Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Developing loads for .30-06 with Re-19 and 150s

I have now reloaded 25 rounds of ammo in these configurations:

10 rounds: 53.3 grs. Re-19, 150 Sierra MatchKing
5 rounds: 55.2 grs. Re-19, 150 SMK

10 rounds: 57.5 grs Re-19, 150 Nosler Partition

The SMK loads are for practice. Sierra claims 2600 fps with 53.3 grains and 2700 with 55.2. I want to develop a good deer/pig load with the Partition...Nosler's data seems more liberal than most with the powder amounts. This 57.5 is still a recommended starting load, they claim 2776 fps.

Going to the range this weekend, hopefully the first round will go boom and put a hole in the paper. Do people generally shoot different amounts of powder to "work up" in the same session? As in 57.5, 58, 58.5 etc? I want to get around 2900 with the NPT but no chrono yet. I do have a 24" barrel.

Yes. It's quite typical to shoot a progression of charges in one range session.

IMO you have loaded too many rounds at your starting levels. Perhaps a better plan would have been to stick with just one bullet for the first range trip. With that one bullet load three rounds at several charge levels, say in half grain or even one grain increments upwards from a start load you feel comfortable with.

My practice is ditto to what Mathman said. I choose one bullet, then work up the different charges for each. The only difference is I typically load for groups of 4 instead of 3 - just my way of doing things.

Another word of advice for what it's worth, don't be discouraged if things are not looking great at first. According to my notes, when I combined 150's and RL19 for my '06, I had to get up to max loads before I started showing good accuracy. Everything else was just ho hum.

+1 to the above. Most bullets will give the accuracy your looking for. Swapping powder has the biggest effect from what I've seen. My favorite .270 win gave me fits with the first two powders, H4831 & IMR 4350 both gave me 2" groups @ 100 yd. I moved to IMR 4064, less powder gave me about the same velocity and my bullet holes were touching almost every time.

+1 on mathman's comments.

I'll also add that I think that RL-15, Ramshot Big Game & IMR-4064 are all better powders in the 'o6 with 150's than RL-19........JMHO, YMMV.

MM

Thanks for the comments. I just loaded 3 rounds with 58.5 and 3 with 59 grains behind the NPT. I don't plan on shooting up all the SMK's and Partitions in one day, probably just a few SMK's and 3 of each charge with the Partition.

H4350SC is good also with 3006/150s. Actually it's great!

MtnHtr

I got some decent groups with both the SMK and the Partition. Also picked up a pound of Winchester 748 for 130/150 bullets. It looks completely different from the Re-19, a lot less load density. I will have to shoot some with 748 next time.

With 150 gr Accubonds in my .30-06 rifles, I get great results in every rifle with IMR-4350, and a WLR primer.