So today I loaded my rounds and took it to the range, fired first 2 shots as a test fire, then loaded 20 rounds in groups of 5 and landed bullets on to the target.
MY LOAD
So Here is brief recall of my load:
powder: CFE 223 (starting load, 24.8 gr)
Primer: Remington 7 1/2
Bullet: Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT/w cannelure
Brass: Mixed range brass + some of brand new unfired brass (HSM 223 brand)
ASSEMBLED ROUNDS
Here are some of my rounds right before firing:
The final parameters are: COL: 2.21" - 2.219"
OL: 1.74"
Headspace: various for each group, will be shown later
RESULTS
Here is a result of shooting:
The negative number shown as HS marker is indication by how much less the headspace was measured compared to the fired factory brass from same rifle. My factory fired ammo cases measured 1.460". so after sizing I sorted out 4 groups, one was 8 thousands less than 1.460", another 7, 6 and 4th group was 3 thousands less than 1.460" (which is what I supposed to do according to the instructions)
CASE INSPECTION
After firing I collected all rounds and inspected them, below are the pics:
Below are pics of primers in fired rounds:
BOLT INSPECTION
I inspected the bolt in my rifle, does not seem to be battered or damaged or anything:
MY QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
Now I got some questions,
1) If I size it 0.002" less than fired brass measurement of 1.460", will it be more precise? Or just aim for 0.003" ?
2) Below are some unfired 1.73" and 1.75" OL cases, the die was set to sit bullet for 1.75" as a result cannelure does not appear at center of case mouth for 1.73" OL case. My question: what OL is best for accuracy? 1.73? or 1.75?
3) this question is related to #2, if I fine tune all my dies and trim tools to have OL=1.75" or even 1.76" (max spec), and also try to sit bullet so that COL = 2.28",
will I get the BEST accuracy because bullet is sitting closer to rifling?
4) this is just my comment, im not the greatest rifleman (yet
) and my trigger is standard mil spec trigger (which gets bad), also while shooting I was more thinking about things not to blow up rather than paying too much attention on precision aiming. But..for now results are these. Maybe later I'll try to get better of course once I assemble more rounds.
5) All rounds extracted and chambered well, no issues at all. Recoil felt OK (actually I have a feeling that I got less recoil than firing those green tip ammo?? not sure why), fire sound was kinda OK too, nothing suspicious.
6) Which group has better results? (which HS marker?)
7) The primers measured 0.0" after firing, they were firmly sitting there in place as you see, is it ok? (i.e. before firing primers were sit 0.003" to 0.008" deep)
8) do you have any other comments or maybe I missed something? or anything to add?
thanks to everyone here who was helping, especially dryflash3