Seabeeken
Well-Known Member
Received my first Hammer bullets in 257 and 7mm today. Any experience/advice as to loading compared to the Barnes I've been using? I hope to use the same powders in my 250AI, 257AI, and 7x57AI.
Received my first Hammer bullets in 257 and 7mm today. Any experience/advice as to loading compared to the Barnes I've been using? I hope to use the same powders in my 250AI, 257AI, and 7x57AI.
Look up the max Barnes Loads for each bullet of that weight, back off a grain and start from thereShock hammers in 257 and hunters in 7mm. Definitely different shape.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^FWIW - I'm running my Hammer Hunters at about .100" off in several rifles and have had good results.
I try to adjust seating depth to MAXIMIZE the bearing surface in the neck.
I've found the same, but these were absolutes. 9 shots including cold bore 6.5 creed, .5gr increments, zero seating depth test, no load development, just a pressure test. Stock barreled SavageI'm doing load development for a 257 Wby with the 98 gr Shockhammers right now. What I've learned so far, they don't seem to build nearly as much pressure as conventional bullets. They're very fast. I've seen almost zero copper fouling after shooting them. And so far two different powders have gone WAY over book max before hitting pressure. (like 8-9 grains over book). They don't seem to be finicky about seating depth and they seem to be very accurate. Some of my 10 round .3 grain jump pressure tests a have yielded 1.5" groups.