308 Win - 168gr Sierra Match King vs Hornady Match

alright welcome back folks it's time for another 308 video and today I want to shoot some 168 grain match bullets we're going to compare the 168 Hornady match boat tail hollow point to the 168 grain Sierra match king right these are our classic match bullets for 308 now in our new Krieger barrel we've shot a few of the horn ADIZ and had pretty bad results so I'm hoping today with a different powder maybe things will improve with 168 grain match King we haven't shot any hand loads but we have shot some of the federal gold medal match factory ammo that uses 168 grain Sierra match King these have shot amazing like really really good some of our best groups so far out of the new barrel have been with this factory ammo I had run out of those bullets and didn't have any to test with so I picked up a new box and here we are today now for powder I want to use another classic IMR 4895 this stuff's been around forever you can find it anywhere and the burn rate should be just about right hopefully to get good function and performance in the ar-10 in the last video we shot IMR 8208 XBR and it was really good function the gun well it wasn't tearing up our brass and I already or IMR 4895 is just a couple spots down on the burn rate chart so I'm hoping this will perform in a similar manner for brass just like the last video we are going to use new Lapua palma brass that uses small rifle primers and we're going to keep using the CCI 41 primers looking at some different load data sources the Hornady manual with this bullet they show a max charge of 40 3.3 the sierra manual with their bullet shows 44.7 if we go over to the Hodgdon website I think they tested with the Sierra they showed a 45 point for grain max so 43 to 45 seems to be our max we're going to shoot up to 40 3.0 today there's what our load data looks like we'll do 4/10 sort of grain increments which means we start at 41 point 4 and work up from there now I tested the maximum overall length in my rifle for these two bullets and found that with the Hornady it was about two point eight six zero so we're going to shoot two point eight zero zero overall length so with the Hornady we've got about 60 thousandths of jump to the rifling with the C the max overall length was right about 2.8 3-0 so with that one we've got about 30,000 sub jump so this one's pretty straightforward I'm hoping at least with DC arrow we can duplicate that performance of the federal gold medal match factory ammo so we might be in for some good groups today now if you watched the last video you'll know that we had a little bit of a problem during resizing of our brass and I accidentally screwed up some flash holes with a decapping pin well today we're not going to do that I pulled out my reading dye set first thing I did was I pulled out all of the decapping pins so yeah you'll see no decapping pin in our sizing die today and I'm going to use the next sizing die so just want to run them through really quick make sure the necks are uniform and then we'll move on to the rest of the reloading process so that's first alright so I'll get the next sizing die installed in the press yeah just a little bit off the shell holder tighten it down and ready to go so with the neck sizing die shouldn't need anything more than our dry neck Lube so let's see how these fill don't get down in there and we'll see what happens pretty tight coming over that expander ball you see we're not quite hitting the entire neck that's just fine that should do nicely dry neck Lube is not really sticking to the case very well sometimes you got a the graphite powder or whatever settles to the bottom so let's flip it over and give it some shakes there we go now I got a little bit more towards the top hopefully I can get a little a little bit better coverage yeah not really I don't know if it's the maybe the annealed finish for some reason is not picking up the dry lube there you can see that got some of it there but hey I don't know we'll see how it goes these are being a pain in the butt to get over the expander ball in there and I think it's just this new brass has got very like small necks like the brand-new piece I'm getting a lot of point three three fours and point three three fives and then you put it up in there and it really like right here where the neck is going over the expander for the first time takes a good bit of force then it goes up into the neck portion of the sizing die no problem and comes out of there and then coming back over the expander ball is kind of a pain in the butt as well and they're coming out a little over two point three three six point three three six five or something like that so a little bit bigger than they were out of the box yeah this is being a little bit aggravating I'm gonna switch over to imperial sizing die wax it'll make cleanup a little bit more of a pain in the butt but hopefully it'll make this process a lot easier yeah see that ten times easier I think for some reason the finish on this Lapua brass just is not wanting to pick up that dry neck Lube right now yeah this is ten times easier so cool I'll get these done and we'll be ready to move on okay so resizing is done I'll wipe the lube off the cases what I'm doing next is using a deburring and chamfering tool to just make sure the case mouth is in good shape a little bit on the outside a little bit on the inside just lightly nothing crazy just want to clean off any burrs that might be there and then at that point we're ready for a primer using a Frankfort Arsenal perfect seat hand priming tool and at that point they are ready for powder so I've moved on to weighing out our charges and I am using my Hornady powder measure we've got it full of our IMR 4895 speech things up a little bit throw the charges a few tenths light and then trickle them up to the final number now IMR 4895 is a large granule extruded powder so it doesn't run through a powder measure very easily at all but it's good enough to get you close so this is the boring part I'll see you guys over at the bullets eating die here in just a second alright folks time to get some bullets seated we're using the same die we used in the last video it's a Hornady custom grade bullets eating die with their micro just seating stem adjuster on top in the comments the last video somebody asked me whether Hornady dyes were more prone to rust than others because I think they had spotted like yeah look at this rust it's not the dies it's me it's my house I have the worst troubles controlling humidity in my house and my dies of any brand it's a constant struggle to try and keep him from from getting rusty on me now if I took better care of my things what I would do after aged use is you know wipe them down with some gun oil or something like that that would completely cure everything but I don't and this is the result is you know a little bit of surface rust on some stuff just thought I'd mention that so let's see this die we screw it down until it touches the mouth of the case and then back it out at least a turn and lock it down that's it so let's back out our seating stem a good little bit and see where this puts us we're starting off the Hornady our target overall length is two point eight inches and our target to the ogive of the bullet is two point one eight five right measuring from cartridge base to the ogive of the bullets a little bit easier and more repeatable way to measure overall length so you can see we are one hundred five thousands to long so let's go down fifty one hundred and we'll go ahead and dial in the five so that should pretty much put us right where we need to be hopefully I'm still one thousandth long so two point one eight six so let me just kind of breathe on this a little bit go down just a little run that one back through and we'll go ahead and run the next one through as well and see what these numbers come out to two point one eight five and two point one 85 now if we measure from the cartridge base to the tip two point eight zero one and the other ones also two point eight zero one that's going to vary a little bit you know a few thousands of variation due to differences in the tips of the bullet is not unheard of now one thing about this I'm our 4895 are starting charge here forty one point four I can still feel powder moving so we're not compressed but I think if we jump forward to our max charge this is probably going to be a slightly compressed charge so let's go ahead and seat the first one it didn't sound crunchy but I'm no longer feeling any powder moving let's see if our overall length is a little bit longer now if it is it's just barely we're at two point one eight seven so two thousandths of an inch longer with the max charge let me seat another one of those make sure that's a consistent reading yeah this one's also two point one eighty seven so the last row or two once they start getting compressed I'm going to need to tweak the bullets eating died down by two or three thousand so it might just be just be that last row I'm not sure yet so I'll track it as I go along each row and try and figure out where it starts stretching so I'm on the third row and I can still feel a little bit of powder moving so I made it to the fourth charge and they still haven't gotten any longer so it looks like it is just gonna be that last row that I need to adjust down by a thousandth or two yeah so I went about about mm and the numbers look perfect 2.18 five good okay so now I'm moving on to the seer match King I'm gonna back out the die a little bit and start the process over again now with this bullet shape or cartridge-based ogive number is much different it's supposed to be two point two three zero is our target we're at two point two eight nine so fifty nine thousandths let me go ahead and dial that in there it is let's see what that gives us perfect two point two three zero let's flip it around and see what our total overall length is two point eight zero zero perfect check the next one here two point two three zero total overall length two point eight zero one so let's jump to the last row and see if these are also a little bit compressed does it look like it two point two three zero cartridge-based ogive and a total overall length of exactly two point eight inches I think the Hornady is a little bit longer bullet if I'm remembering correctly so those were just down into the case a little bit more than these Sierras are which gave us a slightly compressed load with our max charge but with both of them were very very close to that 100% case fill which is generally a good thing a full case can often mean really good standard deviation numbers and consistent ignition and good groups sometimes so I'm looking forward to seeing how these shoot and speaking of that we're running out of stuff to talk about here so let's go ahead and get out on the range all right folks let's get started our gun is a narrow precision m5e one set up it's got a 20-inch krieger barrel with their m110 profile I am shooting with my Silencerco Omega suppressor we've got a vortex Strike Eagle for 224 by 50 scope and we're gathering velocity with a Labrador chronograph it is a hot and muggy day it actually just rained a little bit ago so extremely high humidity temperature in the upper 80s but it's dead calm know when to speak of so it's uncomfortable but hopefully it'll be good for shooting some small groups the targets at 100 yards did I mention that the dots down there or one inch in diameter we're starting off with the Hornady the 168 grain Hornady 41.4 grains is our first test charge so let's see if these are going to group all right so that's not a bad start at all that group bought to squeak in under an inch I think velocities nice and low 2491 looks like we chose a pretty decent starting charge the brass looks good so it's all good moving on 41.8 grains is next all right I think it's clear this bullets wanting to shoot I mean that's pretty darn good group but I really like those three that are right on top of one another just need to get rid of those loans right all right so brass still looks great everything's great next up is 42.2 grains so I think that first shot that went high was on me I wasn't quite locked in when the shot went off I was fighting the crosshair a little bit I thought I didn't think I pulled it that far but I just knew when it went off like yeah that wasn't my best shot so I'm gonna be I'm gonna choose to be happy about that group instead of sad I love how the standard deviations are tightening up we're all the way down to 4.5 there that's a great number velocity up to 2560 - so let's move on 42.6 is next all right that's a good group to be honest I'm kind of surprised it's like I mentioned earlier the last time we shot this bullet I think it was with reloader 15 our groups really were not good so this is a pleasant surprise here with IMR 4895 one more to go with the Hornady this is 43.0 dreams all right so that's a pretty good showing from the Hornady velocity up to 26 20 their case is full remember with the Hornady we had some really really light compressed loads at the top but we can still jam some more in there get a little bit more velocity out of this powder sad to see the standard deviations kind of go to crap there towards the end which I mean not terrible ten point five fourteen point eight those aren't horrible numbers they're just not fantastic but the groups are good they're a whole lot better than I was expecting with the Hornady so it's time for me to take a break we need to let the gun cool down and we'll move on to the Sierra alright so I just took about a 30 minute break to let the gun cool down get cooled down myself rest my eyes a little bit and we are ready to move on to the sierra matchking first up 41.4 grains alright that's a great start with the match Kings velocity was 2490 with the same load with the other bullet it was 24 91 so it looks like the velocities are going to be pretty close to one another group looks great and the brass looks great yeah that one I thought I'd pulled it I think I'm going to end up putting a lighter trigger in this lower right now I've got a very heavy CMC trigger in it and the reason I put that in there is I have a history of accidentally bump firing a lot with heavy recoiling rifles I'm just I'm a very I'm a very light trigger puller and with a lot of recoil I just ended up bump firing but I think I've mainly fixed that with my grip like I've really been going with a much stiffer grip in the ar-10 to keep my hand moving with the with the rifle during recoil and that seems to stopped the bump firing problems but I think this trigger it's a two-stage trigger I think it's a two pound five pound so total of the seven pound trigger and I might swap something lighter in here because the heavy trigger sometimes is hard to get you know just doesn't quite go off the way I want it you know I don't know that's for another day all right moving right along 41.8 grains is next outstanding group really really good what I was hoping for with these match Kings that's the sort of groups you know we were seeing with the federal gold medal factory ammo and it was blowing my mind so this this chamber really seems to love this match King all right moving right along 42.2 okay next up is 42.6 I'll ride looks like another good one I'll tell you what between suppressor Mirage regular Mirage and the smoke like every time I shoot there it's completely dead calm today so I've got lingering smoke and Mirage and I'm having a hard time getting my scope focused the way I want it but the groups are holding together looking pretty good all right last up 43.0 dreams alright man that is really really good stuff so let's get out of this muggy heat let's get back to the bench and we'll talk it all out okay let's have a quick look at the brass and our hundred pieces of Lapua palma brass I've managed to shoot them all at this point the last five rows here are from today's targets so the fifth row would be our max charge with the Hornady bullet there's absolutely nothing to show you here everything was good today there were a few pieces that maybe got knocked around a touch is that one got maybe just the slightest little booger on the rim or something but it's all extremely minor just you know what you would expect from running through a semi-automatic action a couple little barrel extension scratches on the neck yeah there you go nothing uncommon but most importantly our case has look fantastic all 100 pieces that I fired these are totally reloadable and ready to go again here's our max charge with the sierra matchking same story nothing much to see here a little bit dirtier the DES gun was a touch dirtier when we were shooting these but no burrs no circular extractor marks no primer cratering so our j JP high-pressure bolt seems to be doing just fine here so it's all good and this is significant because over the last five videos or so we've been tearing up some brass we've mainly been shooting Hornady I bought a big batch of Hornet II just because it was cheap and I'm sure if we grabbed a really slow burning powder or picked the wrong load we're gonna be able to tear this stuff up as well so I think this good-looking brass is more to do with you know I am are 4895 just being a good choice for the ar-10 rather than you know the superior brass it is pretty sweet brass though alright let's move on alright so let's have a look at these groups again could not be happier we only shot one group today that was over an inch it was that Center group on the top with the Hornady 42.2 grains of our 4895 and that shot that went high that's that one that it did felt like a bad shot it just didn't go off the way I was wanting it to my regular viewers will know I don't pull that very often right I don't I try not to blame every bad group on me but in this case I've just got to do it like I think that was a bad shot but overall this was very good stuff right our fourth group was the best 10.6 one five inch group if we had only shot the Hornady today these would be extremely exciting results but the problem is they look like crap today standing next to these sierra matchking groups on the bottom road that are just ridiculous three of our five groups were point fours just incredible incredible it seems like this barrel this chamber is just perfect for these 168 grain match kings at a 2.8 inch overall length and like I mentioned earlier we've seen the exact same thing with the federal gold medal match factory ammo we've shot a couple groups with that factory ammo in the point fours so these are the sorts of results I was expecting now one thing about the federal gold medal match factory ammo is it was very low velocity but like when compared to the other factory ammo types that we shot through this barrel when it was brand new the velocity we measured from it was 25 31 feet per second so we already are exceeding that number here today with our reasonable charges of IMR 48 95 and we've still got room to move I feel like you know our max velocity here with the Hornady it was 26 20 with this with the match King was 2607 we could fit a good bit more powder in there with IMR 4895 and I mean 26 50 should be no problem and maybe up to 2,700 in that range I don't know we're gonna have to try it out and see hopefully the accuracy holds together I found it interesting I don't know if it's a thing or not but our worst group with both bullets was the center group that 42.2 grain charge was the biggest with both I doubt that significant but it's interesting I guess our standard deviation numbers were not awesome today they were average right I best was a 4.5 with the Hornady but that was the only one that was a single-digit most of them were between 10 feet per second and 12 feet per second of standard deviation and our worst number was 14 point 8 so 10 to 15 feet per second of standard deviation seemed to be kind of the average today and that's not awesome but then again this was brand new brass so this was fire forming brand new brass maybe now that it's fire formed will have it fit in the chamber a little bit better maybe those numbers will improve and also back to our charge weight where we shot up to 40 3.0 now that we're fire formed we should get a little bit more case capacity be able to fit some more powder in there so we've got room work up room to narrow down a freaking outstanding load here especially with the sierra matchking now the funny thing is when you compared this this 308 barrel with my 6.5 Creedmoor series it's exactly opposite in that in that series 140 grain Hornady match out shoots the 140 grain sierra matchking like that that 140 Hornady matches is our go to bullet that just shoots amazing groups in that series so I kind of found it funny that it's a little bit reversed here in this series so your gun could be completely opposite from what we've seen here today you just gotta try different stuff we have shot some of the hundred and seventy-five grain sierra matchking and they're not shooting as good as these 168 so we're still just getting started like we've barely broken this barrel and we've only got a couple videos with it but so far it is amazing this 168 grain sierra matchking the 160 seven grain Lapua Sinar has been shooting awesome and this 168 grain Hornady those weren't too bad like those were still pretty darn good groups another thing I want to mention like while I was editing the video like the amount of smoke you saw during shots out on the range was just ridiculous and that has nothing to do with IMR 4895 being a smoky powder it was all about the weather conditions it was a hundred percent humidity it had just rained there was absolutely no wind to speak of and it just resulted in this like smoke cloud around me every time I fired a shot so I've never before noticed IMR 4895 being particularly smoky or you know much more than your standard powders but watching this video you might have got the idea that this is like black powder it's not so I think that's where we'll leave it I've got a couple ideas of where we go next like I mentioned we're just getting started here but we finally have a good shooting a 308 like this is extremely exciting it's been a long time coming we've been struggling with 308 for years here on the channel we finally have the right barrel and today was a lot of fun so I hope you join me next time I'll see you then

Channel: Johnny's Reloading Bench

Views: 121,324

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Id: LcmgsBIEHtQ

Length: 26min 58sec (1618 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2019