New Favorite Whitetail Rig

[kenscot]

After long hard search and plenty of very good  advice from these forums I have my new favorite deer rifle a  lefty Browning Micro Hunter in
7mm-08 I topped it with a Leupold vari x2 3x9 and replaced the trigger spring with a timney spring so that it breaks consistently at 2lbs 12oz. At 6lbs 4 oz. with a short 20' barrel is a joy to carry. I fired a couple of boxes of factory ammo which hovered around the an inch. Okay, pretty good for such a light rifle
Decided to try a few handloads, some her mentioned trying Varget. I figured that since it was a little faster burning than some of the other powders reccomended it might be a little more efficient in the 20" barrel. Topped with 140 gr. Nosler ballistic tips I fired the three shot group on the right target .34" :-)  I gave the scope 6 clicks to the left one down and fired the group to the left .36"  :-) Search is over! I could not be happier!

[longwinters]

Looks like a keeper to me.  I never had any experience with Brownings but a good buddy of mine just got a Stainless Stalker in 280 and it too is a great shooter.  

Long

[Don Fischer]

Kenscot,

Gonna hate myself for saying this,,,but,,, ya missed the dime!

I had to do that. Remind's me of all the time's someone has looked at one of my 100 yd target's and say's "That's not so hot, ya missed the bullseye.".

Nice group's!!!!!!!!

[beemanbeme]

Oh, is that a dime??  I thought it was a silver dollar. (hee hee)
The only problem with finding the golden grail straight off is, what do you do now?  I don't know how far you will be shooting but since moving to WV, I have shot a few deer using a Hornady Round Nosed bullet, 154gr.  It seems to dynamite deer.  And is good out to 250 yards holding dead on.  Which is a long shot around my place.

[Coalminer7]

beemanbeme,
                     When you shoot those 154 Horandy rn , do you seat
them any deeper than spirepoints?  I use them in a .280 and they knock
the snot out of whitetails.  This Varget power, I just got a can is it good
for short barrels?  I have a Model 7 with a 18.5"  and a 760 in a .308
with a 17.5" barrel.  Muzzle flash on the .308 is pretty bad.

[kenscot]

longwinters,

I had always been a remington guy, this is my third browning 223,30-06 and this 7mm-08 they have all turned out to be less MOA shooters with out alot of effort I may be coming a convert

don,

Yeah I know what ya mean by the missing the bullseye crack these are usually guys shooting at 6" orange dots with holes sprayed all over plus a few off of it and the say "look most of mine are right in there" just makes you shake your head.

beemanbeme,

Golden Grail What to do now? well there is always the pressure of trying to get it to repeat it consistently, or worse yet trying to figure out why ya can't get groups like this out of all my rifles. don't get me wrong I'm more than happy with MOA groups from sporter big game rifles but won't except less.

coalminer7,

Varget was a powder suggested by a few in these forums I use it for my 22-250 so I had it on hand after comparing burn rates and seeing it was faster than the others suggested I figured I might not lose as much velocity in the 20" barrel as I would with the slower powders I even considered H380 which is a little faster but for now I will stick with this until I get a chance to run it over my chrony

[beemanbeme]

Coalminer, I seat them based on the magazine length.  I don't know how far that seats them off the lands but they don't touch.  I do know they are seated longer than the cannelure.  My go to powder is H4895 altho a look at the burn rate of Varget shows its just about the same as H4895.  The thing is, when I started to reload for a 7-08 (back when they were still a wildcat) there wasn't any Varget.  
I have some Varget and if we ever get rid of some of this snow, rain, and #@^&%$ mud, I plan on trying it out.  I'm hoping that it will work in a spread of cartridges , 22-250, .260, 7x57, 7-08, .280, so I can simplify my powder inventory.

[kombi1976]

Good onya, Kenscot.
Nice to see you've got the rig you wanted and it's working for you.
And who says you can't keep playing with loads?  :?
Nobody reloads just to save $$$, use non-factory premium loads and accurize their rifle......it's really so you can play. :mrgreen: