.300 Win Mag 208 Amax

[Smokin]

My 110 BA is a very fun gun to shoot!! I use 76.7 H1000 with the 208 Amax. And Norma brass. Very accurate. I'm now working on a load for Berger 215 Hybrids with H4831SC. Anybody?

 

[Trinitronman]

Until I fire more of my Remington 180gr Corelokts, I am out of Remington brass. Cabelas was having a 25% off sale on Nosler products, so I picked up 100 .300 win mag cases..... I thought my heart was going to seize up when I saw the register hit $118.00. Got the brass home and weighed every single piece and they only vary by roughly .3gn. I also picked up 2 more boxes of 208 Amax bullets. I grabbed 40 of them and 40 bullets (I individually weighed each one and these 40 came in at 208.3).

Ran each case through a FL resizing die and measured each case. They fluctuated between 2.6035 and 2.6045, so I trimmed them all to 2.603 and then chambered / deburred the necks. I was ready to reload starting at 71.6 and working my way up in .5gn increments, or so I thought.

I got to thinking about all of the stuff I've read on the net, and wanted to ask if there will be any noticeable difference in accuracy on the first firing than in subsequent firings? Did I just waste a bunch of time sorting bullets? Should i just load these cases up with another powder(4350 IMR I've got tons of that I need to get rid of) for the sole purpose of fire-forming the brass and letting it get its stretch on? I've got 20 on my desk ready to go but I feel the night will be spent reading more post on the internet!!

 

[Canadian Bushman]

Yes especially with belted mags. Id refrain from any fine tuning or maximum loads before the cases are formed to your chamber. Smart question.

 

[Trinitronman]

Yes especially with belted mags. Id refrain from any fine tuning or maximum loads before the cases are formed to your chamber. Smart question.

Thank you. I'm going to load them with some rl22 and some smk 190s just to fire form them. gun)

 

[Greyfox]

I have now been through load development with a couple of 300WM rifles where my ES with H1000(74-76gr) was running 35-50FPS. A switch to Retumbo(77-79gr)would give the same accuracy, .25-.5MOA, but an extra 75-100 FPS and ES under 12FPS. Using Norma brass, Fed215's, 210 AMax, 210/215 Bergers. I have generally found that a powder change has the most profound effect on ES. I'm getting 2900FPS out of my 24" Rem Milspec with 79gr Retumbo, ES 8.

 

[acloco]

Of interest, in my personal experience, work up the loads at 200 or 300 yards.

With my 300 WM, I passed on some excellent powder selections with 208 Amax, because I was only testing at 100 yards.

At 300 yards, these same loads were 1/2 MOA.

 

[Trinitronman]

I know this post is old but I felt like posting an update. To date I have 463 rounds through this gun and have tried various bullets and powder combinations. I still use remington brass for my everyday shooting but have switched over to nosler brass for our friendly shooting competitions the local gun shop hosts twice a month. I tried 4350, RL 22 and purchased some retumbo as well. I never shot the retumbo....I kept trying H1000 and began weighing my cases and bullets individually. With the nosler brass (resized / trimmed only), 71.7g H1000 and 208 Amax I can consistently pull off little 5 shots groups. With the remington brass I can get groups of similar size after uniforming and deburring flash holes. Thanks again to everyone!

 

[Wolf76]

You obviously found the low node. You're only running ~2700 with that load. There is a higher one. My gun is at 79, but found the same low node you did. Keep going up to the max and you may end up going past it. RL 22 @max doses was money too.