Sierra Prohunter 120g and xbr loading

[micknz]

anyone got any starting point load recipes for the above (and chrono data if available)?
I'm trying to set up a deer load for my 20" Howa Mini....
I'm expecting a few boxes to arrive and need to think about doing a small charge ladder (don't want to waste too many bullets or powder as both are sparse in NZ).. my only other powder options is adi 2219(aka h322) and adi 2206h (aka h4895)... the later didn't work well with the Speer gold dots
I've previously settled on a load for Gold Dots 120gr; 28.2gr of xbr, COBL 1.725";MV 2480ft/s, but didn't get much expansion with a vitals shot (penciled thru @100yd... died but required a second shot on the deer, and pencilled through goats at 250meters....
can I start with a small ladder around the load I've already sorted for the Gold Dots? or do I start from scratch?

[EastTNHunter]

Not trying to talk you out of using the 8208xbr, but H4895 has worked great with the 120/123 class bullet in both of my Grendels (Howa mini and AR).

Load data for 8208xbr and thatbullet weight is available from most reloading sources with Grendel data including Hodgdon, Sierra, etc

[myrifle]

anyone got any starting point load recipes for the above (and chrono data if available)?
I'm trying to set up a deer load for my 20" Howa Mini....
I'm expecting a few boxes to arrive and need to think about doing a small charge ladder (don't want to waste too many bullets or powder as both are sparse in NZ).. my only other powder options is adi 2219(aka h322) and adi 2206h (aka h4895)... the later didn't work well with the Speer gold dots
I've previously settled on a load for Gold Dots 120gr; 28.2gr of xbr, COBL 1.725";MV 2480ft/s, but didn't get much expansion with a vitals shot (penciled thru @100yd... died but required a second shot on the deer, and pencilled through goats at 250meters....
can I start with a small ladder around the load I've already sorted for the Gold Dots? or do I start from scratch?

Serria has load data for that bullet on their website.

I'm not understanding how you didnt get expansion on the 120 gold dot at nearly 2500 fps. I drive them slower then that from my ar grendels and get full expansion with a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps.

[grayfox]

I have not shot them with Xbr but did use a couple other powders. In the howa with those powders I got some 2540-ish MV's.
I posted all that somewhere on here in a thread.
In my howa, they touch lands at 2.215" so I used 2.150 OAL.
I have a model for xbr which says ~27.9 you would hit or exceed the 52 ksi max. Sierra data has 27.4 as max.
Now that being said in a bolt action howa, it can withstand higher pressures since it doesn't have the bolt lugs as the weak spot.
If you want to ladder, I would suggest 27.4-28.0 in 0.3 gr or 0.2 increments. Watch MV and pressure signs.
There should be a node 2480-2490 or so. At those speeds you hit the 1000 ftlb ke at ~250 yds.
Note also the pro hunter has a lower bc than the gold dot, 0.356 vs 0.457 for the gold dot.

Xbr is known to spike rapidly in pressure for the 120-123 class bullets somewhere 28.0-28.5 so be careful.

[Dt219]

Where did you start your charge ?

[Sandi5i7]

[micknz]

Thanks Grayfox, from what I'm reading I'll need to restart the ladder (rather than extrapolate from my experience with the Gold Dots).... for some reason I thought I found some load data suggesting that you can use up to 28.5gr xbr when I was working up the Gold Dots.. I might do the ladder as you've suggested for the charge ladder. then play around with seating depth once settled on a charge node.