The story of my (ongoing) education pursuing long range shooting with a Savage LRP 260.....
I just started shooting a rifle last fall with the intention of learning 'how' to shoot long range. I ordered a Savage LRP 260 in October and started shooting it at the 100yd/200m/300m range in November. I had never shot a real rifle (besides an AR with a 1X red dot) before I started shooting the LRP 260.
In early January I started handloading rounds using my new Redding T7 press. I bought 100 bullet packages of a variety of high BC 6.5mm bullets and I have done powder load tests with a variety of those bullets (Barnes MatchBurner 140s, Hornady A-MAX 140s, Sierra MK 142, Sierra MK 140s) to try to determine which bullets and powder loads my rifle 'likes'. I have not yet tested with the Berger 130/140 VLD or Hybrid bullets.
In mid January I had my first qualification and practice session on the 'long' range at 500, 600, 800, and 1000 yds. I was able to qualify out to 1000 yds (which was great) but I clearly had/have a LONG way to go regarding dynamically reading the wind.
My second long range practice didn't go as well as the first because I had a number of shots (SMK 142s) that just didn't 'behave' as expected (non called flyers). I was trying a longer OAL (2.87") with these rounds and the rifle didn't seem to like it. I had 20 rounds left over so I reset them down to 2.805" and went back to the 300m range and shot two 10 round groups to see if it solved the 'flyer' issue. Both 10 shot groups were less than 2.2" at 300m which seemed to indicate that the 'flyer' issue was OAL related.
However at that point I was out of SMK 142s and I had a long range practice scheduled for last Saturday so I made 25 rounds of Barnes Matchburner 140s and 25 rounds of Hornady A-MAX 140s with 43.0gr of Hodgdon H-4350 (This load had tested well previously with both of these bullets) set at an OAL of 2.81". My theory was that the MB140s and A-MAX 140s have G1 rated BC of .586 and .585 so they 'should' behave similarly. I shot the MB140s at 400, 500, 600, and 700 yards and I shot the A-AMAX 140s at 700, 800, 900, and 1000 yds. At 700 yards the Barnes and A-MAX (6 shots total) grouped around 5" so that proves they are very close in exterior ballistics.
I was the first shooter at 1000 yds and by that time the breeze was variable 6-14 MPH and quartering between 1-2 o'clock. First shot, impact on the silhouette 6" popper bullseye! I had hits on 11 of 12 shots at 1000yds on the 8-10" targets. None of the other shooters had above a 33% hit rate at that distance.
So, the moral of the story for this message thread is that it appears to me that
43.0gr of Hodgdon H-4350 and Hornady A-MAX 140s set at 2.810" produced fairly consistently accurate rounds for _my_ Savage LRP 260.
Now I need to start load testing with the Berger bullets since I am out of SMK 142s, Barnes MatchBurners, and Hornady A-MAXs.