Next weird thing found. A couple of weeks ago I tried to workup a 7mmo8 load with 150 ELDX, could not find a good group. Went back to try 162 ELDX, could not get a good group also. Went broad spectrum with both 150 and 162 staying within .3 grains of powder 37 to 42. Had a few rounds left from last years workup so I shot off 5 rounds just for grins since I was already bummed out. Shot at a 3/4 inch barcode on a target so I wasn't necessarily holding the best I could possibly do. Shot real good with old loads so I went back home and loaded what I thought would be the exact replica of what I just shot. Same powder, same COAL to Ogive, same primer same gun, same everything only difference was 162 AMAX was last years load vs the new 162 ELDX. The only thing was last years workup the distance to Ogive was incorrect, old load was measuring at 80 thousands off off the rifling vs my regular 20 that I normally do. But since the old load shot so well I loaded the ELDX the same 80 thousands off to keep them the same. Groupings were all over the place again with best group at 1" or better. So my question is is there any difference between AMAX vs the ELDX at the same grain?

Pic is a 5 shot group at 100 yards, top hole is my 300 win mag.

I assume you meant stepping in .3 gr increments?

What I would do:

Clean the barrel.
Make sure everything is tight.
Find the rifling, and set .005" off the lands.
Find the best powder charge.
Then test bullet jump in .005" increments.

I understand wanting to shortcut your way to a good load, but this rifle is telling you, you have to start over with the new bullet.

Sorry, yes in .3 grain intervals.

Was afraid of that.

talked a little to Chad about this a couple of weeks ago trying to brainstorm. Shot barrel from dirty to literally stripping all copper out. No change.
Found rifling previously and have checked multiple times to to see if I was just missing something, started at .020 but will back down to .005. At .020 pretty well all charges I tried sucked. Closest I got was about 1 MOA. This thing used to shoot 1 holers at 100 yards that is why this is so frustrating.

Everything tight, checked twice.
Changed scopes, both SWFA and they have no issue on my 300 win mag.
This is on a chassis so it is sound
Barrel only has about 600 rounds in it, I don't shoot hot loads, I keep it from 2500 to 2600 from what Lyman and powder sites tell me but don't have a chrono.

Guess I will just start over.

What powder?

I had something like that once a few years ago, and it turned out I had pushed the shoulders back on my brass way too far. I never did figure out for sure why the adjustment of my sizing die got diddled the way it did, but I have a theory. No matter.

Have you looked at concentricity? Another idea, maybe you're brass needs to be annealed?

IMR 4064

I use Lee dies, full size each firing, trim for length, de-burr, and load, fire three times then anneal.
Maybe I need to try another set of dies?

I don't see why they wouldn't work now if they were working before.

How are you weighing out your powder?

Electronic scale, GemPro 250, and then verifying it on the beam scale from time to time. It is spot on each time.

I even took a couple of rounds apart from last year that shot good and they weighed correctly as what I had marked them.

This is what it used to do.


This is what it is doing now

39.0 to 41.0 of H-Varget, and .005" off was where I was going. I know it is temp stable, don't know about the other. And in this case, temp stable not worrying about over-pressure, but the opposite.

Easy fix for me...shoot the Amax and forget the Eldx.

162 A-Max is out of production. He's gotta convert at some point.

Yep, i dont have any more amax.

I knew they aren't making them but i bet you could find and buy enough to burn that barrel up. Too many guys think the eld is good and selling their amax.

There’s a lot of Amax still out there.

I don't shoot either of those bullets, so I wouldn't know this...but could there be enough difference in the profiles that the ELD is being seated by meplat contact? I know they're plastic tips, but if that's happening then you might be getting enough inconsistency in seating depth to give you problems. I can't think of anything else being the possible cause except that you may well just have to wipe the slate clean and start all over to get the ELD to shoot.

I was thinking about laying in some 53-grain V-Max the other day. They seem to be unavailable, but Midway doesn't show them to be discontinued. I found plenty of them on Gunbroker and not unreasonably priced. I looked to see about the 162 A-Max, and it's a different story altogether. You MIGHT be able to find some, but I don't have any idea where.

I do have ONE more idea, but I dunno if you'd want to pursue it. If you have enough of the old A-Max loads left, you could disassemble five of them, then rebuild them from the beginning to see if they'll shoot the same. I have no idea what might turn up, but that way you would absolutely KNOW that your loading equipment and procedures don't have a bug of some kind. I think that would pretty much eliminate all the possibilities except for the fact that the ELD is a different bullet. I know that if one fellow makes the switch from A-Max to ELD-whatever and doesn't have to tune anything, he's going to be tempted to declare that you can just switch between those two bullets as a rule. It just may not be true in every rifle, and that is something that would be very hard to know.

My batches of 162 Amax and 162 Eld-m are identical in measurements.

Just measured.

162 gr A-Max

base to tip: 1.430"
base to ogive: 0.733"

162 gr ELD-X

base to tip: 1.471"
base to ogive: 0.821"

ELD-X is 0.041" longer over-all, 0.088" longer base to ogive.

Same caliber, same weight, significantly longer in all respects.


Gary, looks like a new bullet to me, and you're going to have to start over. From what I have seen, shooting both, they tend to do well on near the same charge of H-Varget.

Also, the tips won't melt like the AMAX.

Guessing since bullet is longer i will be going down in charge weight?

Nah.

38.4 up to 41.0 gr. Find which one shoots well, and does not over-pressure.

This is where the Ladder Test is handy.

Did you get this figured out? I can mail you 30-40 162 Amax if you want to try your old load to eliminate any other possible issues.

Not as of yet, may take you up on that. By any chance coming to the Hunters Challenge next month?

JG got me thinking when he measured the 162 Amax vs the Eldx and found they were different dimensions to the Ogive. I started measuring different bullets to see if any others that I had measured close to what the 162 Amax does. Found that the 150 Eldx is pretty well exact match to the Ogive as the 162 Amax. The 162 Amax is just overall longer past the Ogive. So, looking at what had been the most consistent charge with the 162 Amax that I had previously, and putting the jump at 40 thousands like the previous charge was and then looking at different load charts with 150 vs 162 weights, I came up with somewhat an educated guess where the powder may be at. I know a lot of guessing but we will see what happens.