Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors .300 Savage Loads

Different bullet lengths make all the difference in safe upper limits. Loading all bullets of one weight to 2.60" overall with the same powder charge means you can go from compressed charges to 90% loads. Can make a huge difference in chamber pressure. That is one reason why you start low and work up. Another reason is of course to find the optimal barrel time / optimal charge weight that gives tightest group.
And different bullet shapes (longer or shorter ogives, boattails, round nose, gilding metal/copper, etc) mean more or less metal to metal contact with the barrel, which also means more or less max. chamber pressure with the same powder charge.
Just some examples of how much bullet length can vary:

Bullet lengths, all 150 grainers in .308 caliber:

Barnes TTSX: 1.288"

Hornadys: BTSP: 1.044"
Interbond: 1.260"
Round nose: 0.905"
SP (flat base)1.047

Sierras: SP: 1.065"
SPBT: 1.096"
SPFN: 0.884"
HPBT (Match King): 1.110"

this works out as follows in Quickload's computer model, using some of the various Hornady 150s and equal load length and powder weight:
2.6 COAL, H4895, 43.29 grains"

BTSP = 100% fill, 55,700 psi max. (overcharge)
Round Nose = 95% fill, 50,700 psi max. (darned hot)
Interbond = 109% fill, 68,000 psi max! (bad news!!)

Going cross-brand, using same powder and charge weight and OAL the program predicts:
Hornady BTSP = 100% fill, 55,700 psi (overcharge)
Speer BTSP = 101.9% fill, 58,000 psi (even worse)
Sierra BTSP = 100.8% fill, 56,600 psi
Barnes TTSX = 111.1% fill, 71,874 psi (Yikes!)
Nosler Accubond = 108.2% fill, 66,300 psi (overcharge)
Nosler Partition = 103.1% fill, 59,437 psi (overcharge)

Pretty scary stuff, taking some one else's recipe and "subbing" different parameters. Heck I tested Winchester primers vs. CCIs in a 30-25 WSSM recently and it made about 35 fps difference, meaning several hundred psi on the chamber, and made totally different groups with same bullet and charge.

God, I have to get a life! I dreamed last night that I was tasked with developing .300 Savage loads for some army or another in a trench warfare situation. All the troops were armed with Savage lever guns and were bitching that their loads weren't powerful enough, and that the mud and grime of the trenches was jamming their rotors. I was feverishly working over a huge open drum of powder cooking up newer hotter loads for them and handing out handfuls of cartridges to guys to run out and try. I remember yelling at them to forget about magazine loading and just use them as single shots! Shells and tracers flashing overhead. Lots of noise and men shouting. Geez, I woke up in a sweat and immediately jotted down the high points before I forgot them. Pretty swell Christmas dream, huh?

gnoahhh Your quote from Lawyer Darrow is priceless...never quite thought of it that way....but...yeah...that about says it all.

BTW, both my son's were Dept of the Navy, one a Marine, the other was the weapons officer on the Alaska SSBN, missile sub. I was an Air Force pilot and never did figure out where I went wrong with those two boys. The Marine holds the M-9 course record at USMC Base, Kaneohe Bay, and his brother is 4 pts shy of Distinguished in CMP/NRA competition with the M1A....Rod

Sorry, Gary, was out of town over the weekend. That load is predicted to be making the following:
41,376 psi
2560
2183
106% load (compressed charge, which may mean your load goes slower and at lower pressure than predicted above)
98.4% burn

Make the OAL 2.60 and it predicts the following:
44,046 psi
2598 fps
2248 ft-lbs at the muzzle
103% load
How is the function of your rifle/magazine with that overall length?