Reloading & Rifle Lessons Learned The Hard Way
The Good & Bad By Jeremy Rodgers
Let's make it very clear that I am not a novice at reloading, but I am also definitely not an expert. I am somewhere in between having loaded and fired 4,000 to 5,000 centerfire rounds. I'm proud to have made good hunting loads that shot 1/2" to 3/4" groups consistantly. And I've had bad loads when I forgot the powder in shells so they didn't fire and other bad shells that were so overcharged that they overexpanded the brass and jambed in the gun. You turn a few heads at the range when you use a block of wood to beat the bolt out of the gun. I've had bad loads that were loaded so light that I could hear and feel the firing pin click before the charge went off. What I remember the most are the great days where I felt on top of the world by shooting 3" groups at 300 yards or 4" groups at 400 yards using nothing but my bipod and a backpack for a rest.
Magnum Pounding By Jeremy Rodgers
After shooting a 30-06 for years and seeing all the new magnums on the market I decided I was undergunned and I needed to purchase one magnum that could kill anything in North America. I saved for a couple years and bought an Ultralight 300 Weatherby mag with a Nikon 3x9. The rifle with scope and sling weighed in at a comfortable-to-carry 8 lbs. The thing kicked like a sledgehammer and jumped right off the rest at the range. I spent the next three years learning to shoot that damn canon. I needed a scope with 6 inches of eye relief or I risked stiches with every shot. I would lock it into a vise at the range to test reloads until I learned that a gun vise changed my point of impact at 100 yards by 7". Therefore, I had to throw out all my past data for that load and start from scratch. After about a thousand rounds I finally had to admit to myself that I bought the wrong gun and it was too light with too much powder in that caliber to shoot comfortably. I either needed to sell the gun or make it heavier so it was shootable. I added a bipod to the front and that limited the gun jump from 4" to 1" during the recoil. But now I have to make sure my hand is positioned properly on the forearm or the edge of the bipod cuts my left hand. I also had the stock shortened about 5/8" to get me squared up better for the shoulder punishment with each shot. With more shooting I still wasn't satisfied with 1 1/2" groups, even though these were considered good by the factory and other gun owners of this gun and caliber. So I did a lot of research on the internet. My biggest concern was with the lightweight barrel, so I checked my Ultralight Weatherby and found the barrel to be in contact with the forearm of the stock. Strangely it seemed that there was a knob molded into the end of the stock to purposefully contact the barrel. I read a few articles that said this can help, especially with lighter barrels, but the downside was that the force on the barrel could change the point of impact with repeated shots. Supposedly the idea behind the extra support on the barrel is to stiffen it so during the shot the barrel doesn't flex and spiral as much. It made sense to me to remove the knob on the stock to free float the barrel and to rebed the receiver and the barrel to stiffen the light gun as much as possible. I eventually found the needed info for this gun on the website, weatherby.com. In the forum, some of the members said that making the overall shell length as long as possible really brought out the potential in a Weatherby. So I loaded shells that would barely chamber to find the longest round that would possible to be 3.70". I kept trying different powders, shell casings, and bullet weights until it finally all came together. Over the previous couple of years I had decided I wanted an all-copper bullet like the 165 gr. Barnes TSX to shoot at anything without wondering about penetration on tough animals. I also found one powder, Reloader 19, that got me two different loads that shot groups under 1". I also added the 9" to 13" tilting bipod and learned to shoot with a bag or pack under the rear of the stock. After three years, I am comfortable out to 400 yards with a steady rest. I now need a scope that has hash marks, preferably mil-dot, that goes down to 4 or 5 power for closer shots. The scope on the Weatherby also needs to have an eye relief of at least 3.9" as that is what the current one has and that is my minimum with the Ultralight. As you can see I get scoped once in a while! Once I get a scope with hash marks, I will need to sight in and figure out what yardage corresponds with all the hash marks. Wind drift and the angle of the shot will come into play much more at these extended ranges. Some of this info will help at that time and this is the link to the best article on long range shooting that I have ever read: www.lazzeroni.com /ct_lrs.htm. Hopefully I can accurately shoot out to 600 yards in the near future.
How To Ruin a Good Gun By Jeremy Rodgers
I bought this 30-06 Browning A-Bolt in 1994 at a store's liquidation for $500. I was in school and couldn't afford a scope for two years until I bought and installed a 32mm 2x7 Redfield. I mistakenly put on Leupold dovetail mounts. For about 10 years I struggled to consitantly shoot 1" groups with this gun. With factory loads and reloads, I would get 1 1/2" groups one day and 3" groups the next day. My frustration culminated in 2006 after I stalked within 200 yards and missed a 179" mule deer two times before finally getting him. I tore the gun apart after I got home and found a loose dovetail mount and the bedding epoxy on the barrel lug to be slightly spongy. I just figured I got a bad scope mount and promptly went to the store and bought another. After I installed the new one the scope was pretty tight, but not rock solid. So I threw the dovetail twistlock mount in the garbage and installed two bolt-down mounts. With the scope mounted solidly I found 125 gr. and 180 gr. reloads that would shoot great with groups of 1/2" to 3/4". After that I rebedded the barrel lug and along the tapered end of the barrel near the receiver. I added epoxy along the rear of the receiver and at the receiver screws. Then the gun no longer shot well with the exact same reloads. I've read a lot about rifle tuning and how a barrel reacts on the shot and I now believe that with the rebedding I stiffened the gun and changed the reaction of the barrel. It makes sense to me that the barrel whips and spirals with the pressure of the shot. Therefore anything that you do to change the stiffness of the gun or pressure behind the bullet will change the whip and potentially the exit point from the muzzle. It takes the correct load to create the correct pressure for that gun to consistantly the push the bullet out of the muzzle. Once you change any tuning or stiffness of the rifle, the gun may require a different pressure and therefore different loads to shoot well. So with this gun, I will go back and make sure that the bedding is correct and then start over with all my reloads. If I get a gun shooting well from now on, I will not touch a thing!
I later found that it was my mistake that ruined the gun. I bedded the barrel and that was great but the bedding that I added at the rear of the receiver near the trigger was the problem. Some of the bedding must have contacted, and after I ground some away the gun shot great once again. Too much bedding liquid is bad.
I later found that it was my mistake that ruined the gun. I bedded the barrel and that was great but the bedding that I added at the rear of the receiver near the trigger was the problem. Some of the bedding must have contacted, and after I ground some away the gun shot great once again. Too much bedding liquid is bad.