Play with seating depth or look for another node?

Went to the range today with the following:
AR15 - 6.5 Grendel, 18" ARP barrel, bipod and rear bag. Bullet was Hornady 123gr. ELD Match, brass Hornady, WSR primers. Did not have a Chrony.

100 yds. 5 shot groups

CFE 29.5grs. 1.278 group, 2 touching, 3 open cluster

CFE 29.8grs. .959 group, similar to group above with tighter cluster

CFE 30.1grs. 1.540 group, open cluster with horizontal stringing

Varget 28.2grs. .939 group, 3 touching vertical string 2 just below to the right

Varget 28.4grs. .993 group, horizontal string 4 touching

Varget 28.6grs. .710 group, picture a square pattern with 1 shot touching top right corner of square

Varget 28.8grs. 1.290 group, open cluster

Varget 29.0grs. 1.528 group, 2 in one hole, 3 in open horizontal cluster

No pressure signs, COL was 2.48 for all rounds.

Do I go with the Varget 28.6 load and play with seating depth or load some more around the 28.2 & 28.4 nodes, not sure what to make of the vertical stinging on one and the horizontal stringing on the other one.

Looking for a bit of advice.

Thanks.

I have used WSR primers for the Grendel with good accuracy success but most will recommend a thicker cupped primer for an AR. CCI 450 is a very popular primer as the I think CCI 41 (5.56 CCI Primer).

Hornady lists a good bit higher with the 123gr A-Max, ELD and SST for CFE223 at 31.7gr as max charge. I would go up a bit more in powder watching for pressure signs. I have found good accuracy nodes with CFE223 in the Grendel near the low listed and near the max listed.

A picture of your targets will help see POI. Look for a few charges having very close POI and possibly adjust seating depth to tighten them up.

how good of accuracy (group size) are you expecting from this gun?

Hey Buzz, would like to get it to .5 MOA, that may be pie in the sky, but ya gotta have goals.

With those results I would probably load up 28.6 grains varget be happy and shoot it.

If you want a little better load up a few around it maybe 28.5 and give it a go?

McKinney, Like I mentioned earlier, do you still have the targets? It's hard to decipher which is group is good or what node to pick without looking at them, would you post some pictures of them?

Hey TackDriver, will work on getting photos of the targets on here in a bit.

Here is a link to the targets, couldn't get them to upload. Aiming point was the center of the orange stickers.

https://pix.sfly.com/bNhRoh

Looks like you may have a node between 28.4 and 28.6 since POI is close, might want to try 28.5 gr. Varget and play with seating depth to tighten them up.

Thanks kmon1 for getting the pics loaded.

Picked up some CCI 405 primers tonight.

Tackdriver - will start loading at 28.2 and just work up in .1gr increments to 28.7 grs. and see what that shows. Then will start playing with the seating depth.

Thanks all for the information shared and help.