6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by Jerry G »

I shoot 107s for the 3 close animals without any problem. Some of my thoughts follow.

First OAL is a bad place to start. Not all chambers are created equal. They all are a little different. Duller ogvie should be close but not touching the lands.
Next, a lirrle black stuff on your neck is not a problem as long as you are getting the accuracy you need whick is about 3/4 minuete.
Next, necks get hard and thick on old brass. Reduce neck thickness and aneal necks. It is time conssuming but necessary.
There has to be enough pressure on the brass to seal the neck so you don't get blowback through your bolt and into your face. I have never seen that happen and never want to.
I use magnum primers with my Lapua small primer pocket brass. A friend was using BR primers and had mis-fires. We both reload with Varget. We both push our 107's at a little over 2600 fps.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

plzbry wrote: Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:54 pm Looked at Hodgens reloading data it recommends starting at 37 grains of varget with 107s up to 41.go to low and things go kaboom
Sierras load data starts at 35.8 gn's of Varget which equates to about 2700 fps which should be fine.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

Jason wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:34 am Sierra's recommendation is only that, a recommendation. It should work in most rifles with most brass, but not necessarily all the time. It sounds like you have a generous chamber on the factory rifle with new(ish) Lapua brass that is likely designed with expectations of very tight custom chambers and trimmed to minimum spec length. What is the COL with the Lapua brass?

With only 0.002" of neck tension, only having 0.1" of the bullet gripped by the neck seems sure to not provide enough grip on the bullet to let pressures increase before the bullet leaves the case. Since it also has room to move fairly far before it touches the lands, you're going to get inconsistent accuracy as that bullet wiggles around in the chamber before it gets pushed into the lands. You're also using magnum primers which are going to exacerbate pushing the bullet out of the case before there's enough powder burning to have pressure built up, although they're small rifle magnums so that shouldn't be a problem if you get proper grip on the bullet. You shouldn't need to change powder. Varget isn't very difficult to ignite and is plenty fast to use those 107 grain bullets. Just seat the bullet deeper.

How much is your brass growing when being fired with the heavier bullets? You may want to have all of your brass have an initial firing with the heavier bullet to fully expand it. You'll get a bit extra length if you full length size it, and then don't trim it back too far. That might let you get closer to the lands and still have good grip on the bullet to get ignition before it leaves the case. You'll need to find a way to do that consistently across all the brass to get good accuracy, of course.
It is new Lapua brass which measures to the recommended trim length. All cases measure +- .002". I haven't measured the case growth from the 142's yet. The cases from the 107s didn't move much.

I tried a few loads of Benchmark in the 2800 - 2900 fps range and it made no difference with case expansion so faster powder is not the answer. Next I'll try seating the bullets deeper with the same neck tension.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

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Jerry G wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:52 am I shoot 107s for the 3 close animals without any problem. Some of my thoughts follow.

First OAL is a bad place to start. Not all chambers are created equal. They all are a little different. Duller ogvie should be close but not touching the lands.
Next, a lirrle black stuff on your neck is not a problem as long as you are getting the accuracy you need whick is about 3/4 minuete.
Next, necks get hard and thick on old brass. Reduce neck thickness and aneal necks. It is time conssuming but necessary.
There has to be enough pressure on the brass to seal the neck so you don't get blowback through your bolt and into your face. I have never seen that happen and never want to.
I use magnum primers with my Lapua small primer pocket brass. A friend was using BR primers and had mis-fires. We both reload with Varget. We both push our 107's at a little over 2600 fps.
How many grains of Varget are you using for 2600 fps?
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

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It surprises me about the faster powder, are you sticking with recommended OAL due to magazine restrictions?

If you can, maybe try seating the bullet farther out, not deeper and increasing the neck tension to at least .004 or more.
You need to try and keep at least one caliber worth in the neck.

You might also consider the Lapua 108's or if you can stand the recoil, the Norma 130 grain bullet has work great for me and you can get them at a very good price per 500. To cut the recoil, you don't have to drive them as fast as the 107's, so you end up with about the same recoil, very high BC bullet, just watch out for the very sharp point, some times hard to seat.
At about 2300 fps you will find it has about the same sight settings as the 107's

I think this makes more sense. A lot of people like the CCI 450 primer, I don't think that is the issue.

Keep us all posted, we love a good reloading challenge, just as much as shooting, at least I do.

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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by Another Dang 9 »

If you have that much free bore you may want to set back the barrel to a length that lets you shoot both bullets with proper lengths. That may end all your issues. Without seeing the gun first hand that would be my recommendation. Excessive free bore can make hand loading a nightmare. Find a length that works for the heavy bullets first. You didn't mention how much free bore you have with the 142s. If they are set way out as well it will improve for the lighter bullets too. Ideally the boat tail of the 107s and 142s should be just past the neck into the case with minimal free bore(ideally). Its impossible to have both the 107s and 142s to be set back into the case the same and maintain the same free bore. So you have to pick which one will be set that way. If you pick the 107s the 142s will be set back deeper in the case. You will have (again ideally) only .015-.025 free bore afterwards. Another option may be to forget the boat tail 107s and try Spitzers. I have a Ruger M77 .260 Rem that shoots better with Spitzers than it does boat tails. Not sure why but it does, its not even a free bore issue. The 140 Spitzers are set back into the case way past the shoulder but the accuracy its fantastic. YMMV
Just my .02
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

dwostler wrote: Thu Dec 13, 2018 6:53 pm It surprises me about the faster powder, are you sticking with recommended OAL due to magazine restrictions?

If you can, maybe try seating the bullet farther out, not deeper and increasing the neck tension to at least .004 or more.
You need to try and keep at least one caliber worth in the neck.

You might also consider the Lapua 108's or if you can stand the recoil, the Norma 130 grain bullet has work great for me and you can get them at a very good price per 500. To cut the recoil, you don't have to drive them as fast as the 107's, so you end up with about the same recoil, very high BC bullet, just watch out for the very sharp point, some times hard to seat.
At about 2300 fps you will find it has about the same sight settings as the 107's

I think this makes more sense. A lot of people like the CCI 450 primer, I don't think that is the issue.

Keep us all posted, we love a good reloading challenge, just as much as shooting, at least I do.

Dennis
The 142's are seated to .020" off the lands which is .045" longer that what Sierra recommends. I don't plan on feeding from the magazine so that is not an issue.

At Sierras recommended seating depth the 107's are only .100" into the case at the bearing surface which is a little more than 1/3 a diameter. At this seating depth they are .090" off the lands. Tomorrow I'm going to try some 107's set another .100" deeper.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by TheBugFather »

With so little neck holding on to that bullet, that sounds like it is part of your problem. Good luck and maybe consider a longer bullet for the first three. It is where most of your score comes from.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

I tested three loads with the bullets seated .100" deeper and that cured the blow-by problem.

All three had a velocity spread of around 40 with a standard deviation of 23 ish. The lightest load was the most accurate at around 1/2 moa but needs further testing to verify if it has any potential. The chronograph data doesn't really support the result but it was only a three shot group. It is interesting that by setting the bullet back the average velocity dropped by over 100 fps which seems counter intuitive.

Anyway some progress but this barrel may demand longer bullets.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by TheBugFather »

Good to hear you’ve made progress.
Look into the longer bullets 108,120,123,130’s.
Shop for price and availability.
You don’t have to drive them as fast for reducing recoil. The net effect is the same, knocking over the animals with the least recoil and best accuracy.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

Did a little more testing this morning and the best I can do with the 107's in this gun is about .8 moa. For a factory gun in a plastic stock that's not too bad. With my 10 moa wobble every inch counts :D . I have some 130's I may try and I also ordered a box of 120's and 123's to test.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by ppkny »

I have excellent results with my Tikka 6.5x55 with 123gr (c,p,t) and 140gr (r) Sierra HPBT bullets
123gr Sierra HPBT w/44gr of 4831sc
140gr Sierra HPBT w/42gr of 4831sc
The 140's touch the lands but seating too spec the 123's are about .020 less from touching.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by Jerry G »

by plzbry » Tue Dec 11, 2018 10:54 pm
Looked at Hodgens reloading data it recommends starting at 37 grains of varget with 107s up to 41.go to low and things go kaboom

Way too much powder............. The low end is way too high. More like 32 or 33 gr.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by edgehit »

What Jerry said. And try a bullet that likes a long jump -Berger. I don’t recall which bullet style. May be the hybrids.

Your chamber has way too much freebore to make it lawyer proof. 1/10” isn’t enough seating depth. You’ll have runout issues if you drop your ammo box! As suggested by another, you may also get better accuracy with old fashioned spitzers due to more bearing surface.
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Re: 6.5mm Bullet for the Close Animals

Post by jbolt »

Had a chance to test some 123 gn Honady ELD Match and Nosler HPBT bullets. Both shot great with neither being finicky about powder charge. I ran loads from 2500 to 2700 fps and anyone of them would be acceptable. Just can't shoot short bullets in this barrel.
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