Okay. The results are in. I actually just started to work on this load again. These results were from this last Friday. Sorry it took so long (Dang, has is been a year already! LOL). Sorry they aren't as precise and organized as I wanted them to turn out. First off, I loaded 30 rounds for this trip to the range. I loaded 3 rounds at 42 grains, 3 rounds at 42.3 grains, 3 rounds at 42.6 grains, and so on to 44.7 grains. I just installed this scope on my .243 mind you, and it was not sighted in. My first 3 rounds at 42 grains missed the target at 100 yards. Dang it. Lol. However I did get 3 readings with the chrony. They were 2957 fps, 2969 fps, and 2972 fps. I know it's only 3 rounds, but thats an ES of 15fps, and a SD of 7.9 fps. I wish I would have had them on paper to see my group, but it is what it is.
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I could tell that I was missing the target low, so I dialed up the scope 9 moa, and fired again with the 42.3 grain rounds. And what do you know, I was on the paper and the group was actually pretty tight. I figured with that group, I was .5" high, and .5" right. I screwed up somehow repositioning the shootings bags on this group, and not one of my fps readings came through.
So for the next 3 rounds (42.6 grains), I dialed over .5 moa, and up 1.5 moa to keep my next group out of the same holes. I repositioned the shooting bags again, and I screwed up the first 2 readings. The 3rd shot I finally figured out my mistake, and got a reading of 3004 fps. I kept 2 rounds close to eachother, and one got away from me. The far left one was my mistake(I jerked). So I didn't learn much with these 3 rounds, but again it is what it is. At this point I was not getting any signs of high pressure, other than the primers where starting to get flatter.
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At 42.9 grains I went ahead and took the scope down 2 moa, and aimed for the bull. I had my game face on and put a very tight group together. I also got 3 good fps readings. I had 3051 fps, 3062 fps, and 3065 fps. That's and ES of 14 fps, and a SD of 7.4 fps. I noticed though at 42.9 grains my primers were noticabley flatter than even 42.6 grains. The bolt lift was still good, and I decided to proceed.
At 43.2 grains, something went wrong. I felt really good about my shots, but my group opened up quite a bit (I forgot to take a picture of this target, and will have to post it later tonight). I ended up with 3112 fps, 3117 fps, and 3121 fps. This was the best ES and SD of all the groups, but it shot the worst. On top of that, the primers were very flat, and the bolt had just a little tiny bit of resistance when opening. I would say that this was my max load for sure. However I decided to go on to the next load.
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At 43.5 grains, I took 3 shots, and my group was even worse. The bolt had noticable resistance (not bad, but noticable) when opening, and the primers were flat with no round edges what so ever. I did get a reading of 3150 fps with this round, and missed the other two fps readings. I decided to quit after that.
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I was surprised that I was not able to go much further with the loads due to already seeing pressure signs, and I decided to dig a little deeper. I joined load data, and paid my dues. They had a max load and a minimum load posted for my load combination. They listed a minimum load of 38 grains, and a maximum load of 42.5 grains. This pretty much matched my results perfectly. So with this information, and my results, I am going to take my 42.3 and 42.6 grain loads and play around with seating depth to determine which will be my best load. Even though my best group was with 42.9 grains, the flat primer scares me away from it. I don't need to hot rod my rifle to that point. My 42.3 gr load was pretty close to .5 moa, and I'm confident my 42.6 gr load would have been very similar, if I wouldn't have jerked on one shot. Overall, I'm happy with my results, and think I'm heading in the right direction. My down fall was choosing to shoot that day while the range was busy. It's hard to think straight when there are 6 guys there shooting semi auto rifles. Any ways, more to come.
. I sure wish I could find some more brass though. I'm going to load some of my 243 rounds with the H4350 and compare it to my loads with H1000 to see which really is better. So soon I'll have a good comparison to share with everyone.
