

DF

GunLoony88,

Magnum primers often do result in better accuracy with Ramshot rifle powders, as they do often do with all ball powders. But as DF points out, Ramshot powders also usually shoot more accurately when loaded to maximum or near it.

I've heard from a bunch of people who tried a starting load with some Ramshot powder and were disappointed in how dirty the powder burned, and accuracy. But all powders are designed to burn most consistently at certain pressure levels, and with the Ramshot rifle powders that's 60,000 psi or even more.

I agree with the two above as my experience with Ramshot powders has been similar. Accuracy and cleaner burning the harder you push them, which also goes along with the Barnes bullets I typically shoot. The harder you push the bullet the better the accuracy, so the above combinations work very well for my purposes.

I don't use magnum primers in my 243 using 46.8 gr of Hunter and I'm getting 3415 fps with the 80 gr TTSX. I've been using the CCI 200 primers with this load. In my other loads, I do use Fed215 primers.

Good luck!

Not so available in my area unfortunately.

I have been trying ramshot TAC in my 223 regular and AI and while 100 yard accuracy has been great with several bullets I have been getting really high extreme spreads, 90 to 100 fps. I switch back to benchmark or 335 and the ES settles back down to 15 to 25 fps. I have been using cci 450s for primers.

Any idea what is causing the high ES with TAC?

How much TAC are you using?

John

In the 223 AI
27.0 grains behind a 62 grain barnes ttsx. ES of 89 but good accuracy

26.5 grains of TAC behind a 65 SGK. Again excellent accuracy but an ES of 111.

In the 223 normal
24.5 TAC with 70 grain berger VLD

25.7 TAC with 55 NBT

Both shot well but had higher than normal ES. I don't recall the exact numbers now and I'm having trouble finding my chrono tape on those loads.

Thanks for the input

Try crimping. (grin)

Consistant neck tension would be my focus.

And I do love RS TAC and Xterminator.

You might try a little more powder. There's some wiggle room in .223 pressures, and Ramshot rifle powders do tend to perform best at practical max pressures.

25 grs. of TAC and the 70 gr. VLD have shot great in all my rigs..8

thanks for the info guys.
I started below my listed charges and hit good accuracy and stopped. I will creep up a bit more and see what happens.

Rancho,

Have you put these 70 VLDs into any critters? If so how did they perform? I have thought about using them for predators or maybe even deer but I haven't had a chance to try them on anything yet

Work great on coyotes..

Try Burns, he might have thrown them into some larger critters. They shoot ridiculously good out of my AR, and I'm hoping to use them on some WT does this year.

Thanks for the info everyone, I'll try pushing them a little. I shot a few loads in a 7mm-08 this weekend:

150gr TTSX 49.0gr of Hunter for 2691fps out of a 24" barrel.

150gr TTSX 46.0gr of Big Game for 2773fps out of the same barrel.

Used Remington cases that were already primed w/ Rem primers.

Both shot pretty good, but good old IMR4895 (40.0gr @ 2631fps) with the same bullet (and primer) did better.

I didn't fool with seating depths yet (which may work with the TTSX), but that's on my list for the second round.

Were they magnum Remington primers?

My go-to load with the 7-08 is 47.5 gr Big Game with a Winchester LRM primer and 140 gr Accubond. 2850 ft/sec MV. I've killed two mature bucks, a bull elk, and an antelope with this load.



P

That.

I always drop back a couple grains & work back up when sitting around max like I do w/ RS stuff.

MD - no, these were Remington factory primed, so I'm assuming they were standard primers. I've seen much in the same with my usual CCI standard primers too.

I would suggest using magnum primers in the Big Game loads the second time around.

After reading this, I may have to circle back to Big Game in the 7-08 with 120s. Haven't tried magnum primers yet, slow on the uptake.