30-06 155 bullet IMR4350

[joelkdouglas]

Gents,

I have a box of 155 Custom Comps, and a box of 155 Lapua Scenars. I also have about 8.5 lbs of IMR4350. Shooting a 30-06.

Anybody use IMR4350 with 150s or 155s?

I have Quickload and Nosler 6 and 7. The manuals say best accuracy should be around a max load of 59.0 grains, and QL says 59.6 grains, but wondered if there was first hand experience here.

Thanks gents.
v/r
Joel

 

[rick smith]

Last time I checked the Hodgdon site, 60grs was max for a 165gr bullet. I use 58.8grs with a 165. For a 150, I would probably go to a little faster powder or a sperical.Rick.

 

[JD338]

Joel,

My go to load in the 30-06 with a 150 gr bullet was always 59.0 grs IMR 4350. Shot well under MOA.

JD338

 

[joelkdouglas]

Thanks gents. I have some Scenars loaded up with 58.4, 58.6, 58.8, 59.0, 59.2, 59.4, and 59.6 grains. I was somewhat surprised I could get the bullets seated with the 59.6 loads, because it's pretty compressed. OAL is 3.293 inches, because that's 0.02 off the lands.

I think SAAMI spec ammo would not chamber in this rifle until the throat gets a bit longer! But the rifle also has a 0.337 neck (30-06), so it's not exactly factory spec anyway.

I won't get out to the range for a couple of weekends--I leave today for a week and a half of TDY. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[rick smith]

Are you using a drop tube to put the powder in the cases?Rick.

 

[joelkdouglas]

Are you using a drop tube to put the powder in the cases?Rick.

No, just a plain old Redding funnel. I looked at a tube I had laying around, but it didn't look like it would work. It looked like powder would leak out the sides.

If this load works well as a practice load, I'll likely get one. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[joelkdouglas]

And as you noted, I could switch to a faster or ball powder. I do have some Ramshot Big Game and some H4895 around, but only a pound of each. I'd like to find a mild-kicking load with IMR4350 for "training" loads, because I have so much IMR4350.

I could always back the charge down to the next barrel node, and may if this doesn't turn out well.

 

[Oldtrader3]

Joel, good luck with that. You should get some decent velocities and even accuracy at close to 60 grs. I would go to the IMR 4064 for that weight bullet, if you have any?

 

[joelkdouglas]

The experiment was good enough to make a practice load out of it. These were the Scenars (I have more of them than the Custom Comps).

Load:
IMR4350
CCI BR Primers
155 Lapua Scenars
Lapua 30-06 brass
Seating depth 2.645 inches to ogive (0.02 off the lands in this rifle)

Both targets are 4-shot groups. Deceiving--both have what I can see is 3 holes, unless I look really closely.

Here's the 59.0 grain load:

Here's the 59.2 grain load:

Haven't played with seating depth yet, and I don't know that I will. I should probably just load some practice rounds and get to work in field positions.

 

[DrMike]

Those are pretty gratifying groups, Joel. Congratulations!

 

[Oldtrader3]

I use IMR 4350 for the 165 gr Partitions but it looks as though it works great for the 155 gr Scenar's as well.

 

[FOTIS]

How fast are they going?

 

[joelkdouglas]

How fast are they going?

We had some drizzle while shooting today, so I didn't break out the chrono. I would guess around 2950, with a 23-inch barrel and Nosler's projection of 3000 fps in the manual for 59.0 grains.

 

[FOTIS]

Not bad at all!!!!