I've had this k98 based sporter for a few years now and some of you would've seen it in it's various stages of development. It first came to me with it's original military laminated stock shorted at the foreend and the military bbl pitted and well used. I had the bolt handle bent and a scope mount fitted, the bbl cut back and recrowned and the barrelled action 'blasted and powdercoated but it still looked horrible and the stock was disintegrating inside.
So first I bought a Choate sporter stock for it and then I sent it to Keith Bridgeman at Sprinter Arms in South Australia. He fitted one of his heavy sporter 26" stainless bbls to it, bead blasted and heavy blued the action, corrected the bent bolt handle so any scope would fit, fitted a Timney Sportsman trigger and bedded the action and bbl in the stock. A considerable sum later and it came home looking like this:
That meant a whole re-development of loads.....well, actually it meant the opportunity to actually properly develop them in the first place. The old stock which had shifted constantly due to the oil that was soaked into the bedding area made it shoot shotgun patterns and I finally had a chance to find a good load. The most useful load ended up being 49gr of AR2206H (H4895) behind a 150gr Sierra Spitzer. It put 3 shots around an inch @ 100m which was enough for me. That took down 2 goats at almost 200yds.
Then there was the casehead seperation. I hadn't really monitored the cases and the change in chamber caused premature wear. A friend helped me remove it and I went back and tried some other loads I had which I thought were Sierra 175gr pills. They yielded this:
Now, it was at 100m but 5 shots in roughly an inch is pretty impressive. But they were little better in terms of case life. There were signs of splits there too so I went homeand began pulling rounds to check what the loads actually were.
Turns out they were Sierra 150gr Spitzers, my standard load.....except that the load wasn't normal. It was for the most part slightly more. Here's the results of 9 loads pulled:
- 49.3gr
- 49.55gr
- 49.55gr
- 49.55gr
- 49.2gr
- 48.9gr*
- 49.55gr
- 49.45gr
- 49.45gr
No.6 load was not representative because in pulling the bullet they some powder had escaped. But why these were about 0.5gr more was inexplicable. Anyway I loaded them into new Rem brass at a uniform 49.5gr to see how they'd turn out in cases not in danger of seperating. I also loaded the same charge behind some Hornday 150gr Spitzers to see which was more accurate.
So at the range last Sunday I wheeled them out for a shot. The Sierras, on a warm bbl, printed this:
5 shots under an inch is happy stuff for me. The Hornadys weren't so great:
The first 2 shots pushed their primers out a little and the spread is obvious. I'll be sticking with the Sierras.
I'd also decided to try out some loads using the Woodleigh Weldcore 250gr RNSNs I have. Why do I have them......?? Cause I can, really. They'd take down a buffalo probably. Anyhow, ADI recommended I try starting with 46gr of AR2209 powder (H4350) and go up carefully. They also cautioned me about compressed loads because the 250gr bullets are 1.356" long. That means they have a BC of .403 which is great for an RNSN but it needs to be watched when loading. Anyhow, I went up by 0.5gr with 3 rounds per charge so I could get an initial feel for what worked. Remember, these aren't cheap bullets. The only rub is that anything that weighs that much is going to be unkind to the shoulder. It was.....
But at 47.5gr with a reasonably warm bbl it shot this:
As you can see the group above with a 48gr charge spread again. So lurking around 47.5gr is the perfect load for it. Next visit to the range should show it up. I'll also load some with a 47.2gr load to see if that makes a difference. The 47gr charge produced a smaller group than 48. I'll also try the 49.5gr charge 150gr Sierra load at 200m with a cold bbl to see what it can do further out.
