Memorial Day trip to the range

SJB358 · May 27, 2013

wisconsinteacher":ntcungr2 said:
Just an FYI, I looked at some info from last summer and I shot one group with H4350 and the 210. I used 60 grains and shot a 1.24" 3 shot group. The RL19 that day shot better so I went after the RL19 due to summer coming to an end and I wanted to deer hunt with the .338 last year.

You mention going 74.5/75.5/76.5, after that, would you go .5 from the best of those three then maybe .2 to fine tune?

You could tune up or down .5 if you wanted to. I wouldn't see that harming anything at all. I think you'll see more accuracy from tuning on the seating depth than with the powder charge most of the time. This is with normal barrels, without freebore, in my experience. I don't usually see as much gains from tweaking seating depth with rifles with freebore.

I have broken down and split up two loads that shot similar.

Example,say 75.5 and 76.5 shoot very similar, if you break them down, and split them at 76 and reshoot 75.5, 76 and 76.5 I bet you'll find that node that shoots well without being spot on the exact powder charge. I like finding that spot, if you can, where it shoots the same, either side of the charge, so you don't have to be worried if your a 1/10th off when dumping powder charges. I try to be bang on, but if your in the center of a node, you'll find it'll shoot very well, once you have the seating depth in the middle of it's node.

Mike has mentioned nodes being very small for some rifles, and I believe him, but I have seen most of mine shoot about the same with .010" +/-.

Good luck, go about it to minimize changing too much at once and you'll get it sorted out soon.

It's the challenging rifles that really teach us the skills.

Oldtrader3 · May 27, 2013

WT, I have been shooting 210 Partitions in three .338WM's, a .340 Weatherby and a .338 Federal. I have been handloading 210 Partitions since 1968. The one thing that I have learned in that time is that the 210 Partition is trickier to load then either the 225 grain or the 250 Partition.

Many, many of my groups would shoot tight clusters of 4 bullets with one flier about an inch out. The cartridge with those bullets is somewhat length sensitive and I was always shooting loads that were too long in the .338 WM. When I went back to COAL and starting working up loads around that length, groups got better.

I never was a super marksman with three (Browning HP, (2) Model 70's) .338WM's, plus I have been sick for 10 years. However, I still figure for me to shoot a 200 yard, 1.5 inch group consistently at my age is good enough. So keep trying lengths and powders and you will find the magic combination with that bullet. I really like the Fed 215 Match Mag primer for the .338WM and larger cases.