Load development help

[couesaddict]

One other thing I don't recall seeing mentioned is action screw torque. I've had the action screws loosen up over time and start giving odd results. I now use red locktite on them and torque to around 50 inch pounds so that I don't have to worry about it happening on a trip. Also, when I first got my 300 rum it seems I shot near half the barrel life out of it looking for that perfect load until I finally concentrated on my form. Consistency in how you hold the rifle shot to shot has almost as much to do with a good group out of a higher recoiling round as powder and seating depth in my personal opinion. My smaller chamberings seem to be much more forgiving in that aspect. Just my $.02 and good luck.

 

[tbrice23]

I personally will not run the eld-x in mag. chamberings any longer.

Im seeing the same thing. Do you have any idea why?
They copper foul badly at magnum velocities and I'll only run them with a powder that contains an anti-copper fouling agent, which helps a little.

 

[Joefrazell]

So I went out today with more mixed results. Gun would seem like it wanted to group but then throw a couple flyers ect. Anyhow I came home and went to clean and inspect action, scope and mount screws and decided to take the action off the stock and noticed that the aluminum bedding block in the stock looked to have only been barely touching on the action. So I took some synthetic brake lube and rubbed it all over the bottom of the action, mounted the action back in the stock and tourqed the action screws down to 65 in/lbs and then took it back apart and looked for brake lube on the stock and sure enough. The action and bedding block are only touching a very thin amount about 3 mil. wide and probably 1 inch long towards the front and it's only up on the sides. Not touching at all on the bottom. The rear tang is also not touching and it's only touching up on the sides on the rear as well. Have any of you ever heard of these hs presicion stocks fitting this bad? I wanna skim bed it but need permission from remington first son don't void the Warranty. Good thing I paid $1300 for a quality rifle! Lol. I really like the gun and must get it to shoot!

 

[Joefrazell]

Yeah I noticed bad copper fouling as well. Only have about 50rds of eld's through it and about 80rds total and its fouled bad!

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

I'm seeing the same thing. Do you have any idea why?
They copper foul badly at magnum velocities and I'll only run them with a powder that contains an anti-copper fouling agent, which helps a little.

I believe it's the same issue as the Berger "hunting" bullets where the jackets are a bit thin and the bullets get warped a bit when you really get on them. Extreme cases will cause full jacket failure... I've also had the issue with the Barnes matchburner bullets...
Often backing the load off a bunch or switching to a smaller chambering cures the issue, but when you are swinging a big stick, you may have to go with another pill to realize your rifle's full potential.

As far as copper issues- I usually use Alliant powder so I don't have some of the issues some have with coppering, but I'll watch for it in my creed as I'm working with h4350 there.

 

[Rich Coyle]

One other thing I don't recall seeing mentioned is action screw torque. I've had the action screws loosen up over time and start giving odd results. I now use red locktite on them and torque to around 50 inch pounds so that I don't have to worry about it happening on a trip. Also, when I first got my 300 rum it seems I shot near half the barrel life out of it looking for that perfect load until I finally concentrated on my form. Consistency in how you hold the rifle shot to shot has almost as much to do with a good group out of a higher recoiling round as powder and seating depth in my personal opinion. My smaller chamberings seem to be much more forgiving in that aspect. Just my $.02 and good luck.

I have a friend who has won in some state shooting competition. He had a .338 RUM built. Regularly he got 1 1/2" groups at 100 yards so I suggested he install a brake. From then on he fired 1/2" groups at the same range. So even when everything is good, but are not controlling recoil things can and do go south.

 

[couesaddict]

I believe my biggest problem was trying to shoot off of a makeshift bench and cheap bags. In the sitting position the rifle was much less consistent. I finally went to the ground with a bipod and rear bag, concentrating on keeping my body in a straight line behind the rifle and the fliers went away. Groups shrunk by at least 100%. Now my 204 and 223's and even the old 25-06 don't really seem to care one way or another, just the bigger boomers. Not saying that's what's going on here, I just didn't find a whole lot of info on this sort of situation when I was having issues so I thought I'd put it out there. Good luck with the bedding job and I hope you get it figured out.

 

[Joefrazell]

I believe my biggest problem was trying to shoot off of a makeshift bench and cheap bags. In the sitting position the rifle was much less consistent. I finally went to the ground with a bipod and rear bag, concentrating on keeping my body in a straight line behind the rifle and the fliers went away. Groups shrunk by at least 100%. Now my 204 and 223's and even the old 25-06 don't really seem to care one way or another, just the bigger boomers. Not saying that's what's going on here, I just didn't find a whole lot of info on this sort of situation when I was having issues so I thought I'd put it out there. Good luck with the bedding job and I hope you get it figured out.

Thanks alot for sharing I appreciate it alot. I'm sending the sendero vack to remington for evaluating the stock. Not gunna trim and bed anything and void my Warranty. I can see where part of the trigger group is hitting the stock and looms to be binding it which would explain why I keep getting groups that wanna go into 2 holes. Also, the gun is leaving a few burr marks on the cartridges that they wanna look at. We will see how remington does.

As for the shooting positions yeah I like being prone. I don't shoot off a bipod until I get a good load though. I just use a rest. I've also tried shooting off of a bench and hate wobbly benches lol. My deer hunting group of guys gets together once a year and shoots at a range that has solid benches. Thats not bad but i feel I'm just as accurate or more prone. Thanks again to all