I posted last week a new load for my Tikka Tac A1 6.5 CM that I am planning to shoot in an upcoming NRL match. Had a bullet on hand that I wanted to use but had to seat way off lands which is fine if it shoots. Well after trying 3 powders I thought N165 looked promising went back to verify and here is post about my second trip to range and thought I was done.

https://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/8863879/re-new-nrl-load#Post8863879

I wanted to run a longer string of fire to see how the load/ rifle held up and also get better idea of my velocity average. I didn’t really clean the barrel just ran a couple dry patches just to knock some carbon out.
Glad I did load was not as good as it looked with that small sample size.
Here is 19 shots at 115 yds which was not a big confidence builder but the worst part was the ES was 78fps.


So back to cave to make some different magic.
So I began to wonder if the brass I was using may be part of my issue as it’s new Hornady that came already primed with what looks to be CCI200’s ( Midsouth had them on sale bulk)
I ran them all into an expander to uniform neck and then loaded.
After pondering a while I decided to try a different bullet that I could get closer to lands and go with Reloder 16 which I have used pretty extensively with the Creedmoor.
So I knew the 142gr Sierra is very forgiving and I found a box here in town.
Picked a powder charge to get the speed I needed seated bullets .025 off lands and just in case there was something up with this brass pulled 10 pieces of once fired Alpha OCD I had previously fired thru this rifle.
Seems brass had some bearing for sure….. more testing to come as this brass is reloaded and ready to try one more round.
Ones on right were shot first then I changed my POA which was smart because they would have just made a big hole in the middle of the first group. This was also115yds.
Oh if you are wondering what I was aiming at I had a small bull stapled to the paper which I removed so I could make notes.

I only have limited experience but I really like the ALpha OCD brass alot. I'd venture to say that it's as good as Lapua to this layman. Oh and one noticeable plus of Alpha vs Lapua is that the case it comes in for a 100pcs set actually holds 100 pieces. Always tripped me out why a 100pcs box of Lapua only hold 50 loaded rounds in a box that's really big.

Anyways, good on you.

Interesting on the proving group falling apart.

On the Alpha/Hornady group...that could and in my opinion likely is a primer difference, unless I'm confused. Seems you have brass and primer differences or did you pull some of the Hornady once fired and put the same primers in them? When you mentioned them being pre-primed is where you lost me. You can guess they are CCI's but as you know manufacturers don't play with the same components we do.

I mention this because if all else is working, often I will throw a couple test groups together with a different primer to see if I can lower the ES numbers even further. In my testing, primers can make as big of a difference in ES as neck tension changes can.

Thanks for sharing, I love these type threads...it's the best way to pick up and learn something without burning your own powder, bullets, primers and barrels

This round is with same 20 pieces all FL sized in Redding die then all primed with Federal LR match primers.Judd, I said CCI 200 only because the primer mixture color looks the same? May not be?
Shot the 10 Hornady first and got similar results as last time but ES was high at 41.
Again I moved my point of aim over but not as much and after shooting 4 shots I just stopped because I couldn’t tell where they were hitting even with a 36x scope.
That made it difficult to explain but here is group again @115 yds in the hole that says 5 are 3 Alpha and 2 Hornady if that helps clear up the mud.



I took the remaining 6 and since there was a clean target at 200yds just fired all 6 and 4 were awesome two just meh. Still 1/2 MOA BUT…..48 on the ES so that’s a little worrisome but it was high due to one round…. But they all count.

Gotcha! Thanks for sharing…looks like you’re still on the hunt.

Two more trips to range and I think load is settled now.
With Hornady and although it was slightly better the Alpha wasn’t as consistent as I was hoping for.
Tried 3 primers didn’t see much improvement so on a whim pulled 10 pieces of SR Lapua primed with CCI 450 and bingo ES dropped and group size went from just barely sub MOA to sub .5 MOA
Went back with 25 rounds and just shot random distance LR steel and for 35 rounds ES was 28fps which is about 20fps average better than all the LR.
Oh for folks that say 28 ES ain’t that great I easily could have picked a run of 20 rounds that was 18 ES but been trying to take the Hornady / and Cal over at PR podcast advice on larger sample sizes.

That part of the puzzle behind me I started working on finding a way to drop 8oz off my rig as I was over the 16lb Heavy class limit.
Took the Bushnell XRS3 6-36 Elite off which was mounted in heavy 20 MOA one piece rings and replaced with Zeiss S5 mounted in Zeiss lightweight rings ( which are dang nice) and made weight by 2oz.
That’s a little close for comfort but that’s with my heaviest bipod on so I can drop to a lighter one if my scale is off from the official one.

Sounds like you got it going. My experience has been the SR shoots more consistent numbers than the LR.

Thanks for sharing DS and good luck with the rifle.

Yea I had seen improvement in .308 before but in a couple of previous 6.5 rifles I tried both LR and SR and didn’t see a difference except change in velocity.
It dropped my speed again but only 25-30 fps which is fine as I am still above minimum power factor.

DS: So you get better results with Re16 than say, H4350 or Varget in 6.5 CM?
I have a new-to-me Creedmoor to load for. Built some loads with the Hornady 123-grain ST and Varget just to zero the scope, then plan to work up loads with the Sierra 140-grain HPBT.

With lighter bullets Varget is a very good choice but for 140 gr or higher H4350/Reloder 16/ Staball 6.5 and sometimes over looked 4000MR (velocity champ)all can work great.
I like Reloder 16 as it’s just as temperature insensitive as 4350 gets a tad more velocity and has decoppering too. This Tikka with H4350 and N165 got copper buildup pretty bad in the last 6 inches of the barrel. I cleaned it out and switched to Reloder 16 and so far no sign of copper.

Which nrl hunter match are you hitting up?

Thanks DS. I'll keep an eye peeled for some Re16.

https://nrlhunter.org/matches-2023/23-19/

You going?

Thinking about it as it’s local to me.

Hope to see you there.

Where exactly is that range? I hunt in that area ans never noticed any shooting ranges.

Their kd range is north west of grandfield. I’m not 100% sure about their ukd range. Bobby and crew are really good folks and Robert the match director is solid too.