My 6.5 Sherman rifle and load development thread

[arkrunner]

rich, what kind of neck tension you recommending. Im normally running .002-.003 on my 6 PPC and 6 BR? Do I need more tension on a hunting rifle? I see mention of a .292 bushing in the post. I just assumed he had used the tight neck reamer. Just asking to educate me on the hunting long range rifle. thanks

 

[elkaholic]

rich, what kind of neck tension you recommending. Im normally running .002-.003 on my 6 PPC and 6 BR? Do I need more tension on a hunting rifle? I see mention of a .292 bushing in the post. I just assumed he had used the tight neck reamer. Just asking to educate me on the hunting long range rifle. thanks

I like .002". Sometimes I will run as little as .001", but you risk the bullet moving in the neck......rich

 

[Korhil78]

rich, what kind of neck tension you recommending. Im normally running .002-.003 on my 6 PPC and 6 BR? Do I need more tension on a hunting rifle? I see mention of a .292 bushing in the post. I just assumed he had used the tight neck reamer. Just asking to educate me on the hunting long range rifle. thanks

I was doing .001 but decided to move to .002 for the same reason that Rich mentioned (bullet moving in the case).

 

[arkrunner]

I reread the post found where loaded rounds were .293. Makes things clearer. Thanks for being tolerant of an old fart.

 

[dok7mm]

Tagging in! I finally got all my components rounded up for my 6.5 Sherman build. EH-1, 26" Bartlein 3-B 5R, 3.82" Wyatt box, Hawkins BDL bottom metal, Jewell HVR trigger and Stiller RHLA Tac 300 action. Ready to drop off to smith. Rich sent my dies last week and I have plenty of Norma 280 brass and RL-26. I do have one problem though!!! My smith will chamber and thread for brake and then send it off to be nitrided AFTER he does break-in. Setting up the brass for fire forming is pretty straight forward, but I won't have access to measure the chamber for CBTO for the 140 Amaxs I plan to load for break-in, prior to nitriding. I was hoping Korhil or another 6.5 Sherman owner running the .297 neck w/.235 freebore, could share their CBTO & jump with 140 Amax, 140 berger vld or even a 140 Accubond. Thanks for a really good thread Korhil78.

 

[Korhil78]

Tagging in! I finally got all my components rounded up for my 6.5 Sherman build. EH-1, 26" Bartlein 3-B 5R, 3.82" Wyatt box, Hawkins BDL bottom metal, Jewell HVR trigger and Stiller RHLA Tac 300 action. Ready to drop off to smith. Rich sent my dies last week and I have plenty of Norma 280 brass and RL-26. I do have one problem though!!! My smith will chamber and thread for brake and then send it off to be nitrided AFTER he does break-in. Setting up the brass for fire forming is pretty straight forward, but I won't have access to measure the chamber for CBTO for the 140 Amaxs I plan to load for break-in, prior to nitriding. I was hoping Korhil or another 6.5 Sherman owner running the .297 neck w/.235 freebore, could share their CBTO & jump with 140 Amax, 140 berger vld or even a 140 Accubond. Thanks for a really good thread Korhil78.

dok7mm,

My CBTO (using the Hornady comparator) is 2.913 with the Hornady 143 ELD-X and it liked .020 off and .005 off. Sorry, I have not tested any other bullets as of yet because I plan on using the ELD-X.

 

[dok7mm]

dok7mm,

My CBTO (using the Hornady comparator) is 2.913 with the Hornady 143 ELD-X and it liked .020 off and .005 off. Sorry, I have not tested any other bullets as of yet because I plan on using the ELD-X.

Yeah, I traded away all my 143s and 175s in eld-x models. Sorting the 143 was making me crazy. Others are having good luck. Hopefully tolerances will get tighter in future. Maybe someone else will chime in. Thanks anyway.

 

[Korhil78]

Went out today and did some load testing at 300 yards with RL26 and the 143 gr ELD-X. I was testing .005 off the lands this time. Started at 61 gr of RL26 and went to 63 gr in half grain increments.

61 gr group measured 1.1"

61.5 measured 2.4"

62 gr measured .958"

62.5 gr measured 3.5" (I think I may have pulled one)

63 gr measured 2.2"

The 62 gr load had very little vertical which I am glad of. The 63 gr load that I had shot the other day at .020 off the lands looks almost identical to this load that I shot at .005 off today. I am going to take the two loads and shoot them at 600 yards and see how they do for my final test.

Here is the picture of the 62 gr of RL26 at .005 off.


The very low vertical dispersion is leading me to believe that the ES is going to be very low on these two different loads. I will test it with my magneto speed here soon.

I was chatting with dok7mm the other day and he was telling me about how he wants to do his brass prep. Very good ideas that he passed on to me. It's good talking with other people about this cartridge and learning new things. I will see how the ES is on these two loads and the longrange groupings. If it is not good enough for me then I will move to neck turning and sorting these bullets. If it is grouping really well and the ES is low then I will not mess with it. I think these two loads are gonna be keepers though. I am happy with 1/3 MOA if it shows repeatability

 

[dok7mm]

Korhil, it looks like you are nearly finished with your work and now you get to do the fun part. Rich put me on to the RL-26, going on a year ago. I thought to try it in my .280, but had such a good load with IMR-7828, I didn't. I finally tried it in a 7RM with 162 and 168s and quickly fell in love with it. I'm glad I got 16#, now that you, Rich and others are having so much success with it in the 6.5 Sherman. I have a 4 month wait for mine, so I'll have to depend on fine threads like yours to keep me informed. I have followed your two threads on the 6.5 from the beginning, as I was looking to build a .264 WinMag. Rich kept whispering in my ear about the 6.5 SS, but after some hesitation, I decided to take the LA option and can't wait to get it in my hands. Thanks for your kind words and your help. By the way, while doing a thorough cleaning and reorganization of my reloading room, I found 1/2 box of 143 eld-x bullets I didn't trade, so I'm good to go using your seating depths for barrel break-in and fire forming. I would like to know if you noticed any difference in your base to datum length from fire forming vs same on 2nd or 3rd firing ? Also, have you had to trim cases with multiple firings? Keep up the good work and good shooting.

 

[Korhil78]

There was virtually no change in base to datum length after my fireform loads to now. The 57gr of H1000 did the trick for me on fireforming. Most all of my 280 cases shrunk to around 2.515 when fireformed. Some shrunk a little more than that. There is very little case growth so far. Maybe .001". I don't foresee having to trim my cases for a little while. I have now fired 100 rounds through the rifle including the fireforming rounds. I only fireform 50 cases at a time and will use those 50 cases until they go bad. I don't foresee going to my other 50 cases for a long time.

Just for anyone's information, I have a L.E. Wilson trimmer. I tried the 30-06 holder for it and it will not work. Gonna have to give L.E. Wilson a call and see if they can have one made. I thought the 30-06 case holder would work but the body of the 6.5 Sherman case is a little larger in diameter.

I am out of the game for a little bit though. My Whidden micrometer seating die was catching on the bullet somewhere in the die after I would start to lower the ram. I thought that I had fixed the problem but it turns out that I didn't! Because of this, it would leave a smudge on the side of the bullet by the ogive and would give me bad seating depth variances. So I am sending it back to Whidden. They were very nice over the phone. Very good customer service.

 

[dok7mm]

I have already checked with Wilson, and they said send 3 fired cases & $30 bucks, no problem.

 

[jb1023]

Great thread. I'm considering this as my next, actually first, build that I am acquiring parts for now. Still early enough that I am not locked into a specific caliber. Waiting on my newly purchased gently used Savage 110 30-06 w/accutrigger, that I will use the action from, to show up. Have a smith/barrel maker lined up. Now the cartridge debate really heats up. Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack.

 

[reeldawg]

I had tried RL 26 a while back and hadn't had a chance to chrono are shoot it at distance.

I shot it out to 700 yards. It shot better than .5 moa with 3242 fps. This was 62.0 RL26 and a 140 Burger Vld

 

[.284]

Great thread, thanks for taking the time.

Couple questions if I could.
Is the extended Wyatt box required in a rem 700 and has anyone gathered actual pressure information or quick load info?

Thanks