This is a followup range report for the .280 Remington with additional shooting of the .45-120 BC, .22 Hornet and .17Hmr Sportster, all shooting was at 100yds, grid spacing on targets is 1".
I decided to not do the forend bedding until I tried changing forend pressure by making changes to the spacer, I have several spacers, I installed one that was ~.015” thinner which did the trick, groups were more symmetrical with not as much apparent vertical stringing. This time I shot the 140gr CT Ballistic Silvertips with H4350, a near max load produced this group with a velocity right at 2800fps.
I also shot the 555gr Saeco #20 bullets on top of H4895 in the .45-120 BC, best group was with 53gr at a velocity of 1720fps, the high round was the first one, the trigger on the BC is much lighter than the .280 and switching between 4 rifles to let them cool between groups it would surprise me at the first shot just about each time I put it on the bench!!
The bad thing about this load is H4895 is position sensitive, if I didn’t make sure the powder was all the way to the rear of the case, I’d get a hang fire. So I guess I’m gonna have to work with 5744.
I had put a Survivor stock on the Hornet last fall, but haven’t shot it yet to see if I liked it, it’s not bad to shoot, but the rifle just isn’t consistent with it, I got some fairly good groups, but some that weren’t so good, positioning of the front rest was really sensitive and placing in just in front of the trigger guard wasn’t the best place, it had to be about and inch forward of it. So the pallet wood stock is going back on it!! The big holes are from the .45-120, the range was real busy, so I got the most out of my targets without shutting down to replace them!!
The Sportster was fun to shoot during cool off periods, I could shoot about 10-15 rounds before it started to vertical string, shot Hornday 17gr Vmax, Remington 17gr Vmax and Federal 17gr Vmax. The Federal seemed to edge the Remingtons out although when it was cooler in the morning when I first got there, the Rems shot a 3 shot group that were all touching, too bad shots 4 and 5 were uncooperative and didn’t join the group!! The circled bullet hole in the pic below was the POA for the 17hmr group.
To be continued!!
Tim
