Powder: Hodgdon CFE

[lrgrendel]

I have had a pound of CFE for over a year and decided just now to try it out.

80 F. 60% Humidity. Sea Level.
100 yds. The black circle in the targets is 1".

AA OVERWATCH 24". Lapua brass. CCI 450 primers.
123 AMAX, SCENAR and SMK.
30.0, 30.3, 30.6, 30.9, 31.3 powder increments for all bullets. 5 shot groups.

I won't bore you with all the results of each increment in each bullet. (There are 15 groups) I will just show you the most encouraging.

I have a lot of wiggle room to up the velocity with an increase in the powder increments. No pressure signs at all to day.

So next time out I will reload these 4 good results and see if I can repeat the results,and also try a little higher in my max powder charge.

It was a clear sunny day today and my Chrony was acting up. So there were a lot of errors. (I lost all the velocity data for the Scenar) I also had never fired SMK before and to get them as close to the lands as I wanted they ended up longer than mag length.

[Confederate]

Motivating to start off my day!!

[65Whelen]

Nice day at the range.

[Redraider]

Very nice!!!!! Is the single lost sheep on the 30.0 and 31.6 the 1st round shot, last, any error on your part??

[lrgrendel]

Very nice!!!!! Is the single lost sheep on the 30.0 and 31.6 the 1st round shot, last, any error on your part??

I believe each "flyer" was the 4th or 5th shot in these 2 groups. Of course it was me, I am just not that good!

[LRRPF52]

Try 31.6gr and 31.9gr. Will be interesting to see velocity and accuracy. Either way, you already have a good 2700fps load.

[lwminton]

Try 31.6gr and 31.9gr. Will be interesting to see velocity and accuracy. Either way, you already have a good 2700fps load.

Hornady shows 31.2 in the red zone. Are they too conservative or does it depend on the barrel and chamber?

[LRRPF52]

Hornady shows 31.2 in the red zone. Are they too conservative or does it depend on the barrel and chamber?

They show 31.2gr for several 120-123gr projectiles, to include the 120gr GMX. That is the limiting factor right there, not the cup and core pills.

If you look at the 129gr data, which is only for 129gr SST, IB, and SP-all cup and core with similar bearing surfaces and jacket construction, the max load is 31.7gr of CFE.

How did we go up in max load for a heavier projectile with more bearing surface? Because the start pressure consideration for the 120gr GMX limits it down to 31.2gr of CFE.

123gr cup and core can go slightly higher than 129gr. The chronograph will tell you if you depart, then you can set your parameters and determine what you want in a mass-produced load. You're already at about 2700fps. I would personally load up 31.5gr at least, but the velocity isn't really going to be a huge difference. Your Extreme Spreads are pretty tight already, so you have what looks like a great long-range load as it is. You can mess with load development some more, or load up 10-20 31.3gr and see how they do at 300yds.

31.3gr is somewhere around 47,000psi. This case efficiency with CFE and a 123gr is an awesome little combo.

[lrgrendel]

Try 31.6gr and 31.9gr. Will be interesting to see velocity and accuracy. Either way, you already have a good 2700fps load.

Shot again today. Only shot what looked promising last week at 200 yds.
Everything else at 100 yds and through the Chrono. ( I think the Chrono is reading fast BTW )

Won't bore you with words! Please see the photos.

Only thing that really interested me was there was almost a difference of 100 FPS between 31.9 gr under the Amax and the SMK.
I like the velocity so will load some more and compare them with my known AA2520 load of around 2640 and shoot them on the same day through the same Chrono.

Next time I will also play with the seating depths, especially with the SMK.

You may notice the velocities on the 30.9 SMK are very fast. Errors!

[lwminton]

What are the circles for?

[lrgrendel]

What are the circles for?

Used same target for 2 groups. Shot first group. Circled the 5 shots. Fired 2nd group. Now I could identify the 2nd group of 5 shots. ( I set my targets up in a hurry and had more groups to shoot than I thought )

[LRRPF52]

So the pressure spiked on you bigtime with 31.9gr.

At 31.6gr, you had 2661 avg.
At 31.9gr, you had 2762 avg.

.3gr should not result in 100fps more velocity, so that is a clear departure from the trend in charge weight increment, and I would stay away from that load.

I would look at the 31.3gr load and mass-produce that. What COL are you able to load to?