Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles T3 Superlite 7mm-08 and 150 ELD-X experiment

I bought a Superlite awhile back just for fun. I already have a stainless T3 7mm-08 that I use for everything but I figured, why not. When Hornady released the 150 ELD-X I decided to turn the Superlite into a long range shooter.

I swapped out the SA bolt stop for a LA stop so I could seat the bullets into the lands. The original setup gave me 2.835" OAL, with the long stop and a .30-06 mag I reach the lands at 2.987".




Hornady suggested I use Nosler's data for the 150 Partition with Hunter powder, which I have a bunch of. I loaded a few at the max charge and shot them over a chrono. They averaged right at 2800 fps with no pressure signs. I loaded 6 each at 4 depths, starting just kissing the lands.



Maybe a range day tomorrow.





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I would think the Nosler 150 ABLR would be another good High BC bullet to try in the 7mm-08.

I have read of poor bullet performance with ABLR bullets.





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Pharm...I'm interested in the outcome of your 7-08 L.R. Project,those long 150's stickin way outta that brass is cool...ScottyO

I'll be watching this one closely.

Me also. Been trying to put one on layaway at Whittakers to no avail. Still interested in the results.

I loaded 6 each starting at 2.318" (measured from the ogive with a Hornady Comparator), then 2.279", 2.239", and 2.197". The shortest length still exceeded max mag length using the 7mm-08 mag.

Nosler says 49.5 grains of Hunter is a compressed load. There at the end I could sorta feel a crunch, but Hunter is pretty fine.

I'll keep everyone posted.




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A good friend of mine shot a bull elk a cow elk and a pretty nice mule deer. Maybe not a large sample but he really likes them in his 280AI.

That said I'm very interested in you findings.

Can't wait to hear the results

I'm surprised people are not reaming these out and making a 280 AI on the Tikka action.

Here's a question for those with more experience. This rifle is new, the chrono loads were the first I've shot with it. Should I expect accuracy to change the more I shoot?





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I hit the range today, 37 degrees and calm. After boresighting and getting on paper at 50 yards I moved to 100 yards and set up 4 targets. I started with the shortest loads first, and got the best accuracy short.

The second-shortest load showed the most promise, coming in at 0.82" in 5 shots.





The shortest load looked okay, coming in just under an inch.




I think I'll try a couple hundredths between the two loads.






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I'd bet typical SA length would be money, if the powder/pressure allows.

2.806", as measured from the tip, is money for 120 BT, 120 TTSX, 140 PT, and 140 AB in my other T3.





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New Year's wish...please lord...bring back the 284 win w/1:8 twist and make lots of brass!

One of the guys that used to post here did a 284Win. on a rechambered 7-08 Tikka, using a long action magazine and the modified bolt stop.

Seemed like a nice way to get there, and with 6.5x284 brass available there's no issues getting brass either.

Thinking 9 twist is enough for anything you want to spit out of that case. It will spin the 180s no problem.

FWIW, I don't think the 280AI will clean up the 7-08 chamber without a lot of setback.

I saw ruger is doing a special run of tan camo cerakoted Americans for Jerry's Sport Center... 708 is listed as having a 1 to 8 twist....tempting....lol!

They're learning...

I've yet to witness it !

Bullets.com has 284 Winchester brass in stock. Made by Norma. Just in case folks don't want to mess with necking up Lapua brass.

What kinda velocity were you getting.

2800 fps





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thats pretty good.

I'll be trying something different this weekend, weather permitting.




I'm trying Varget at .03" off, looking for pressure. The Hornady guy loved Varget for this combo.

I might do the same with Hunter. Seated that far out there's a lot of room in the case.




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Why the .040 difference between each one. I thought .005 was sort of typical

Read this:

http://www.bergerbullets.com/getting-the-best-precision-and-accuracy-from-vld-bullets-in-your-rifle/

.040" off helps me find the sweet spot quickly. I can make smaller changes once I get close.




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You're thinking good Pharm.
Btw....100 yd testing might not be real ideal for those longer bullets..... sometimes they settle down alot as they go down range. Years ago I almost passed up 180 grain Barnes load for my 300 Weatherby this was in the pre TSX days. Best group I could get was about 1.5 inches at 100 yards and I was looking for more until one day just for Giggles I tested it at 300 and it was easy under 3 inches.

It'd be interesting to see what the factory loads did next to the handloads.

Bullets do not "go to sleep". It is a physical impossibility for bullets in flight to self correct and come closer to each other.

So... what would you describe is at work here I see a lot of shooters talk about this phenomenon.

This guy writes about it, but I question him because of his response to myth #2.

http://gundigest.com/shooting-articles-advice/10-rifle-shooting-myths-exposed





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Formidulodis.... has probably forgotten more about shooting than I'll ever know..... I'm hoping he gives me his answer above and I'm sure I'll learn from it.
The guy that did the wooden dowel test seems a little goofy to me because who's to guarantee you're going to get a twig 10 feet in front of your target.? He needs to come Hunt our Wisconsin brush LOL.

So glad someone said it!

The only thing I can think of that would explain it, is that a bullet can take 100+ yards for the gyroscopic precession to dampen out, which causes the bullet to rotate about its axis of travel. If three bullets hit a target at 100 yards, and all three were at opposite positions in their rotational precession range, you'd get larger groups than after the precession is dampened out and the bullets are hitting very close to their center axis of travel.

But, Bryan Litz has said that so far with his shoot-through target challenge, nobody has reported larger groups at closer range than the groups the same bullets print at longer ranges, and that group size is proportional with distance, so that's it. Form is right.

The only explanation at this point is that group size at closer range exceeding group size at longer range is caused by random variation in the precision of the load, and nothing more. If you shot 50 groups at 100 yards, and 50 at 200 yards, the average group size should be proportional to distance, but if you look at only 1 or 2 isolated groups at each distance, you might see smaller groups at 200 yards if they were exceptionally small 200 yard groups and exceptionally large 100 yard groups.

Mule Deer has written about scope parallax creating the illusion of bullets "going to sleep." It is mentioned in his article Factors in Accuracy Part One: Rifles and Shooting on the home page of this very site.

Maybe my older eyes work harder seeing targets at longer range... perhaps it's more a function of aim small shoot small?

Kraky,

Jordan and the others are correct. We've shot over multiple acoustic targets set in line from 100-1000yds and all rounds group in proportion to range. It is possible due to gyroscopic precession to have a SLIGHT difference, however it is a TINY difference.

The most notable was certain rifles meant for extreme long range chambered in 408 CT. They claimed that the reason the guns were shooting 4-6moa at 100m was due to "the bullet not going to sleep" yet, and that at 1000m plus they shot "great". The acoustic targets didn't show that at all, even though some shooters did shoot smaller groups at 300m than they did at 100m. However once we removed the shooters ability to see their rounds impact on target at 100m, their groups shrunk to be inline with their distance grouping. i.e.- the shooters were mind humping themselves.



Once Bryan threw the gauntlet of paying people to actually prove bullets shooting smaller groups at longer range than at shorter range, most of the "going to sleep" nonsense ceased.

The mind hump will do it.

Factory Hornady Precision loads have an OAL of 2.790".

Maybe I'll try that length.





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Bump this back up. I'm going to try them with H4350 in a few days.

Finally another range day! Windy as heck but the rain didn't start until I was almost done.

This time I picked the loads I put together using different charge weights of Hunter. The factory OAL didn't shoot worth a darn with any of the four charges.

The load .030" off the lands was equally bad until I got to the higher charges. More research is needed, but I might have found a winner.




This one measures 0.588". It's over max so I'm not going to post the recipe, but the cases look fine. I'll chrono it maybe next week to make sure I'm not significantly over speed. Then I'll roll a few more and see if I can replicate the group. This could get interesting.






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Abandoning your beloved 140 NPT?!?!

Heck no! This is a different rifle.




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I chronographed these loads today. I got an average of 2897 fps and an ES of 9. I know brass appearance is a poor indicator of pressure issues, but the brass looks fine.





I'm going to shoot a few more to see if I can replicate my earlier success.





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I have much better luck with Lapua and other brass for my 708 than R-P brass. I think Nosler makes brass for them as well.

Nosler lists 2869 fps for Hunter and 150 gr bullets, but that's out of a 26" barrel. The Tikka is 22 7/16".

Hornady published 2800-2899 fps but they didn't test Hunter.

Be advised that the bullets are seated rather long. SAAMI is 2.800", these are 2.946". I don't think I'm over pressure.

I measured the fired brass at the case head at .4700". Unfired cases were pretty uniformly .4670" to .4680".





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We need to co opt the 6.5 craze and bring em back to the 7!

I like your attitude!

I had terrible accuracy with H-4350 in mine. I tried a few other powders yesterday IMR4350 and H414 both shot 1.3" 4 shot groups but RL-15 shows promise with 2 groups at .87 I'm going to play some more with RL-15 and try some Varget.

To what end? More recoil for lesser ballistic characteristics?

Yeah buddy the 7-08 really knocks the snot outta you! And the BC's of those ELD-X bullets is so low a golf ball is sleeker and goes farther! Yep them there 6.5's are where it's at with good reason!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3NaQxUEfxt0





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I was tryin! Ha

Bad news/good news:

The bad news was, I couldn't replicate my previous success with Hunter powder.


The good news, my new .223 really liked my standard load. That's three shots in the bull.





And more good news, this was the load recommended to me by Hornady, 41 gr Varget, .03" off the lands.





I need to chronograph it, but I'm not expecting much. Varget is slow.






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I have fiddled a lot with a long throated 280. SAAMI is around 3.30". Mine is 3.5 OAL with various 160's. At comparable pressure it is pretty much a 280 Ackley performance wise.
Your long 7-08 allows more powder with less crunch. Good work!

^^^^^^Kinda what I'm looking at doing on my .260 superlight......long action stop/mag.....load to lands-?, and rock long loads

I'm going to borrow my brother's Magnetospeed, especially after today.

Note: these loads are safe in my rifle not yours. Do not exceed published maximums.

I chronoed a few loads this afternoon and got some surprising velocities. I really wanted to see what the 41 gr Varget load did, after such a good group on my last range day. I even shot some existing loads with my other -08 as a control. The chrono averaged 60 to 64 fps faster than previously chronoed loads, even in the old rifle. Ambient temp was close to the same, so it's not due to atmospheric conditions.

The weird thing, the loads were very consistent. I only shot two rounds per string, but extreme spread was 20 fps clear down to 3.

The 41 gr Varget load chronoed at 2842, ES of 15. That's really high, like almost 200 fps high.

43 gr Varget chronoed 2917, ES 20

44 gr Varget was 2953, ES 13

A shorter OAL 44 gr Varget was 2978, ES 13

My control, 51.5 gr BG and 120 NBT chronoed 3115 in a different Superlite, and 3126 in my other T3. In this Superlite it chronoed 3190, ES 4.

My 140 Partition load chronoed 2953, ES 18.

In my main T3 the same load has chronoed 2873. Today this load chronoed 2939, ES 18 in my main T3.

I'll get the Magnetospeed tomorrow.






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Interesting Pharm. My 24" 7x57 has a little room and 150ABLR at 2900 was not an issue. It likes h4350 for 140 & 150g. Have yet to get mitts on the Hornady for it, but aim to very soon.

Rin: also shot a throated M-70 280 a bit with 175s as an alternative to a nasty LW 338. Like you say, the pick-up is about the same.

Consider the 162 ELD with H4350... easy to top 2700 fps from 22" and if you run the numbers...

Recoil gets a bit stiff in a really light rifle, however.

Magnetospeed results:

41 gr Varget, 2722, ES 25

42 gr Varget, 2777, ES 11

42.5 gr Varget, 2814, ES 29

44 gr Varget, 2877, ES 3


That's more like it.




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Very interesting...

I'd be curious if you shoot at distance to verify...

A 150 eld load at 2800+ is a really good spot to be...

BS. Post your load.

Yea...that's need 270 win territory.

I'm having a hard time with Varget producing well over 2800 fps using a 150 gr bullet and the load not being seriously over pressure in a 22-22.5" barreled 7-08. Maybe Hunter, maybe Big Game, maybe RL-17, maybe one of the 4350's, but not Varget. 41.2 grains is the max load I've found anywhere for Varget and 150 gr bullets, so anyone reading this please be aware of this and use caution.

Yeah - that's been my results too but rifles are funny things....

fwiw
In daughter's 22" 7mm-08, 47.5 RL-17 @ 2770 with 150g NBT. Turned in the best accuracy too, comparing RL17 to Varget and Big Game.

I'm loading them long, so I have more room. No pressure signs and velocity isn't crazy high.




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P,

Gotcha, not disputing you at all, I believe you, just want to make sure others understand. There may be some newbies that might get the wrong idea. And I've been loading awhile, but I remember some dumb things I did when I first got started before I really knew what I was doing (as if I do now :)).

Regards,

bludog

Some thoughts on the comparison between the load I'm using (140 Partition, 47.5 gr Big Game, 2870 fps) and the load I'm considering in my new 7mm-08 (150 ELDX, 41 gr Varget, 2725 fps).
There isn't much difference between them in velocity past 175 yards, and the 150 catches up at 350. The difference grows wider but it's not that significant.
What I noticed, however, was how mild the Varget was. It was really easy to shoot.
Maybe I'm on to something.




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Pharm you are motivating my to try and work up something decent in my 270 Win with that 145 ELD-X. I think it could be a rocket ship with RL26. Be a hevkuva deer load.

Range day this afternoon.

41 grains Varget at 2.276" (.03" off the lands) was again the winner. Not quite as good as the first time, but I'm not the best shot off a bench. Plus, I had "third shot jitters."





I tried 5 different seating depths with 42.2 grains Varget, and two OAL look promising. The good news, they were sequential, so if I play around between them I might get lucky.








Not quite the tight triangles I was looking for, but it's progress. I'm hoping for sub .75" accuracy at 2800 fps.






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How well do the cartridges feed out of the long mags?

Just fine.





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Magnetospeed chrono update:

I loaded a few rounds to shoot over the chrono this afternoon. Ramshot suggests 46.2 grains Big Game as max for both 150 E-Tip and 150 TTSX, both loaded rather short. Since I'm loading long, I figured I'd see what 46.2 gr would do for the 150 ELDX.

The average for 3 shots was 2828 fps, ES of 24. Interestingly enough, the one shot I chronoed of 42.2 Varget gave the same velocity.

Here's the kicker: the 140 Partition load my other Tikka loves ran 2925 for 3 shots with an ES of 12! That's 45 fps more than my other rifle.

Not only that, but the 120 BT load clocked 3189, but just one shot.

Tight chamber maybe?






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No way!

And this is what it looks like on the way out of a 5 3/4" Mountain Ash at 35 yards.











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I measured the groups, outside to outside, then subtract a diameter. All three are under an inch, the largest not by much, but the 41 gr Varget was a bit over 0.7". Speed is 2722 and I'm hoping for 100fps more, which is what 42.2 gets me. I'll play with the depth between the two 42.2 loads and see what happens.
Worst case scenario I have a good load at 2722, and accuracy kills.





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I like the idea of 2800+fps ... if you can shrink the group.
not that 2700 is bad

I'm ready for a range day.



That's 2825 fps worth of Varget at 4 seating depths, the two sub moa on the ends with the difference divided by three. Let's see where that takes us.

Here's the next iteration, with 2828 fps worth of Big Game. This one gets 8 bites at the apple, since I can seat as long as I want. The longest is about 0.005" into the lands, backing off around 0.040" each time. BG is the bee's knees for 120 and 140 grain bullets, I have high hopes.






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Regarding the comments concerning the 162 ELD-X and H4350: I shoot 45.6 in Rem cases, FGM, at 2.805" and get 2650. That is .6 grains over book max, but my Tikkas have long throats and I worked up. This is over my Prochrono. (And a friend's.) I had three Tikka 7-08s (now two), and a buddy has another. Almost identical velocity in all four rifles.

I also tried Varget, 8298, H4895, and Hunter. My best results were this load and H4895,

Regarding switching to LA mags, I did it in both of mine. It did work, but in my experience the feeding was a little better with the SA, so I'm back to using those. Accuracy is the same (great) seated at 2.805 or 2.95 (IIRC.)

I'd like to try the 150s, but I have several boxes of the ELD, so it may be awhile!

I've posted these pics before, but here is the 162 the first time I shot them doing load work up (Yes, I know these aren't 10 shot groups people want, this was the first time out and I was just looking.):These are with a SS Lite with a SS 3-9.

100 yards



500 yards:

I shoot 45.4gr of H4350 and a 162 Amax at 2750 in mine. Find some Power Pro 2000mr if want speed with those 150's, can't remember the charge offhand but I was up around 2875 with them with excellent accuracy.

Wish I could actually buy H4350. Would like to try it in my Tikka 7mm-08. I think I am officially writing H4350 off for good. Doesn't matter how well it works in my rifles if I can never find any in stock.

There is zero chance I would use a hunting load with a .005 jam into the lands......none.

I agree. That's why I found some IMR 4451 and use that instead with great results.

That's a bold statement. Why would you not?

Five thousandths ain't much.





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I had a very bad experience with that many years ago, and the short of it is when I tried to eject the loaded round, the bullet came out of the case and, was stuck. Put a real damper on a great mule deer hunt.

I feel jamming bullets in a hunting round, especially a super accurate Tikka, serves no purpose in the accuracy department.

Same here. I haven't found a hunting rifle yet that required the bullet jammed to be accurate. Not saying they aren't accurate there, but there is usually a 2nd spot off the lands that'll work just as well.

I think 2800 with a 150 is doing well from a 7-08. I've had several 7-08s and they were all dogs in the speed dept.

I had my range day yesterday, I think I'm done.




2.156" won the day again. I'm going to focus on this load and improved technique.

This load is safe in my rifle, not yours. Start low and work up.





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Nice shooting, good load and rifle.

An observation, a same action length Tikka, in 270 or 280 might make it easier to push a 150 class bullet these speeds, and higher.

The other mention regarding groups and testing loads for hunting, in the end, it's usually the first shot that counts. I say this as I have spent my life too chasing groups and max potential speeds in a given rifle. In the end, usually the 1st shot cold bore accuracy is what makes or breaks the hunt.

So some rifles and/or loads, may not be impressive in a 3 shot or 5 shot group, they may well shoot very close to POA on their first shot.

Lastly, I agree with the poster above re: bullet jamming on a hunting load. I had a 7/08 that I could not extract, or lift the bolt, 60 degree bolt on a Browning Micro-Medallion. Very accurate rifle, IIRC a 10T, very accurate, but could not extract loaded ammo that had bullets in the lands.

So, just sharing some thoughts. Just me, but I will give up a fraction of group size for dead nuts reliability in feeding....and unloading loaded rounds. A cleaning rod is always prudent on big game hunts IME, just because you never know.

Rx - Good luck this hunting season, you will do well.

Well, I wasn't done, seeing as how I had all those Big Game loads to try. So I hit the range today.





Now I'm done.





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That looks like a good place to stop! Very nice.