Laurie

Re the Savage Model 12s, it seems we no longer have a UK Savage distributor. Edgar Brothers no longer includes Savage in its list of brands and a check with the manufacturer's website doesn't list us as having an importer. I wonder who ditched whom here. Edgars imposed savage (pun intended) price increases on every model in the range over the years they held the franchise, especially the Precision Series models. I wouldn't be surprised if sales volumes slumped as a result. When @The Gun Pimpand I first had dealings with these rifles in competition, also with Stuart Anselm trading as Osprey Rifles back then as a rifle builder specialising in Savages, they were great value, and new M12 actions could also be bought at a budget price for custom builds. I'm still running two Savage based comp rifles that started way back then, and until Dolphin appeared with its Nesika action rifles, the Savage FTR was one of the best and most affordable ways into the sport.

It was with 90gn Berger VLDs Vince. Powder was Alliant Re15. I think I beat Russell by a V in that F-Class League match - a VERY great rarity for me! We were equal at shot 19, but I got a 'V' last shot and he thought he saw a slight wind change, aimed off and leaked into the Five. We were concentrating so hard that neither of us noticed the rubberneckers that had built up behind us and were astonished at the end of the match to get up and find we were nearly crowded off the firing point. Happy days! That barrel and load saw it keep eight or nine shots out of ten in the four and five rings at 1,225 yards at Blair in an informal session at that distance with the US FTR team in June 2012 and performed well in a coached International Scotland v USA FTR match a couple of days later including the third and final 1,100 yard stage. Since those days, 308 Win has progressed enormously though with small primer brass and 200gn bullets whilst 223 has pretty well stagnated, so the mouse gun cartridge's days of long-range FTR competitiveness have long gone. It's very widely used in FTR mid-range in the USA though, and has its long-range proponents there too. You remember the rifle and colour correctly Andy, but that was a 308 FTR rifle with a Barnard 'P' action. It shot very well indeed and I had some good placings with it. Since then, that tube-stock was sold, so it'll still be around on the ranges somewhere. The action is still with me in a Dolphin chassis as a 284 Win F-Open rifle and performs very well despite some 2,200 rounds down the Bartlein barrel. I have a 223 variation for it and a new bolt on order, so it'll become a 223 in due course and we'll use the uber-freebore chamber reamer Vince mentions to shoot 90s again. The 223 FTR rifle in question was (and still is) a 'cheapo' build on a Savage PTA action in a McRees Precision chassis and now sports a full F-Class / Hvy Varmint Bartlein and muzzle tuner putting it into F-Open. (Don't ask!) It's currently shooting very well indeed at 300 yards with 80gn Sierra MKs in a much milder load than Robin's. It features in an ongoing series of handloading articles in Target Shooter re H. VarGet and H4895 post-REACH alternatives. http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3811 http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3856 I'm delighted to see Robin do so well with his 223 Barnard in 300M ISSF, but not surprised. The 223 is a much underrated match cartridge here in the UK.

That rather depends on the cartridge's case capacity to bore ratio, bullet weight and pressure being loaded to. If you assume c. £900 for a new match quality barrel fitted and proofed and barrel accuracy life is 1,000 rounds in a short magnum loaded heavily (not an uncommon life), then each shot costs you 90p in barrel life alone which is pretty significant. However, it makes very little choice to make the outlay to have a competitive long-range F-Class or BR rifle built, then forfeit competitiveness to reduce that cost by even 20% which takes quite a hefty load reduction. Bearing in mind the other costs often involved in high-level shooting - entry fees, travel & accommodation and suchlike, saving barrels might be a very false economy. It's very well worthwhile considering possible barrel life and replacement costs at the time of rifle purchase and in range use though. In the days when most of us shot 308 Win rifles at large target rings by today's standards and some of the Bisley 'Tigers' stretched barrel life on their back-up/practice rifles to 10,000 rounds, rebarreling wasn't a major ever-present concern, but many people are now buying shooting pieces chambered in cartridges with fairly high case capacity to bore area ratios (mainly 6s and 6.5s), loading them up 'hot' and then putting a lot of ammunition downrange rather quickly in a single range-outing, especially on e-targets. The barrel can as a result need replacing a lot quicker than the owner had ever considered. Free society and free choice and I wouldn't presume to criticise people's choices. All I say is to be aware of the factor. (Or then again, stay ignorant and keep our excellent gunsmiths, many of whom are personal friends, in business!)

Ouch! I'd forgotten that issue! I'm using my remaining stocks up in 120/123gn 6.5Grendel handloads for a Howa 1500 'Mini' Oryx rifle. They're ideal for that, likewise 222 Rem and mild 223 Rem loads.

PMC SRs are Murom KVB-223 from a generation back. They are very well made and 'mild', but if they have unplated copper colour cups, they are very fragile and prone to 'blanking'. Depending on your rifle's firing pin and its fit in the bolt-face allied to the load you're using, results will likely either be excellent or unusable.

A problem with Viht data is that the company never seems to ditch any older loads. As it tests new bullets, it simply adds their loads to its existing data. Some older Viht maxima are low by what works in practice, and what other reputable sources quote. That certainly applies to early Viht 308 Win loads, some of which were first published getting on for 40 years ago. I never understood how Viht got to its 155gn Scenar 308 + N140 load at the time, and I don't understand now why that maximum load, or maybe something very close to it, is still being published. Some of today's recently added Viht loads are not at all mild, quite the reverse in fact. The company seems to have woken up to the realities of selling propellants in the world's largest handloading market, the US - high MVs sell products; low ones don't. Publish mild, conservative loads with low MVs by competitors' standards, and many American shooters simply discount them. I occasionally wonder if Viht is in danger of swinging from one extreme to the other with some recent additions. The problem with this situation is that unless you have other yardsticks to add to a single Viht loads combination and make comparisons, the potential inconsistency makes it difficult to know which of the two Viht modes it falls into. Unfortunately, as I said, current American reloading manuals have largely discarded their previous Viht powder loads, in some cases dropped the marque almost entirely, so that source is unavailable. In the absence of maximum load values, MVs become an alternative metric as to whether a shooter's loads are likely to be 'cool', 'hot', or anywhere else on the spectrum. Unless a 'wunder-powder' such as the RS EI grades or Hodgdon Super performance grades is being used, a load's speed becomes a good indicator as to whether it fits into the norm pressure-wise. Pressure creates MV and there's no free lunch here. There are two caveats of course, neither of which we know in this case - the source of the MV quoted as many optical chronographs still in everyday use are unreliable; the rifle barrel length employed as that obviously affects results. With a 24-inch barrel factory rifle, 22-250 55gn bullet MVs that are 'around 3,800 fps' MVs are on the high side (to put it mildly) against nearly all published results in loading manuals. It's not just Nosler, the current Ed VI manual from Sierra (the source of the bullet used by the OP) has only two loads that achieve this MV, and both use 'wunder-powders' (Re17/RS60 and the new Alliant Power-Pro 2000 MR). Hence my curiosity as to where the OP obtained this load from. It may be perfectly 'legit' and within safe and allowable pressures, but there are unanswered questions with the information currently provided. This is a load combination put up on a forum for widespread viewing, so one has to be reasonably satisfied as to its utility and safety. When the quoted charge is ~13% higher than that from the powder factory for a similar bullet and the resulting MV exceeds that of quoted results from equivalent powders from other sources, alarm bells have got to ring.

You do realise Viht's maximum charge of N150 for the nearest equivalent bullets are around 4gn less. Your charge of 36.4gn actually exceeds Viht's max for the 45gn Sierra SP (35.8gn)! This is a charge that might just be suitable for the higher case-capacity 22-250 Ackley Improved version of the cartridge. Where have you got this load from? Also, what brass are you loading? (That used in American manuals' pressure gun tested loads is usually Winchester or one of the other American makes which are more often than not thinner walled and higher capacity than European equivalents, thereby reducing pressures / increasing allowable loads.) Unfortunately, the American manuals have almost entirely dropped Viht powders in their most recent editions (just in time for the Great US Powder Crisis of 2021-23 which has seen Americans scrambling to find and buy this company's grades, Ha! Ha!). Over the years, Nosler has managed to squeeze out some of the highest MVs published, but in the current manual, only one load out of ten just achieves 3,800 fps (from a 24-inch barrel) with 55gn bullets and the powder used, Hodgdon CFE-223, is a much higher energy double-based type. The other nine powders max out at 3,598 to 3,747 fps - and they're warm at that.

The older Hodgdon data were for a single page of cartridges and their specific recommended loads, these cartridges being those most likely to be of interest to American shooters. The current advice is to use Hodgdon's standard H4895 maximum charge for any cartridge where this powder is specified and multiply by 0.6 to get a new starting load, working up from there until good results are achieved. Hodgdon's H4895 loads for the 120gn Nosler Ballistic Tip are starting load 34.0gn and maximum 37.8gn and using the reduced load 0.6 multiplier that drops to a new starting load of 22.7gn. (The 37.8gn load is shown as 46,000 C.U.P. pressure, the lower SAAMI Swedish Mauser max, not the higher CIP SE 55,000 psi.) It may be that the chamber obturation problem proves insurmountable given the cartridge's propensity to suffer it in standard pressure loads, but there's only one way to see ........... When I suffered this problem in slack chamber / long and probably eroded throat surplus military rifles in 6.5X55 and 7X57mm with mild loads of slower burning powders, I often found that changing to a hotter primer cured, or at least alleviated the problem.

If you Google 'H4895 Youth Loads', you'll get a great deal of information. Hodgdon promotes them as taking its listed H4895 maximum charge and multiplying by 0.6 to get a starting point. Long before today's (Thales/ADI manufactured) H4895, the original Dupont Industries IMR-4895 was widely used in reduced loads in USA in the 30-06 and similar using pretty well the same method. As the 'H' version is faster burning, it's actually a bit better suited to the practice. I've done this occasionally in the past. It works fine except that depending on the brass characteristics / primer brisance / case to chamber fit / amount of resizing / whether it's a full moon or not, you may encounter poor case obturation in the chamber and everything in the vicinity is sooted up. If you're going to make a habit of the practice, it's also a good idea to use thin-walled (ie US Winchester/R-P) cases, neck-size them and use them just for the low-pressure loads. (Shoulders can in some cases be bumped back in the firing process and eventually create an 'excess headspace' fit in the chamber which can allegedly be dangerous if a full-pressure load is subsequently used. This is more of an issue with ultra-light loads, and may be more theoretical than real, but the dangers are highlighted by the older experimenters like George C. Nonte Jr who went in for this sort of thing frequently and fired off thousands of light-load fullbore rounds for plinking and small game/varmint shooting.)

For 223 (with RS40 I'm assuming you load bullets around 68-70gn?), you have: Alliant AR-Comp (very pricey!) Alliant Re15 (bit slow burning depending on bullet weight and again pricey), and the now withdrawn (for the second time in my shooting lifetime!) Norma 2023-B (same thing as Re15) if you can find any still in stock and much cheaper than the Alliant alternative. Norma 202 (same comments on availability as 203-B) Lovex S060 (once known as Accurate Arms XMR-2015) another fast burner very close to RS40 in this respect Lovex S062 (use in 223 depends on bullet weight, bit slow burning until 75gn or heavier) Lovex D073.5 and D073.6 ball powders Hodgdon CFE-223 (ball powder) Ramshot Exterminator, TAC, Wild Boar (ball powders) Viht N135 / 140 / 540 (and N133 if lighter bullets than 65gn) A new Winchester 'StaBALL range' ball powder just announced in the US. No loads or applications available yet, but will eventually get here. 'StaBALL Match'. All of the above in 308 with lighter bullets. Add in Viht N150 / 550 with 167/168/175s (and N150 works with 155s too). .300WM I'll let someone else comment.

That must be using Sierra's G1 BCs. The average long-range G7 BC for this bullet is 0.243. Input that at 2,660 in a 'standard ballistic environment' (59-deg F 29.92-inches mercury) and the 1,000 yard retained speed is calculated to be 1,123 fps, ie just subsonic, not 1,247 fps. In practice, with a normal range of MVs and variations between individual bullets' BCs, you get a very poor situation of some bullets super, and others sub-sonic on the target with this outcome which is ruinous to grouping and consistency. (I found this out the hard way 12 or 13 years ago in Year 1 of FTR in the UK shooting this exact combination on the Glen Tilt range at Blair Athol in a match in cold, difficult-headwind conditions despite the range being >1,000 ft ASL.) On ShotMarker and similar e-targets that use the supersonic 'crack' to determine the location of the shot-fall through microphones, many shots wouldn't produce a reading too. (Kongsberg and Intargo designs do work though as they use vibrations in neoprene screens, not sound.) For an occasional 1,000 yard outing, the better 155s are as good as anything in a rifle like this, and moreover suit N140 extremely well. The older 155gn Sierra MK (#2155) is the bullet loaded in the NRA's contract 308 ammo for 'Target Rifle' and continues to perform extremely well at 1,000 (and beyond) even though it'll be subsonic in many rifles. The Berger 155.5gn LRBT is even better, but is an expensive bullet and hard to get hold of most of the time (not that SMKs are in good supply either for that matter).

Excellent feature, John. The cost of that adjustable mount made my eyes water though!

There is also Lovex D0-60 which is a speciality powder like Trail Boss and Tin Star that has very wide reduced load applications. It was originally designed for use across the entire range of large 19th century straight-wall BPCR cartridges at original pressures, but with no compression or airspace fillers/wads required as it burns consistently at low case fill-ratios. It also works in modern high-pressure rifle cartridges in low-pressure, low fill-ratio reduced loads. The US distributor Shooters World quotes as an example: The standard test load for this propellant is .30-06 Springfield, a 168 grain bullet, and ONLY 22 grains of propellant. This loading density is less than 50%! Yet this propellant burns extremely well in this condition. Shooters World calls it 'Buffalo Rifle', although I've seen a comment that it has apparently been renamed 'Cowboy' in some parts of the company's website. https://shootersworldpowder.com/buffalo-rifle/ For handloaders who've been around for a few (!) years, this grade used to be sold here as Accurate Arms XMP-5744.

Reloading UK put emails out a few weeks back of deliveries of both powders being due and advised immediate ordering due to likely demand. Its website now shows them out of stock again, but as "estimated in stock 23.01.2023". https://www.reloading.co.uk/powder?p=13 Pricey compared to Viht powders though!

H4895 / VarGet alternatives Part 3 (4 x Viht v VarGet) is written. I'll do some pics and scans this week and get the piece off to The Gun Pimp (Vince) who is editor / compiler. H4895 alternatives follow as all range-testing has been completed, also some eight powders in two parts. I've still to load and test the seven or eight Reach-compliant ball-type powders that are available here, a job for this autumn.

The Rt/R factor ratio of 0.96 as measured by Litz and seen in the top section of the pic in the previous post is a nearly perfect tangent form. (Rt/R is a numerical description of the ogive to shank junction form: 1.0 = true tangent; 0.5 is the original Knox/Berger VLD aggressive secant form and you can have anything in between leaning one way of the other.) The TMK version of the 77gn is identical to that of its elderly 77gn MK version bar a fancy coloured tip, tiny BC improvement and additional tenner / 100 on the price. As the original MK was designed to operate at magazine length (2.25-2.26") in the Colt AR-15 HBar civilian match rifle with a chamber that produces c.2.5" COALs for such bullets when seated to just short of the lands with excellent precision, it can fairly be described as one of the most jump-tolerant bullets ever designed, and is moreover capable of superb precision in the right rifle and barrel. The use of such a chamber on an aftermarket barrel suggests it was produced with a so-called '5.56 NATO' chamber in line with that adopted by Colt for its HBar model. The problem with such chambers is that there are as many takes on them as there are suppliers / machine-shops and many are frankly designed to take 62gn 5.56X45mm military spec ammo and make it reliably go bang in semi-auto AR-15s in the US market with 1-2 MOA or so precision being acceptable. One of the main differences between a true NATO chamber and civilian match versions is in the throat section's diameter. Today's match chambers have throats barely large enough for bullets to pass through whilst the military version is decidedly 'slack' by comparison which improves reliability in combat conditions but degrades precision. If grouping isn't good enough (and I for one am confused by the original post as what standards are actually being achieved by the rifle), fiddling around with COALs might improve things, but given the bullet's inherent vast tolerance in this respect, would suggest that playing with COALs is more likely to simply burn powder and waste barrel life. This matter of 223/5.56 chambers is quite confusing and difficult to tease out although there is a lot available online. This feature https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/5-56-vs-223/ has some good insights and note the chamber reamer dimensions table. It shows true 5.56 chambers have around 0.0025" bullet clearance in the throat ('freebore') over a nominal 0.224" dia bullet whilst true match chambers are nil or virtually so. Having said all that, there can be 50 different reasons why a rifle isn't performing as well as expected. I'm only cautioning that with this bullet, COAL / seating depth is an unlikely cause, and the allowable near 2.6" COAL suggests an extremely strange chamber has been provided as this is considerably longer than the commonly used Wylde match form would allow for instance.

They are superbly made bullets and do shoot very well in most barrels. Sadly though, considering they are a much more recent design, they are to all intents and purposes ballistically identical to the previous generation 175gn SMK. Bryan Litz gives them average G7 BCs of 0.243 and 0.247, so close that the difference could be accounted for in his test methodology accuracy parameters. Altcar based Team 101RC, largely if not entirely comprising GB FTR team members, received Lapua sponsorship some years ago in the form of help with Lapua / Viht components and used this bullet extensively. My understanding speaking to one of the team is that performance was superb up to 800 yards, started to maybe just falter at 900 and, up against those shooting Bergers, were uncompetitive at 1,000 yards. That was in full FTR spec rifles with 30-inch or longer barrels and what would be muscular loads in small primer brass, so the 26-inch barrel AI would suffer beyond 800 maximum with the combination. Which I exactly what I found with the 175 SMK in a shorter-barrel rifle ten or so years ago. At that time, pre-185 Juggernaut, the best available option was the 190gn Sierra MK with a stiff load of Viht N550. Sadly, given today's supply situation, we may not have moved on far from that option. And yes, before anyone queries it, the 190 SMK and 185 Juggernaut both shoot very well in 12-inch twists, even though they're theoretically marginally under-rotated according to the current more demanding stabilisation criteria.

@Leemanis quite correct in this. Proof House and handloading manual tested data only have validity for an 'industry standard' chamber and barrel internal dimensions, ie SAAMI specs in the case of 308 Win and 223 Rem, or their CIP equivalents for our and continental European proof houses. To take the two cartridges, GB 'Target Rifle' shooters generally don't use SAAMI barrel specs as they prefer 'tight' barrels. ie whilst SAAMI specifies 0.300" bore (land) diameter and 0.3080" groove diameter, they run something like 0.298/0.3075" which increases pressures - hence the NRA specced RWS ammo ballsup which conformed to CIP pressures in a standard barrel when retested, but nevertheless produced blown primers and other serious pressure issues in competitors' rifles. However, when we get to chambers throats and leades, this is where things become seriously con-compliant. I don't know what the latest GB norm is for 308 Win 'TR' use, but do know it was lengthened for US competitors and a few here who chose the later 155gn Sierra MK model #2156, the current Sierra 'Palma'. But then ........ what 'Match Rifle' and F/TR competitors' 308 chambers have is in a different league entirely. They have heavily extended throats, increased 'freebore' to suit 200-230gn bullets seated shallow. Present the proof house with such a cartridge and they'll reject it as being so 'out of spec' that it (literally) won't chamber in an industry compliant chamber on the pressure barrel. 223 is the same, if not more so. SAAMI 223-Rem 'freebore' is a mere 0.025" and the leade has a 3-deg angle. The commonly used Wylde Service Rifle match chamber version is 60 odd thou' length and the commonly used PT&G 'ISSF' match chamber for F/TR etc with 80-90gn bullets is 0.169" nominal, seven times that of SAAMI. Other custom chambers run to 200 thou', or even more, for 90-95gn bullets. (Not that many if any factory rifles come anywhere near conforming to SAAMI in this respect either!) All match 223 chambers employ a 1.5-deg angle leade that both lengthens it and makes the bullet transition into the full rifling much easier. These changes drop pressures substantially, and see higher charges used safely. Even the manuals incorporate some of these modifications. Lyman, Vihtavuori (online), and Sierra to name three sources quote a COAL of 2.550" for the 80gn Sierra MK as opposed to the standard 2.26" maximum. You try chambering that in a tight chambered standard 223, even a Wylde or 5.56 Nato chambered rifle and into it, it will not go! I go into this in [painful] depth for 223 here: http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3741 As soon as you have a custom built rifle made for most types of competition in whatever cartridge, you're very likely to be outside of industry 'spec', and any cartridge handloaded to suit that chamber is in practice, strictly speaking, a 'wildcat'.

You can wear a barrel out in short order with nearly any powder. There are a handful of known 'cool burners' around such as Hodgdon H1000 and more use to us, Viht N165, but most grades are close to 4,000 J/g energy these days whether single or double based. Load these up to absolute max pressures and barrel life is reduced, fact of life. The trend in recent years, factory as well as handloading, has been ever-higher performance. This always has a cost. The only reliable way to obtain very long barrel life is to choose a low expansion ratio design in the first place, load it mild, then shoot very slowly to keep throat area heating down. Few people really want to shoot .30-30WCF on Stickledown though! Peak pressure really is key in this. Most people load 6.5X55mm mild for instance, and in this form it gives a far longer barrel life than 260 Rem or 6.5mm Creedmoor despite their having a lower expansion ratio value. Go to a smaller case design, eg 6.5mm Grendel, running at maximum 55,000 psi and many will never wear the barrel out. (US 6.5G AR-15 shooters report 9-10,000 round barrel life - and I bet they don't shoot slowly in that platform with the gas-operation working!) You often pay dearly for that last 100 fps, even sometimes 50 fps MV in Creedmoor / 308 Win size cased designs. Conversely, many people knowingly choose the high performance / reduced barrel life route for perfectly sensible reasons in their situations. Others want to have their cake and eat it - and that's not an option! Kept to sensible pressures in a suitable application, N555 should give perfectly acceptable barrel life, likely 'good' life IMO. Alliant Re16 by contrast is a hot number that like the RS 'EI' powders gives very high MVs at peak loadings. No free lunches! Sometimes the hotter Viht N500s perform well at lower than normal pressures. I have a 223 Rem N550 short-range match load with 77s that sees 2,931 fps from a 30-inch barrel. If QuickLOAD is correct, this is achieved at only 47,000 psi. In theory, that load should see better barrel life than N135 or N140 at the same MVs. This combination so far seems stable - the usual problem with such mixes is inconsistent performance as such powders often need higher pressures be in their comfort zones. On small primer / small flash-hole brass, there is a school of thought that says that it only works well up to 6.5X47L cases and charge weights. I would have disputed that at one time, now I'm not so sure. Certainly, large primer works with every powder; small primer also maybe so, but then again maybe not. SP has an overriding plus for many that they can serially 'load hot' and get away with it. I have a strong suspicion that if some people were to learn their actual chamber pressures, they might get a nasty shock. Increasingly, I reckon LP is better in this respect - if your load blows a primer, then that tells you something obvious that only a fool will ignore. More subtly, if you get four or five LP case loadings from a strong make like Lapua and your primer pockets loosen, you know you're running close to comfortable limits and can stick there or drop to the node below. SP tells you nothing until you hit proof pressures plus!

Nowhere near. N165 is considerably slower burning. You'd not get enough into a Creedmoor case to achieve sufficient pressure for a consistent burn. All of the UK available Reach-compliant powders in the H4350 class (the original and many across the pond still believe the best propellant for this cartridge) are in those three articles I put the links up for. (Note that since then, RUAG Ammotec UK has withdrawn the two Norma contenders, URP and N204.)

Have a look at this series which explores Reach-compliant alternatives to H4350, all of which are in your frame: http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3624 http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3657 http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3683 I'd recommend Viht N555. Although an N500 series powder, it has a very low 'heat of explosion' rating, lower than two or three N100s in fact. Viht says it developed this grade specifically for the 6.5mm Creedmoor. If you're adamantly set against any nitroglycerin in the mix, then consider N160 or Lovex S065. (In fact, if you're adamantly set against any nitroglycerin in the mix, you may have problems. Every new powder developed and introduced in recent years is double-based.) N150 and N550 are considerably faster burning than N555/N160/N560, RS62, Alliant Re16, the 4350s etc.

Yes, where needed for F/TR and as a matter of course for most F-Open competitors. Arrangements are laid on in advance as part of planning these fixtures.

Oh no, some people have hit or even exceeded 3,100 fps with the 155.5gn Berger - never with N135 though. With a long enough barrel, a suitably throated chamber, the very strong Lapua small primer 'Palma' brass and suitable doses of a small number of powders, this is not only feasible but perfectly safe. This is not confined to the UK alone as top F/TR competitors worldwide load to over 3,050 fps with this bullet weight, many of them shooting in much higher temperatures too than we'd ever see here. This not a phenomenon restricted to this discipline either, or even originating in it, as the much longer standing 'Match Rifle' has seen some astonishing 308 Win MVs for decades with heavy bullets as a result of enormous amounts of experimentation and innovation ever since the discipline switched from 'any calibre' to 308 Win-only sometime towards the end of the last century. In the early days of F/TR, some competitors were either MR shooters who moved across into it or who had access to MR gurus and sought out tips on achieving stellar velocities. As to whether another 50 or 100 fps makes a difference to scores, that's a difficult one to answer. It probably doesn't to me as my wind reading is nowhere up to the standards of Russell Simmonds and some of the other top people. On the way back from the F-Class 'Worlds' at Raton in 2013, I listened in to an interesting conversation in a Denver Airport bar between Russell and Robin (?) Kent one of our two team wind coaches and a World-class GB 'Target Rifle' team shooter and coach for many years. The latter said that he altered his windage values for Russell with his exceptional MVs even compared to the rest of the team. (A team decision had been made for everyone to shoot the 155.5 Berger - a mistake in hindsight as the conditions were such that the 185gn Berger Juggernaut was clearly superior over any 155, and since those days, the Berger 200gn 200.20X model has become the universal F/TR bullet choice for this level of shooting.) When you get to that level of skill in rifle gunsmithing, handloading, shooting, and wind-reading, here was a man who knows more about how much to change the windage knob than I ever would who says it does make a difference, and does offer a benefit. I'm certainly not going to dispute the issue with anyone with his skills and experience. After 10 days of shooting, first in the US F-Class Nationals, then the FCWC, aggregate scores amounted to several hundreds in both events shot at 800, 900, and 1,000 yards. An extra 50 fps might increase an individual aggregate by a single point, more likely a low single figure number, for a few super-shooters, but one point averaged 9 places in the results listings at that level of super-hot competition. It didn't do Russell any harm as he finished runner-up individual F/TR World Champion despite the bullet handicap, and GB F/TR took Bronze in the team matches. On MVs being used over that fortnight, Raton's August temperatures hitting the high 90s had their effect. My UK 3,050 fps MV with the now banned IMR-8208XBR rose to exactly 3,100 fps according to a borrowed MagnetoSpeed. Interestingly, that powder charge remained the 'sweet spot' despite the MV increase, and fortunately there were no pressure indications at all. In fact a set of new 'Palma' cases were fired twice under these conditions and went on to reach double-figure loadings and firings in subsequent UK use at c.3,050 fps (reducing to 3,027 fps over the last few hundred rounds due to barrel wear), and remain perfectly usable today. Standard large primer cases of any make are unsuitable for such loads / pressures - if nothing else, they have to be junked after a small number of firings as case heads and hence primer pockets expand. Nothing in ballistics comes free though. The price is barrel wear with F/TR barrels having very much shorter lives than those on 'TR' rifles firing the standard 155gn SMK NRA ammo at a bit over 2,900 fps. My 3,050 fps load gave a life of around 3,000 rounds on a Bartlein 'Heavy Palma' profile tube; the people shooting the really warm loads see considerably less.

But not with N135 which is the canister version of Viht's off the shelf bulk powder optimised for the 7.62 NATO cartridge for military orders that require compliance with the appropriate military performance / pressure specs. That varies rather from F/TR practice especially as the specified NATO bullet weight is 144-147gn IIRC, and the case is much heavier / lower capacity. It isn't an optimal choice for the long-distance 308 Win competitor with the 155.5gn Berger LRBT or similar designs. That's not a criticism of N135 or anyone who chooses it, just a reflection that one might try to achieve over 3,100 fps with the 308 with N135, but if successful - even in a 32-inch barrel - it will likely be a highly hazardous achievement.

Well, what is 'book'? Look at enough 'books' (including manufacturers' websites) these days and you'll see some surprisingly large variations in maximum loads. I touch on that in exploring Reach-compliant alternatives to H. VarGet and H4895 here in the many variables that particularly affect maximum safe loads in 223 Rem with the 77gn Sierra MK which I'm using as the range-test vehicle. See here: http://www.targetshooter.co.uk/?p=3741 Five published sources are quoted that show a near 3gn difference for H. VarGet and the 77gn SMK, a staggering difference in this cartridge and we can't blame this on major component changes as US sources use similar capacity R-P brass. All of these are allegedly tested in a SAAMI-spec 223 test barrel with the standard SAAMI-compliant 223 Rem chamber and its mere 25 thou' freebore. I'm not going to comment on what F/TR competitors do or don't do with their loads (aside from note the fact that precious few load 155gn bullets these days ............. and also to note that the one serious over-pressure 308 match ammunition issue that has turned up at Bisley in recent years was with the NRA specified, contracted, and issued 308 Win ammo loaded by RUAG Ammotec under its RWS label), but those in other disciplines need to pause before they become too critical. Do CSR competitors whose ARs normally use non SAAMI-compliant 223 Wylde or other form chambers stick to 'book max' with 69gn and heavier bullets for instance? Do they load 80s to a maximum COAL of 2.323" and up to 2.551" or stick to SAAMI Max of 2.26"? ........... or some four intermediate points quoted in Viht's loads data alone for the cartridge, all of which affect its usability, its maximum load, and in at least one case requires a radically non-SAAMI chamber form (2.551" for the 80gn SMK which even the longer freebore Wylde can't safely accept, and SAAMI not in 1,000 years!) I wish I had £1 for every person who has told me that Viht maxima are way under safe limits and can be ignored. That stems from 308 Win loads for a couple of 155s dating back to the dawn of the company's involvement in handloading products, and have never been updated. They are exceptionally mild and I've often wondered how Viht got there - heavier 7.62 brass and a tight NATO 7.62 spec barrel I usually reckon. Today's Viht maximum loads are anything but mild. If you follow my wanderings in trying VarGet / H4895 alternatives in the 223, you'll see that with at least one Viht maximum (of the five grades tried from this marque), I have concerns about its safety and I've come across other Viht loads for other cartridges right on safe limits. So loading manuals' data-sets are guides, not non-negotiable instructions and directives on tablets delivered by some modern day Moses direct from God. Some may be underloaded for your components and rifle; some may be very hot indeed, even over-pressure. They all require good loading practices involving working loads up, use of a reliable chronograph if seeking warm to 'hot' performance, and being able to recognise over-pressure signs in their various forms. They also require a willingness to take suspect rounds home and the ownership / use of a bullet-puller, not an attitude that says 'I'll just get rid of them by shooting them off; they can't be too dangerous". How that fits into any form of certification / written statements and declarations ................ ???