About 11 years ago I had two custom rifles built on FN SPR actions, one in a heavy barrel rem varmint contour and the other in a medium sporter weight.  Both Rock Creek blanks.

My plan was to shoot the 130 Accubond in the sporter weight.  At the time I had 20-25 years reloading experience and was just a few years into the precision rifle fad.  I had great results with my Obermeyer barreled M700.  Frankly I had never ever run into a reloading accuracy issue I couldn’t solve to my satisfaction.

In comes the Accubond.  

I never really got better than 3” accuracy.  I started with H4831 SC, played with powder then seating depths,.  Started next on R19, same thing, a few not bad results but the next outing the same load would blow chunks.  Started switching primers, WLR, Fed GM210, Wolf.   That didn’t help, tried Hybrid H100v and tried a supposed accuracy load for H4350.  

I really was at wits end and not satisfied.  Deer season was right around the corner so i picked up some 140 grain Sierra Game Kings.  Everything shot well with them.  selected a load , tweaked it in a couple range sessions and killed a couple does with it.  

I even went so far to call Nosler and talk to the customer service folks to see if there were any reports of problems with my lot number and described all I tried.   Nope they hadn’t heard of any complaints and sent me another box of 50 to try.  I never got back to the Accubond, thinking it was pushing a rope up hill.  


As most arfcommers are apt to I was surfing the net and saw a discussion on jumping the Accubonds.  Guys were talking jumping 0.050-0.10” or more!   They hate being close to the lands for most guns.  .  

Son of a ....bitch.......my trying lots of seating depths?  My distance off the lands were 0.005”, 0.010”,  0.015”, 0.020”, 0.025”...............I never got close the the normal accubond zone.  I had only heard you got to jump them a little, being recently immersed in precision rifle loading with jamming, touching, or five thou off my brain wasn’t thinking of jumping a tenth of a fricken inch.


So today I cracked into that courtesy box of accubonds and loaded up a series from 46.5 to 47.5 grains of H4831SC in a prepped RP case with a Wolf primer.  Now all I need is a non windy day.   Find an OCW hopefully in there and have a little better precision than all the damn iterations I tried before.  

Fingers crossed!

I've pushed accubonds out of a 300WM, a Grendel and a 6.5-284.  I have all well within .75MOA.  I normally run 2 thou off the lands except the Grendel which is mag length limited.  Then I tried Berger VLD Hunting bullets.  If you pick up a box of these for your 260, put them in front of your most accurate load for the Accubonds and see what they do.  I'm sold on Berger.

My gunsmith uses them happily.   Way too much shredding for me and exactly the opposite of what I am looking to do.  He is mobility limited and drop in their tracks works very well for his needs.  I know not everyone agrees but my goal is to switch to all copper or bonded bullets to avoid just that sparay of lead fragments that makes the VLD work.  Just for stuff I want to eat.  I am coming from the game king and Nosler ballistic tips that do violently come apart in the deer I have shot.  Two deer with the off side shoulder very wrecked.

Well off to the range.  I will post back if the much longer jump improves them.

I did the same thing with Barnes ttsx.  Started .010 off and got frustrated when I couldn't get them to shoot. Moved back to .060 and they were sub moa in a custom bolt .308. Can anyone explain to me why a bullet would like to be jumped?  It makes absolutely no sense to me.

It seems to be more tolerant of the sixty thousandths jump.  

Talked to my gunsmith buddy today and he swears by jamming them for a start and working back three thousandths at a time.  He has had good luck that way.  He does have the homefield advantage of a 400 yard range and his reloading bench six feet away from his shooting bench and shooting window.  

I didn’t get the sub 4mph wind forcast but 8 mph winds.  I did my shooting from 100.  



46.5 grains 1.0”
46.7 1.25”
47.0  1.125” (5/8” for four and am not confident on my second shot that opened out the group)
47.3. 1.375 in a verticle stack
47.5.  1.0” (4 in 0.5”, shot 1 was called off)   but.....this had some lightly sticky bolt lift and flat primers)


Better but not really super conclusive.

examining the group centers find 46.5,  46.7 and 47.5 the same.
47.0 moved half an inch left
47.3 moved a half inch up.  from the the three charges that overlaid.

At a hundred I could mix the whole box and still shoot a round shaped 1.5” group with mixed charges.  

Better than before but not really drawing conclusions.  

I got nothing to explain it.  I got off the phone with my gunsmith friend and while he thinks jamming accubonds and working back is his way he admits that you always got to let the gun give you the answer on what it shoots.  He shoots his guns as single or two shots loaded longer than mag length.  

I was hoping for a clear answer on the preferred charge and finding an OCW scatter.  Then playing with seating depth.  

Ogive radius interaction with leade angle? I reckon a steeper leade likes shorter jump and shallower leade likes longer jump.

That makes some sense. In my mind I envision a bullet traveling through the free bore and wobbling ever so slightly before it engages the rifling. It seems the shortest jump possible would minimize this.

Wishing I shot the whole thing a 200 now.  

I keep trying to read the tea leaves (targets).  The sticky bolt lift at max has me rejecting that load.

Retested on the powder charge 46.5 with a series different OAL.

Shot at 200 this time.  1.1 MOA at the worst.  I never saw a huge shift in group size or location.  Could have gone farther but lack the bullets and 4871 to carry on.  Good enough for 300 yard max I can see where I hunt.   I stopped at an 80 thousandths jump.  

When these are gone I might try the Barnes 120 TTSX.  

Anecdote of the day.  I was shooting next to a gent with a Savage Creedmoor.   He was very upset that is loads shifted and his barrel was extremely coppered up.  He was stuck on the notion that a country gunsmith said to him when I was a teen, “never put a brush in the bore of a rifle, it is the worst thing you can do to it.”   You can guess why he had a copper plated bore, add in this he shoots a stiff charge of W760 and put about seven shots down range in the two to three minutes I allow for my barrel to cool between shots.  He insisted his gun liked to be hot for all loads.  He literally couldn’t touch his barrel when his ammo was gone.  

Well I did suggest using Wipe Out and a patch if he wasn’t going to brush.