Update on my post above. Gave up on the 215 grain sierra's on the advice from Scott in the post above. I thought I might start with Hornady 200 grain and IMR 8208 XBR. First I to establish a base, I use Fusion 200 grain (factory load) that clocked 2599 fps. average out of my Sako.
To the point, 47.0 grains of IMR 8208 averaged 2606 fps. over 5 shots with SD of 5fps. Out side temp. was 30 degrees. That is the max load recommended by Hodgdon. I upped � grain to 47.5 and the average was 2627 with SD of 1fps. for 3 shots. That�s the smallest standard deviation I have ever encountered. Size for all groups were under 1 inch. Primer: WLR, all 338 Federal cases crimped. Please remember the outside temperature was 30 degrees. Dave For got to add I changed to 200 gr. Hornady SP. Today I picked up some alliant 2000 mr which is a ball powder like lever. I hope it works better than Lever did in the cold weather.
