Ric
There are many things to do to the cases and loads for target shooting that most don't do for hunting rounds, myself included.
If the hunter is after the ONE shot kills, he will do all the Benchrest procedures to his cases and loads that he can think of, plus some he must learn.
To start with the cases have to be prepared.
This means trim to length, turn the necks,champher the inside and outside the case neck and even the primer pocket entrance. The inside flash holes have to be deburred and the primer holes all measured to make sure they are the same. Some shooters enlarge the primer hole.
You should weigh your cases and try to seperate them as to within the SAME grain sequence. Examples are 250.1 grs to 250.9grs or closer. The MOST accurate loads must be experimented with and the rounds must be fired over a GOOD chronagraph. Bullets must be weighed to within .01 grain or closer and also spun for exactness or put on a Vern Junke machine for concentricity. The case even has to be looked at as per concentricity and then the entire loaded round.
The lowest extreme spread fired cases should be kept for your match cases. This is sometimes VERY hard to do with big brass in the Remington line such as 300 RUM. Remington brass is NOT very good for the 1000 yard benchrest shooter in most cases. You may fire 50 or 100 rounds to get 10 or 20 that are good enough to try in a Match. Anneling must be considered on softer brass also.
That's just the tip of the iceberg Ric. There are other tricks to loading that must be considered but, for the hunter with a partner and a good set of BIGEYES and a good rangefinder, to the extent above, it's really NOT needed.
A 600 to 800 Lb elk at 1200 yards is alot easier to hit in the boiler room then a target that your tying to break a club or World record group with 10 shots.
My advice is to use SOME of the benchrest case prep procedures and then load for the hunt.
The accuracy level you need IS NOT what the Benchrest shooter needs.
Obviously, you should have good accuracy but, not to the extent of the paper shooters unless you want to go to the extra work.
One other thought, the reason I like a 35 Degree shoulder as to a 25 or even 27 degree is because of less case stretching. Keep a close watch on your cases after firing them especially the RUM 7mm and the 300. Keep them trimmed back .010" from overall spec.
A stretched case will give you excess pressure and one or two will change your bullet impact from the others and you will wonder why.
You may want to try this.
Trim to length, turn the necks (just to true them up unless you have a tight neck), Champher, weigh and seperate to the closest, load your most accurate bullet, powder combination, try the load at 100 yards to get your zero and if the group is 1/2" GO HUNTING. If you want to tighten the group up run them over a chronagraph and seperate to lowest extreme spread. Load again and see the difference.
There is certainly a difference when loading for the hunt as per loading for the match. In match shooting and loading, you won't have time to fix your broken water line or pump.
Darryl Cassel
PS---There are many other CIA secrets in the loading procedures but, If I tell you then I have to kill you.
As bad as I've been shooting at Williamsport the last couple of years, I must have forgot some of those secrets myself.
[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: Darryl Cassel ]
