Today I fired five groups. My plan was to fire four if three were okay. If not stop at three. After establishing the overall length I will do a ladder test. Groups number 3,4,&5 will be tried again going for five shots per group before the ladder.

interesting, I will be following...

The range was closed yesterday through Sunday so I have to catch up on domestics.

if I had #4, I'd shoot a 5 shot group there again to confirm, then shoot a 10 shot group.

If still holding true, I"d mess with primer/seating depth in large enough increments to matter, and why shoot a ladder at this point?

It its the mag, you are burning barrel life.... and wasting it basically IMHO.

rost495,

I like your idea. I will seat the loads in #3 to match #4 and fire five or maybe ten shots with it and pull #5.

Your post woke me up. I was going to shoot the ladder to see if I could find a node with a higher velocity. But this one is already more than 100 feet faster than what I used to kill three big game animals already this year. And it definitely appears more accurate. What I like most about your idea is I think this has a lower average pressure than the 73.5 grains of Retumbo with this same bullet. So the barrel will last longer.

Thanks for the wake up. I will share a steak or two with you.

We'll stop by for steak when we hit Seattle again next Sept... LOL.

Shoot load #4 at 500 yards and see what it does. No need to ladder test if your gonna move your oal around like that.

805,

You are correct. I am going to do what you and rost495 suggested. When I can get to the range I am going to fire #4 with five shots and five shots with plus .010" and minus .010".

But, I will do it at 100 yards so the wind doesn't blow them around. Once one over all length shows better than the others I will switch to much longer ranges for honing my skill.

By next antelope season the one I saw at 458 this year will not be watched as someone else stalks closer. I will kill it from where I see it. All I could do this year was watch through the 10X50's. It was fun watching, but frustrating to know what is possible for others and knowing I was not ready for that shot.

rost495,

I sorta took your advise. I loaded five #4, like you said, and five plus .010" and five minus .010". In a round robin firing at targets I fired at each target till I didn't like what I saw. The load with an overall length .010" longer made a group of 1" on the forth shot. It was out. Even the first three measured 13/16". The one that was minus .010" made a group of 1 3/8" with three shots. The main length, #4, made a five shot group of 3/4". Like you said, no need to fire a ladder test. I want accuracy and barrel life more than maximum velocity with this rifle.

Also, using 91.0 grains of US869 produced an averaged 3,340 feet per second while the 73.5 grains of Retumbo averaged 3,355 feet per second. Despite this load being faster, using ignorant prejudice, I believe the US869 load has a lower peak pressure but an overall higher average pressure than the Retumbo load so the barrel will last longer.

When I get the Mark V back from Pac_nor with its 26" barrel I will go for accuracy with maximum velocity. It will weigh less than 7lb ready to go. This one with the Pierce action and Christensen barrel weighs exactly 8lb. But I digress.

Your barrel is going to last only about six seconds!!

Sharpsman,

Clever of you. You are correct.

I hope to stretch that six seconds over a couple years. I think this barrel will last more shots than most high performance barrels because when I fire groups I wait till it is cool before I fire the next round. Today, since the temp was 60 degrees, I couldn't feel any heat in the carbon fiber after five minutes. But I waited for six minutes between shots.

Today I dialed it in at 290 yards, but fired at 300 yards. This gives me a maximum height of 3" between muzzle and sight in range. I am ready for doe season to open this Saturday.