I recently had a bolt gun built for MR F-T/R competition; as a part of that, I had it chambered using a custom reamer with a .170 freebore, specifically to shoot the 90gr class of bullet.

I've been working with Varget as of late, with some pretty good results, but also wanted to try 8208 XBR because I've got at least 24lbs on hand.

That said, because of the .170 freebore, my loaded rounds are way out there in length; something like 2.6x" (2.085 on a hdy tool). When I'm loading varget, I'm well over the hodgdon book max without pressure signs (yes, I worked up to this, and many .223 FTR shooters are well over max too). I'm running 24.7gr of Varget, and the book max is something like 22gr with a 90gr bullet.

I was wondering if anyone was running 8208 in Lapua cases behind a 90gr bullet? If so, what are your powder charges, and what kind of velocity are you getting?

cartridge OAL plays an important role in reloading. if the book load is at a significantly lower OAL than your running you'll find often times you can get away with more. another thing i've run into with other cartridges is bearing surface can also influence pressure differently. ie. a tangental ogive with a longer bearing surface will run into pressure far sooner than these extreme VLD's that have almost half the bearing surface.

as to trying 8208. you could always give it a try. I think Varget may afford more velocity with the longer tubes and there are likely other powders that could get even more velocity with the long tubes most FT/R guys run but at the cost of ES/SD likely (CFE223, PP2000MR, RE17 are a couple that come to mind)

I am running 90s in Lapua brass out of a Savage FTR, but I have not tried 8208 but I have though about it and may have run some numbers through quikload. There is a guy running 322 behind 90s with some success so 8208 could probably be made to work.

I love 8208 behind 80 gr bullets.

Well to close loop, I tried them today. I didn't chrony all the charges I tried, so forgive the randomness.

22.7gr @ 2650 FPS - 7.6 SD
23.4gr @ 2714 FPS - 13.5 SD
23.6gr @ 2737 FPS - 15.2 SD
24gr @ 2766 FPS - 18 SD.

barrel length?

Sierra or Berger?

What you think?

Barrel Length: 29"

Sierras today, but ordered 300 90gr Berger VLDs tonight to try next weekend.

As far as what I think, they didn't shoot bad, but they didn't shoot great. I haven't put calipers to the targets yet, but I'm guessing they'll average .5" CTC. Not bad, but not exactly as good as it can shoot.

I will say at slower velocities, I can get the sierras to shoot in the high .2s-.3s, but we're talking 2400 FPS territory; it's just too slow to shoot in a comp.

What velocities were you seeing with varget?

How do your cases/primers look? any pressure signs yet?

In my experience with XBR if you can get it to hit a node near max pressure your golden. My es/sd's went from the teen's like your getting to low single digits near max loads on both my .308 and .223 (shooting 175's and 77's)

It's my favorite powder these days.

2784 @ 24.7gr of Varget, and the cases/primers look fine. Starting to get an ever so slight primer flattening, but you have to look real hard at it to see it.

With 8208 XBR, I was getting the primers to start flowing back into the firing pin hole on the bolt. It wasn't bad, but it was there. I could also feel what seemed like increased recoil from the gun; not like a heavy .223 recoils all that hard though, so tough to tell.

Even after shooting the 8208 XBR, my primer pockets still seem good, and this is the cases 4-5th firing. It's honestly better life than I expected to get.

I love 8208 in my AR15; it's crazy accurate there, but for 90s it's probably a touch fast.

Given I can't seem to get the SMKs as accurate as I want with either varget or 8208, I'm going to give the 90gr VLDs a try. I'll probably start with varget again around 23.8gr, and work up from there.

Not to threat jack but I was looking at Berger 90gr and on the box it said 6.5 twist for this round. Will I be ok running this in my AR that has a Larue 1/8 twist barrel?

No.

With a true 1:8 and 2550fps MV, Berger's calculator is showing an SG of 1.02. Many consider 1.3 minimum, 1.5 ideal.

Button rifled twists tend to be on the slow side, ie 1:8.3.

I don't think that situation is ideal,  but if I had both I'd at least try it.