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

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.