7RM Load Development Results – Advice Moving Forward

[Full Curl]

I suppose you could so long as you'd only use that recipe with virgin brass.

As others have made clear, your results will vary significantly with 1x, 2x, etc. fired brass.

This definitely gives me something else to think about now... even with other rifles. I wonder how much results can vary?? It makes me want to back away from max even more just to maximize the number of times I can use a case. Sticking to only virgin brass would get expensive fast! I just don't have a ton of extra time for the bench and range and good enough is good enough usually for a hunting rifle IMO. Going down that rabbit hole just takes more and more effort and components and I never know where to stop!

 

[Full Curl]

Thank you to everybody for all the replies.

 

[Bob Wright]

Ha. That's what I'm trying to minimize... wasting time and components and that crazy rabbit hole I want to stay far away from! I started with 100 brand new Norma cases and have not even fired all of them yet. I now always start a new rifle with new brass, I've had too many headspace issues in the past using cases that were fired in a different rifle. I'm assuming you were chasing the absolute best of the best accurate load with the process you used. I don't necessarily want or need a max load, it's just that a near max load 69.0 showed me one of the 2 best accuracy nodes with new brass. If it was more of a mid-load charge, I would be fine with that. 65.3 just seems less than even mid-load for a 7RM. I don't need 1/4 MOA, my goal with this hunting rifle would be sub-MOA and I have that with both the 65.3 and 69.0 charges with new brass. After reading all these replies I would like to know what accuracy I get from a 1x or 2x fired case with the same charges?? If I can avoid having to fire cases 3x times just to fireform for a sub-MOA load, I would be happy with that. Thanks for the info.

The natural case stretch is your variable of concern for reloading. Measure the headspace and see how much these vary. You should expect the hottest load on virgin brass will be over pressure on 1x or more fired brass.
With your Norma brass:
If you anneal the shoulders properly you could accelerate the fire forming on the next reload using 1x fired brass.
You have to look at headspacing to see how much variation you have now vs the next reload.
Probably why the 7 PRC is becoming the cartridge of choice (over the 7RM) using the Alex Wheeler reamer during chambering on new barrels.