Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles A rifle's gonna like what it likes...

And it ain't necessarily what you want it to like. This is an addendum to the "double groupin' blues" thread.

Tried one last time to get the Hornady 75 grain ELD-M to shoot from my Tikka T3x Lite .22-250 1:8, and also loaded some of their 75 BTHP and two loads with the 68 BTHP. BC is in descending order for the bullets listed. Well, I probably don't need to tell you that this rifle likes bullets in inverse order to BC.

#1 and 2 are the 75 ELD-M at .050" and .090" off the lands, 9 rounds each. El sucko grande.

#2 is the 75 BTHP, 10 rounds. Acceptable, not great but not horrible for 10 shots. Eight of those are in .679".

#4 is the 68 BTHP, 34 gr. RL15 put 5 rounds into .436" at 3400 fps. Not bad for a "Lite" rifle, even a Tikka. #5 is the same bullet with one more grain of powder, group opened up and it only gives another 55 fps so it looks like I hit a good load on the first try.




Taken all together, these groups are giving me a message. And that message is that I now have a good excuse to go buy a 6mm Creedmoor. Probably going to get a Ruger Predator to get my feet wet.








And that sonuvabitch better like the Hornady 108 gr. ELD-M...

Jim, have you tried a little slower powder such as RL 17 or IMR 4350/ 4451 with the heavier bullets? My opinion is there's a good chance your heavier bullets didn't like a powder as fast as RL15.

Something temp stable like H4350 works nicely in fast twist 22-250....

I have had fun with RL-17 with 75-80 grain bullets in my fast twist 22-250 AI.

And it is not loaded to the parent cartridge's pressure/speed.

Good luck with your new rifle.

I have tried those two powders, extensively, each with two different primers and three separate seating depths, .010,.050 and .090". H4350 will give okay accuracy but the slowest speeds. RL-17 gives the highest speeds by far, hitting 3300 fps with the 75 grain bullet, but consistently groups the worst.

The top two groups here are with the 75 ELD-M at .010" off the lands, 33.0 RL-15 and 36.0 RL-17, you can see the 17 spreads them out even further.




I finally concentrated on RL-15 since it gave velocities midway between 4350 and RL-17 and right from the get-go it looked like it wanted to group the best. You have to be careful with that faster powder and heavier bullets since you hit max pressure all quick like. With both 75 grain bullets I've taken it to 34.0 grains without problems but settled on that 33.5 grain load for the 75 BTHP since it seemed to provide the most velocity with good accuracy and will probably drop it back to 33.0 for long term use.

I might try one last time with the 75 ELD kissing about 0.005" into the lands, if I were you. They tend to shoot in just about anything with a kiss...

That's the only length I haven't tried, mostly due to a psychological aversion to running a jacketed bullet into the lands on a centerfire rifle, but I'll give it a try.

I agree with what Jordan said.

Also, light guns can be sensitive to bedding, IME, much, mush more than heavier rifles...............how is your rifle bedded? Or is it bedded at all?

Also, if you've ever tried 75 Amax, how did those shoot?

MM