VarmLR

Out of interest, have you tried N133 with these bullets?  I get superb results with both 55 and 60gr bullets usign N133 with better velocities than N140.  Similar grouping to the above too.  I load both to 2.24 OAL

That is one nice T3 custom Baldie...lovely job!

8 hours ago, Big Al said:

Heres my two, Safi on the left is now 9yrs old, her daughter Maggie on the right is now 6yrs old. Had it not been for CV-19 Maggie would have been close to having her own litter now and we would have kept a bitch to maintain the family line. 

Lovely dogs Al

Safi is the spitting image of Murphy's dad!   His mum was an all brown cocker, both KC registered.   I had the 5 generations certificate and he's got about 30% field trial champions in his blood, mostly from generations 3 to 5 back and they've been bred from biddable stock without quite the trial stock temperament since then to produce hopefully a balanced temperament.  Murphy's a little sod for tearing up grass, sitting in the flower bed and veg patch, ripping his (expensive!) bed to shreds etc.  I'm not too hard on him at this stage and have started his training.  At 14 weeks he's sitting, lying down (to command) fetching (at least in the garden!) and off the leash in the field, has good call re-call on two pips of the whistle.  He does though have the concentration of a goldfish so any training sessions are short for now, no more than 5 to 10 minutes a day.  Thought he was fully house trained until yesterday when he had a few accidents, but he's still young and will learn.  You can't tire him out though...he wants to keep going all day!

Great shooting!

When  you say that you had to use the "zeroing weather button" do you simply mean that you'd forgotten to enter the weather data for you're initial zeroing session?  I just enter the measured velocity and distance and weather when I zero.  Strelok,  I thought, then adjusted for current weather (ie you zero at 15 degrees, set the MV and then enter current weather and it corrects accordingly).  I may have been using it wrongly though if what you're suggesting is at each session you push the "use zeroing weather" button.  I always update the MV for each session that I have the chrony so that Strelok can set the temperature sensitivity factor.

ELD-M are meant to expand the same as the outgoing A-Max did.  Of those using it, most seem to indicate that it is more reliable than the tougher jakceted ELD-X on small quarry and less messy than the SST in calibres larger than .224

I still use the SSTs in 6.5 but have not yet tried the ELD-Ms which are on my radar.

Bushwear have a sale on their Viking Arms CF rated spinning target using 10mm AR500 steel for the hexagonal targets which measure 6" and 10".  It's currently at half price at just under £50

I bought one to try it as an alternative to a gong and chains (I also get  tired of trudging back and forth every time a D shackle or chain breaks or when the chain jumps off the supports).  I have to say I'm quite impressed with the build.  It's dead sturdy and I've no doubts  it'll be up to 30 cal use.  The weak points are the side legs but if you're missing by that much it's your own fault!  Ricochets may damage them but if that happens, I'll beef mine up with an extra side plate as additional armour.

I plan to leave mine as a 3 section portable affair and use a beefed up shopping trolley with large wheels to transport it and my kit across the fields (bonus is that this trolley has a seat function so a civilised cuppa and seat is possible.   Yes, I am getting old!

Here's a stock photo:

I plan to use the 6 inch target at 400 yds and the 10 inch one at 600.

I use a Prochrony digital. It may not be any better than to 1% but I have used the MV from it to get me smack on target from a 100yd zero at 1000yds, plus the one I have was very close to a magnetospeed tried to see how close they were.  It was within about 20 or 30fps anyway.

Money no object, Labradar would be my choice.

If I bought from new now I reckon it would have to be the Magnetospeed simply as it is more accurate but I remember it being a real faff to set up on mine.  I got lucky with the Prochrony I use as they do vary a bit.

DPT, Wildcat or Aimsonic should all tick boxes for relatively light weight, good suppression, decent build and affordability.

They do indeed 🙂

My issue with the Satterlee isn't that it cannot establish a plateau (given consistency in brass prep) that automatically corresponds to low vertical dispersion/tight grouping.  It needs also to be checked at least for low ES and Sd (although a plateau suggests that these should be low) and then it needs to be checked for vertical dispersion and grouping.  That can only come from shooting groups and that said, 5 shot ocw (not 3) seems the sensible option.  The reality is whatever method is chosen, you can't get away without groups so it may as well be OCW and using the load pressure test ladder as your Satterlee test (and vice-versa)

What seems to have happened in all the excitement of Satterlee promising a 10 shot ladder to get your load is that often low ES and that pressure insensitive region may NOT always align with a point on barrel harmonics of an axial node so the defined mid point of the plateau can still result in scattered groups.  I've experienced this several times when using it.

That's why I use it as a way only to define the flat spots and as a pressure check, then I move on to OCW and include those nodes in the range.  It's the only way you can ensure good groups at distance by using a combination  of those methods.  The 10 shot pressure check is a handy way of defining the OCW range.

17 hours ago, Popsbengo said:

what a great picture!  the look in his eye is excellent

 

Thanks Pops.  We miss him loads..he was a hell of a character!

5 hours ago, Deeredriver said:

My German Shepherd.

An ex police dog (rejected at 12 months for being too big!!) He now has a better life with me on the farm. Great companion who's with me 24/7. 

Super looking dog Deeredriver.

Yes, they either need to be up close and personal or set back 70 thou or more!  Some of the best results I've had with some hybrid designs were at 120 thou jump!

I have to admit that Mark that Satterlee I just haven't found reliable at all, except for one specific 223 load, when it was on the button.  Brass has to be batched by volume, annealed, FL sized, checked for length and loads dispensed to within 0.1 grain, and whilst the shooting technique is removed from variables, it's just not proved anything to me except that plateuas exist but where they exist isn;t necessarily on a barrel axial node.  Despite low ES on some, they haven;t groupe well, and if they won;t group at 100 yds then they won't group further out either.  I trust OCW more as I've had repeatability with that method and every time I've picked an OCW node, it's always worked well at distance.   You have a point on the seating distance though.  I usually load to book OAL recommended in the powder charts, shoot the ladder or OCW, pick the node and take the velocity flat spot, then have a play a little way either side with seating.  With VLDs, I try and get as close to the lands as I consider safe, depending on the chosen load.  If loading hot, then 5 thou is close enough to avoid a jammed round.  I do check all base to ogive measurements for all close to lands loads though to avoid any nasty surprises!

I haven't had the opportunity until recently.  I've been quite seriously ill for many months now and only slowly getting back to the shooting.   I've spent the past few days loading up around 100 223's and 50 6.5's and they won't last that long!

1 hour ago, No i deer said:

Erik Cortina shot a sub 2 inch group with his 284 with 180gr hybrids at 1000yds with an ES of 18fps. 3 bullets were touching so I wouldn't worry too much on you ES. That's fact..!!

I don't worry too much these days tbh which is why I'm re-visiting the 44gr load (it may be an improvement on the first ones though..we'll see).  I shoot OCW loads once at 100 yds, pick a few nodes and try them at 200, irrespective of ES as long as it's within the teens, and as long as they group tight at 200 I use that load.  I was spoiled with the 139/44gr load with an ES of 5 that clover-leafed at 100...just run out of those bullets though and have plenty of 123's left to use up.

1 hour ago, Rob1562 said:

Slovakian Roughhaired Pointer........supposedly best of all contributing breeds.....Weimmie/GRP/Sesky.

Allegedly calm and biddable........Archie not so much, think his mother must have laid on him as pup and starved him of oxygen ! Didn't start to calm down until he was 3 yrs and even then he wasn't that calm.

He is not, and will never be, a peg dog or sit under high seat, he is however fantastically driven and will hunt and track all day long....he loves it !

Regards, Rob.

 

LoL!

He's a lovely looking chap.  We sadly had to part with our fella a few years back and I've been wanting another dog ever since as the family feels incomplete without one, plus I miss the dog when rough shooting and for general companionship when working from home.

This was our old fella:

Having just received the opportunity to shoot on private land and resume some stalking, I thought I'd also take the opportunity to re-do the loads for the 123 Scenar as well as zeroing for my SST hunting loads.

One of the things I hadn't done well previously was get the brass consistent and I think that this resulted in some of the disappointing figures arrived at.

I don't need to redo the whole thing but reckoned on seating the bullet a little deeper in the case (wasn't happy it was deep enough previously) and load to recommended COAL of 71mm/2.795", this allowing more than sufficient seating and allowing room without compressing the load for a full case at 44gr with SRP brass.

Re-visiting my groups, there was definitely a node at 44gr and I'd rejected it as ES was too high at 16.  I'd also mucked up the BC calcs for 1000 yds and was aiming for too high a velocity.  With the data for the actual bullet measurements taken together with claimed BC, I only need between 2700 and 2750fps for the "one load for all ranges" which ties in well with the 44gr load so the new batch has been loaded at 2.975COAL using 44gr of RS62.

I'll re-post when I've had time to test this load. On paper anyway, it stacks up so just need to establish whether 1) it will group well being close o=to a node and 2) whether those ES figures come down.  The longer jump could swing it one of two ways!

Thought there was something missing here...no doggy section!

I'll kick it off with our newish little fella, "Murphy"

I'd normally advise a 100yd zero to take out most of the wind variables (a 10mph full is only an inch at 100yds), or account for them (it's easier to do at that range), then move back to 200, 300 and 400 using the same point of aim and measure the drop to the centre of each group.  That will help tune actual MV off BC (or the other way around depending on which is suspect) as well as sort out things like error from all the things discussed above.  That's usually all I'd do for establishing a zero for long range.  Everyone has their own methods that work for them.  There's an argument that the further out you establish baseline zero, the greater the outside influences which work against establishing it precisely enough, so it's basically take your pick of which you use as long as the reasoning is sound when scrutinised.

Using the method above, I can usually be fairly close to within 6 to perhaps 8 inches of a vee bull at 600 first shot in still conditions, plus or minus a handful of inches anyway.  Last outing before lockdown I got lucky and think first shot was a vee bull...I then went on to ruin things by  jumping just outside of it for the next 2 or 3!

100 yds is fine though for establishing zero.

On 5/21/2020 at 1:53 PM, Popsbengo said:

Don't you think that's a bit risky without understanding the seating depth of those using this solution?

Yes.  

The idea for safety's sake and to make sure that you are safe not just for yourself but also for those who may be shooting next to you is to start low and work up, not start close to max, which can be inviting trouble!

I haven't shot the 155 Scenar but have loads developed for Sierra's 155 MK in both tangent Ogive and Secant Palma using both N140 and RS50.  My experience with this bullet and an 11 twist 24 inch barrel was that 44gr was flattening primers and resulting in the odd stiff bolt lift on really hot days (above 26C) and on warm days at about 24 or 25 degrees was resulting in a fair few flattened primers (CCI200) with the bullets loaded to magazine length (2.800).

I backed off by a full grain to allow for pressure spikes and found an accuracy node at 43.1 grains resulting in similar groups but at 100fps less (2650fps).  At 20 degrees I was getting an average of 2750fps with 44gr N140 and about 2770fps with RS50.  RS50 disn't show as much pressure spiking...it did show some, but it was more predictable....whereas N140 would be "...nothing....nothing....nothing.....KICKI!" .  That's the thing with N140.  If your ammo gets really hot the pressure and velocity spikes massively, not uniformly so loading close to max when load developing can become a fools errand.

Laurie has pointed out over on another forum though that Vhitavouri are releasing updated recipoes for their "N" range of powders to address some of the temperature sensitivity issues, and I'd say better late than never, as it has turned me off N140 as have the price rises.  I can now buy RS50 cheaper so it's a no brainer for now to stick whith RS.

I remain though a huge fan of N133 for 223 hand loading and have no plans to change any time soon.

On 5/19/2020 at 12:44 PM, gazzarM1 said:

note to oneself to read ALL previous posts ...lol

😂

Assuming it's not the scope, and just for argument's sake, it's in any way relevant or worth worrying about (it isn't) :

5mm of error? Who did you bribe to make your loads that good?😉  5mm is well within acceptable error at 100 yds but if you must have it bang to the centre of your group allied to the bullseye, can I ask the obvious by asking "what is your group size as in number of shots to establish it?" as it's equally likely a small group is not relevant enough to draw the conclusion.  3 is statistically irrelevant, 5 is good, 7 is better.  Secondly, are you 100% sure that your ret is actually properly levelled?  If you have that a fraction off true to the perpendicular of the bore axis, there's your 5mm at 100 yds...and more.

Temperature change and pressure change alone can open up and scatter that group axis so you may find that if you went out 5 degrees either side of establishing that you have a "5mm error" it may not exist outside of the limits of your zeroing conditions.

If it's really grating at you perhaps recheck your levels using an accurate spirit level on the picatinny or mount surface for your scope and then check using a plumb line at say 20m that your ret is aligned to the plumb line when your mounting point is bang on level.  If that's off you'll always have error at all ranges.   5mm at 100 yds in still conditions is 2 inches at 1000 yds so well within the Vee-bull so really?  I'd not worry too much.  

On 5/16/2020 at 5:53 PM, gazzarM1 said:

Just a thought....if you are shooting either up or down hill and you know (think inclinometer )or can estimate the angle you can apply the cosine of the angle to the actual distance to target.....the lesser distance resulting in your correction to hit the target.

As an example distance to target 500 yds....shooting at an angle of 30 degrees (cos .87) ....500 x .87 ....435yds.... apply your correction....a hit.

You can carry a card with the formulas already worked out for angles and distances to avoid trying to work out calcs in the field...

See my post on the previous page...😉