6mm target bullets for 10 twist

[Offroad Gary]

I'm looking for some target bullets suitable for a 6mm (.243 winchester) 20" long 10 twist barrel. Want to try shooting it out to 500y. I've seen on the Berger site they suggest some bullets as suitable for 10 twist barrels, anyone got any other suggestions?

[furrybean]

I used the Berger 90gr BT well in my .243

[1971silversurfer]

Lapua 90 Scenar are fab in my Howa 24" Varmint combined with RL15

[Laurie]

You're extremely limited, The only true match bullet that is really fully stabilised is the 70gn Sierra MK, a low BC short-range bullet. Lapua does a 90gn FMJBT and Sierra used to do one too, don't know if they still make it, but both are are in the right ballpark.

 

Berger lists some high-BC flat-base bullets in match and varmint ranges, but the heavier match models have been like hen's teeth here for many years. If you can find any, the 88gn HBC-FB works fine. (It has an aggressive VLD secant form nose shape though and the usual VLD 'issues' apply on getting the jump right.)

 

The 87gn Berger VLD was developed for 1-10" twists, but that was back in the days when a 1.40 Sg was reckoned good enough. It just provides this in a 10-inch twist barrel at 3,000 fps, but more recent thinking is 1.50 and above Sg are optimal. It would group OK in a 10" twist, but you'd lose a little bit of its listed BC value. More to the point though for many people, it's a dual-purpose bullet - game and paper - and comes in the orange box falling foul of our law on expanding bullets.

 

The 90gn Berger Target BT is in the same ballistics boat as the 87gn VLD with an Sg ~1.4 so would work with a small BC loss.

 

The 90gn Scenar is a longer bullet than the 87/90 Bergers so needs a faster spin rate and rifling twist pitch. It's Sg is ~1.15 at 2,800 / 2,900 fps. In practice, it'd likely group OK but it's getting very much into the marginal stabilisation zone and would see a large BC reduction.

 

The old 85/87gn HPBTs are ballistically the ideal bullets for an out of the box 243 Win with 10-inch twist and I used to shoot Sierra and Hornady models out to 600 yards quite successfully many years back, but the idiot law applies here again.

[froggy]

Gary

 

I was put onto a load developed by Rabbit Fingers for my .243 Steyr Mannlicher Pro Hunter which has a 20 barrel and is 10 twist. Using as Laurie suggested, 87 grain V-Max pushed by 42.4 grains of Reloader 17. This combo will bust standard clays at 500 yards if the wind is kind.

Not sure of the exact MV but with a 100 yard zero it needed exactly 8 minutes of elevation, handy as I used a Nightforce scope with the NP2DD ret which on X 22 power was exactly the bottom dot.

 

The only downer was that Rabbit Fingers called it a Manlicker which hurt!!!!!

 

Cheers

froggy (mans man)

[Offroad Gary]

Spanking new blaser saddlemount arrived today (dam expensive now, but worth it), 32 power nxs is going to sit atop the blaser .243 for a bit of summer fun. Now to develop a load..