5 Shots, One Hole: 6 Dasher Load Development Initial Results

[Music] finding that ideal load for your rifle can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack Gavin you hear from ultimate realtor comm that underscores the need to have a methodology and to have a strategy so that you can hone in on that perfect load for your rifle the right velocity the right consistency of velocity and the right accuracy that's exactly what I'm gonna cover in this video I just finished my dream PRS rifle belt this is a full custom 6-2 rifle it's gonna give me more barrel life compared to 6 millimeter Creedmoor it's going to have similar ballistic performance compared to Creedmoor and less recoil do you need less recoil compared to 6 Creed mark well if you shoot a PRS match you'll find you're out very quickly fat when you're trying to spot your trace and trying to spot your misses at a thousand yards less recoil is better it's not about comfort it's about seeing what's happening and staying on target so in this video what we're going to do is we're going to talk about my strategy for honing in on that ideal load this is phase one new brass ladder tests OCW we're going to talk about the equipment that I'm using to load this ammunition when you're doing scientific testing and I'm considering the scientific testing because I'm sharing the results with you and I know people are going to make decisions about which way to go with their load or which components this is super critical stuff and we need to use the right equipment so that we have a high degree of certainty in terms of what the outcomes are based on the inputs that we've selected I'm gonna go through the process of shooting I'm going to talk about some of the results that I got and then bridge that to what are the next phases of load development and working with us load with this rifle and the shooting platform so let's get to it so let's start with strategy how are we going to go from having the whole world as the possibility of all the different components the different charge weights that are four bullets eating Nets all that to honing in on the exact load that we need to get maximum performance out of the rifle so there's two things here I started by looking on the precision rifle blog Cal Sant does a great job with his series what the pros use and I found a what the pros use article specifically for six Dasher what bullet weights what charge waits for Vargas Vargas is by far the most popular powder for six Dasher and I went straight to that data I know I'm working with Berger 105 grain hybrid target bullets and the new Berger 109 long range hybrid target bullets and I was able to construct what the sweet spot is what a guys winning matches with what charge weight of argot with a hundred and five green bullet or a hundred and nine grain bullet I started in those regions and then transitioned to a ten shot ladder test this is the so-called Satterlee method I saw on the 65 guys Scott Satterlee talking with Edie and Steve and they were talking about looking at a particular range up towards maximum and then working your way back down incrementally and then shooting a string of shots over the chronograph with incrementally increased charge weights to see where you'll find stable regions of velocity called nodes or speed nodes because the goal is we want single-digit standard deviations on our velocity and we want low extreme spreads as well because the further we go out I'm gonna be shooting at a thousand yards plus in matches the more vertical dispersion we're going to get if we have variations in velocity so that's one thing we need and that's where I started with this load development I looked at that sweet spot data from the what the pros use article and I constructed a ladder and this time I'm running really tight separations between the type increments between the different loads point 1 grain at a time I'm using an Andy FX 120 I scale with the auto tricular v3 system and this is because I don't want to have to coerce a resolution and miss one of those speed load notes so what you do is you shoot those ten shots over the chronograph I'm using a magneto speed v3 and then you import it to your computer and you look at the graph of the velocity and you're looking for sort of flat spots regions where you're not seeing steep increases or decreases but kind of that stability region I then took those nodes and honed in and incrementally varied the charge around those nodes to see if I shot groups of five shots for each of those increments what kind of group sizes I would get and that's commonly called optimal charge weight there's a bunch of different ways to do this this seems to work well and in this case I was able to do that so we'll get to the results in just a moment but first let's talk about the equipment and the reloading process with regard to components it was actually this six - er Alpha munitions brass that gave me the idea to do this project I had seen guys do great with six - er in PR s competitions shooting in the same squad with them but I had heard about how much work there was involved and cost and just time to Hydra form the brass or to fire form it that kind of thing and alpha munitions stepped up they make top-quality brass that's made right here in the USA and I thought well now I got to try 6-4 pilled so that's the brass I'm using I'm using Varga as I stated in that what the pros use article and from talking with alpha munitions and some other folks bargain is really the sweet spot powder it's going to work great so I just decided to go with that using CCI BR for primers these are the benchrest primers another recommendation from alpha munitions and then I've got to Berger bullets that we're using here we're using the 105 hybrid targets these are a mainstay for six millimeter in ers competitions and the all-new 109 long-range hybrid targets also from Berger I'm looking at two aspects of performance here we're going to start at a hundred yards the outcome of really this Expo raishin that I'm documenting in this video and then we're gonna go out further and what I'm interested to compare is how well each of these bullets do at a hundred yards during the initial phases of load development and how will the performance compare where it really matters right five hundred yards seven hundred yards a thousand yards so that's the kind of thing that we'll be looking at with those these bullets have done great for me the 105 I've used extensively for six millimeter Creedmoor and you'll see four six - sure they're performing really really great so far for tools I've got a variety of things going on I just published a video covering the Wilson expanding mandrel die this is four six millimeter I'm using that for the new brass to expand the next for optimal bullet tension and then I've got two dies here from Forrester for a long time I've wanted to try their full-length sizer with their die honing service this allows you to specify a neck diameter this one is 266 for optimal neck tension I had a quick discussion with Forrester and with alpha munitions we took some measurements and dial this in so that when I'm doing my reloading I have optimal neck tension and as you know that is a critical factor for maintaining tight spreads and tight SD on your velocity then I've also got the Forester six Dasher ultra micrometer cedar I'm using a six - er case gauge from le Wilson Wilson tools and gauges and I also started the whole process by firing my first round into the weeds with an arbitrary bullet seating depth and the this is the very first case fired in the gun I put it on the lathe made a modified case for this Hornady oal gage I've also got a separate video on that process of how to create those if you have a lathe we're using the Forester coax press this press is another popular favorite for PRS competitors because it's self aligning between the die between the shell plate and the cartridge and it's really quick to switch dies out made in the USA really really super high quality piece of gear I'm also using the Auto tricular v3 system with the new Bluetooth companion app this does a great job with varga and the v3 improvements I've been absolutely loving as a part of this loading process so that's a brief overview of the equipment portfolio I've also got the Lee auto bench prime it might seem funny to use a very inexpensive bench priming tool for this high-end application but it works great for me and it's got the best feel for any non fixed to depth priming tool that I've tried so I'm happy to use that in this kind of a scenario and it works great with this alpha dash or brass and the CCI 450 primers okay now on to the actual loading process for this initial phase of load development I'm using new brass and when I'm using new brass I like to do a couple things to prepare it for loading first I dipped my case necks in Imperial dry neck loom this provides some lubrication so that we don't get galling when we use the expanding mandrel die from Le Wilson I just posted the video on this die you're gonna want to check that out if you want a more in-depth overview of how that tool works in the process it's really quick to run the cases through this expanding mandrel die and I found that opened up the case neck about a thousandth of an inch which gives us optimal neck tension then it was off to priming and as I mentioned I'm using the auto bench prime from Lee worked really good I could feel exactly when the primer got all the way seated into the primer pocket and it's very quick and easy to use I like how quickly it is to load actually that's probably one of the best things about it then off to the auto trickler v3 for charging and there was two different types of charging I did I did ten shot ladders to those one for each bullet weight 105 and 109 and then batches of 5 10 15 or 20 of a particular charge weight and what I like about the new companion app for the auto tricular v3 is there's an increment charge point one grain button there's other increments as well but I was using point 1 grains so for the ladders I could load one hit the point one grain increment button load no and so on and so forth just made the process a lot more trouble-free then bullets eating and as I mentioned I'm using the Forrester ultra micrometer cedar and in combination with the measurements that I took using my own homemade modified case for the Hornady oal gage I was able to establish where 20,000 softer lands would be a lot of guys have indicated that the six - or cartridge is really forgiving in terms of two lands jump distance I wanted to start at 20 because I saw it guys having good results there and this was a great confirmation of my chamber geometry because I only had to lengthen that bullet seating depth I think it was 10 or 20 thousands over what the Hodgdon load data suggested easily fit within the magazine good to go the day I collected the load data I started with the Berger 109s so let's talk about that data in that set of results first like I mentioned I used the what the pros use article to determine kind of what that sweet spot would be for a charge of argot behind a birder 109 I chose a maximum of 32 point 7 and by the way use this data any of it in this video at your own risk always consult with multiple manufacturers low data sources before you ever load or fire a shot that you reload full disclaimer is in the video description ok have you gotten that out of the way we did start at 32 point 7 and decremented point 1 grain which led down to thirty one point eight as a starting charge wave this time when I was shooting those shots over the magneto speed v3 I was very deliberate to maintain even barrel temperatures and to not have a lot of dwell time with the cartridge in the chamber before firing if you heat up the ammunition if you heat up the barrel you're going to elevate your velocities slightly and using only 0.1 grain to increment each time I wanted to make sure we got as good of data as possible and when I downloaded that data and graphed it it was very very clear graph and by that I mean there was two discrete flats on the graph these are our speed notes where we can vary the charge weights slightly and not get much variation in velocity one at 32 grains and one @ 32.6 grains now when we look at this ladder all 10 shots went into point six five six inches which is really amazing that tells me we have a rifle that likes this bullet it's going to be very forgiving and it's likely that we're gonna get some really good results one of the results with the 32 grain no the 32 grain node was really the better performer four shots consecutively went through 0.19 inches the fifth shot was kind of out to the side still sub half MOA but kind of a flyer I'm not sure exactly what happened there so I decided to try some 1x reloads using this full-length sizer and some imperial case whacks very deliberate with my bump which was actually zero okay so the shoulder pretty much stayed where it was I shot another five shot string and got a group of 0.373 inches now four PRS that's awesome especially because even with the new brass we had a standard deviation of 2.2 feet per second that is a winning combination right there but things got even better with the Berger 105 the Berger 105's being a lighter bullet started at a higher charge weight of 31.9 grains and ended at a higher charge weight of 32.8 grains again incrementing by 0.1 grains for each cartridge and same test methodology I was sure to maintain even barrel temperature not have excessive dwell time I shot the 10 shots I downloaded on to the computer and when I looked at the graph it was not quite as easy to read as the Berger 109 graph by that I mean there weren't quite the distinct flat spots those speed nodes that we saw in the other graph so I had to kind of interpret things I chose a node 32.1 grains and anode @ 32.6 screens as a follow-up I'm going to go back and take a look at another possible node at 32.4 because that's really near that 29 50 FPS range that is a sweet spot for the six Dasher and when we look at the actual group from this 10 shot string here's the interesting thing is that shots 1 through 9 consecutively went into a group measuring 0.42 7 inches when I saw that happen as it was happening I was thinking to myself this board this chamber really really likes this bullet and we got a number of good groups all the good groups were sub half em away thirty two point one was point three nine zero the best group from all of the testing was 0.23 0 inches let me show you that sequence so this is an absolutely outstanding result beyond what we need out of a PRS rifle but of course I want to see just how good things can get with the rifle I built and with all these awesome components the downside was I was measuring the velocity at that time and the SD for those five shots was eleven point seven feet per second so I feel like I need to come back to that one and retest it we saw another group that was very promising and that was thirty two point seven grains of argot behind the 105 which had an SD of 4.2 and produced a group sizing 0.36 to inches that is an absolutely outstanding result something that we could definitely use for PRS match ammunition and another thing is I expect all of these groups to get better when we have fire formed brasses so our first-time reloads after we've loaded them fired them and then loaded them again could perform quite a bit better again I've talked with people that shoot six dasher extensively and I saw things tighten up just a little bit if I can get down into that 3 to 4 to 5 FPS SD number and down around a quarter inch which is better than it needs to be I will be very happy if we get to a consistent place of being able to do that with the right conditions so what's next I'm gonna continue hey guys I'm actually breaking into my own video for a late-breaking update I had mostly finished this video but curiosity was killing me I had to see what was gonna happen on that burger 1:05 latter test or that other node was that I missed the first time 32.4 greens of argot and about 20 950 feet per second so I loaded a bunch of those rounds I shot five of them in this five shot group and what I saw absolutely amazed me you'll notice if you look closely at that last sequence that a round of ammunition disappears for my loading block there's a reason for that the first shot I fired when I was trying to shoot that group of five I was dialed up 3.7 from some shooting that I had been doing at I think it was six hundred sixty yards or seven hundred yards so I was down around in my magazine and I had to reload that magazine but what an amazing result I have that sheet of paper right here five shots with the ballistic X app I calculated that to be at about point zero nine zero inches it was a little hard to tell because the paper was ripped from the plywood backer that I had looking at different backers for that kind of shooting whoa this is benchrest level accuracy this is well beyond what we need for PRS but really tells the story of how well this reamer geometry worked the reamer itself the barrel blank the stock system this loopholed mark 5 scope the alpha brass this is brand new brass we used that Wilson expanding mandrel this is absolutely a phenomenal result what I didn't do was I didn't shoot that over the chronograph when I shot that group as you saw in the video so I just shot a string of five over the magneto speed v3 the rifle had been sitting in the Sun on my side-by-side rack and it was still sub 10 FPS a single-digit fps 8.1 feet per second and we were actually over 3,000 feet per second this rifle was cooking hot so I'm guessing that if I shoot the same ammunition over more controlled conditions waiting for the barrel to cool down and so on and so forth that SD might shrink a little bit back maybe towards that 5 FPS range I'm not totally sure so I am absolutely thrilled with this rifle and all of the different components and dies all the Forester equipments all working absolutely perfectly and what I've decided to do since these results are so good is phase 2 of load development isn't gonna be with resized brows I'm sure that will turn out fine I'm instead gonna turn my attention towards the long-range aspect of load development where do the groups land and what did the group sizes look like at six hundred and a thousand yards what kind of velocity and SD numbers am I getting at a thousand yards ultimately that's where things really matter in a PRS match and that's really what I'm developing this ammunition for we want to make sure that we're able to get on target at a thousand yards and that we've got great consistency and the closer range stuff will kind of sort itself out at that point and that's what I learned from one of my first PRS matches was if you haven't confirmed your load out to a thousand yards and you're shooting out 2,000 yards in the match you haven't done all the work you need to do to be confident and to be in a good position to do as good as you can do in that match so here's what I want to know is what do you think what do you think of the results that I've gotten what do you think of the 6 - er cartridge what kind of content do you want to see me work on related to this rifle package in this reloading scenario drop a comment and we'll start a discussion and don't forget to subscribe with notifications because I'm gonna have a lot more related content coming up if you liked the video please give it a thumbs up also got ultimate reloaded shirts the ultimate reloaded I'm on patreon I've got a link to a full article with a lot more information links to product pages and so on and so forth until next time happy shooting and happy reloading [Music]

Channel: gavintoobe

Views: 62,181

Rating: 4.9398499 out of 5

Keywords: 10 Shot Load Development, 6 Dasher, 6.5 Creedmoor, Bench Rest, Benchrest, Chronograph, Expanding Mandrel Die, FORSTER Co-AX, L.E. Wilson, Load Development, Long Range Shooting, Magnetospeed V3, Neck Diameter, Neck Die, NRL, OCW Load Development, Precision Reloads, PRS, Reloading, Reloading Blog, Reloading Press, Reloading Videos, Ultimate Reloader

Id: gyGoAL2F92M

Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 02 2020