reloadingthe 25-06

[1911man]

i whipped up some 25-06 rounds yesterday and headed out to the range, i found that the rounds i made useing 41 grains of varget on a 100 grain nosler b-tip shot around 5 inches higher than my remington core lock factory loads.  i also fires 5 rounds with 42 and 43 grains of varget with the same results.  does anyone know why these rounds would be shooting so much higer at 100yrds than the factory loads that i purchased?  any help on this, or tips on reloading for the 25-06 would be great! i plan to hunt white tail with it this fall.  thanks!

[huntswithdogs]

Take 3 different bullets of the same weight and they'll usually all shoot to different places. Powder types also figure in here as do velocity and bullet design. You set your scope to one bullet/powder combo,the play with other stuff til ya find something that shots better reset and start over.

Mine likes Sierra 120gr HPs the best with a near max load of H1000.

HWD 

[iiranger]

With a bullet going down the barrel and 50,000 pounds of pressure behind it, the barrel whips like "a whip..."

NRA did numerous articles on this many years ago. Bottom line then, stocks were all wood, upward pressure between forend and barrel helped to minimize... My gunsmith buddy told me that he would hook a 9 lb weigh (no reason given for the 9 lbs) on the forend while the glass dried, rifle assembled... Figured it gave about 9 lbs up pressure...

Classic case, Brits testing .303 loads had a heavier bullet at a lower velocity striking appro. 12 inches higher than the faster, lighter bullet, same distance. Military barrel was whipping and happened to be "up" when the bullet left the muzzle... !!!

This is a big reason for the "bull barrels." The heavier/stouter barrels don't whip as much... Don't heat as fast either. "more mass" as the physicist would say.

So your goal has to be consistency, so the bullet leaves the muzzle with the barrel at the same point each time. Consistency in load materials helps. Then there are the tuning tricks beyond the up pressure. Some of the old target single shots had the fore end on a separate attachment to the frame, so that it did not touch the barrel... LUCK

[Grumulkin]

I think that where different bullets hit with different loads is an interesting and complex subject; one that unfortunately I don't have all the answers to.

Some of the variables I believe contribute are:

1.  Weight of the gun.
2.  Velocity of the bullet vs amount of recoil.
3.  Bolt action vs semi-auto.
4.  Weight of powder used.
5.  Powder burning speed.
6.  Stock design.
7.  Barrel contour and length.

I have a .22-250 that seems to shoot each particular weight bullet to pretty much the same spot even with wide variations in powder charge.  I believe the reason is that the recoil is fairly mild and the gun has a heavy barrel thus negating recoil factors.  It's also one of those gems that shoots to about the same place with a hot/cold, clean/dirty barrel.

In my .375 H&H Mag., increasing powder the charge raises the point of impact as one would suspect it should.