308 with 137 HH

K

KSB209

New member
Maybe someone can help me out a little bit. I had someone load the 137 HH and ran a ladder test with 2 different loads. My groups with all loads were probably close to 2” at 100 yards. Between groups I would shoot 2 or 3 rounds of factory Federal ammo with 150 grain Barnes TSX and my groups were what I normally shoot 3/4” or maybe slightly better. I’m wondering if the rifle & barrel just don’t like the 137’s but I have never seen anyone that says the Hammer bullets don’t shoot in there rifle so I’m a bit perplexed.

Rifle is a custom by LPR - 308 - 22” bartlien carbon barrel with the 5r rifling. It has shot everything I put through it sub MOA except the hammers. I’m not a fan of performance on game with the Barnes bullets and want to hunt with hammers but 2” groups at 100 yards would have me second guessing any shot over 300 yards.
 
Hi @KSB209,
What were the loads you tested? Were they ladders with different powder charges? There's several guys here that shoot the 137's out of a 308 with absolutely astounding accuracy (looking at you @BFD). Hard to know what to make of it if your rifle shoots factory ammo sub MOA.

Some have suggested thoroughly cleaning the barrel when switching to hammers to eliminate any residual copper fouling that might be present. And if the rounds you shot were different powder charges, then that could account for it too.

More info on what loads you shot would help people offer suggestions.
 
Well we can't have this. We need some more information. I'm not sure I understand, you say your friend loaded you two ladder tests. What powders did he use, how many grains of powder did he start with and and end with and what increments were the powder increases in? It's not terribly unusual to have a 2" group running a ladder with different powder charges. Did your ladder test go high enough to find an indication of pressure? A true ladder test should be run at greater distance however here we use the term kind of loosely. We usually run ladders jut to find the max load using that powder/bullet combination. Then we back off slightly and shoot for groups.
 
There's a good description on the basics of reloading hammers. Here's the link in case you haven't read it:

Loading Process For Hammer Bullets

Steve Davis Administrator (Originally posted 2/29/2020) @ingwe asked me if I would start a thread detailing how we do load development, so here goes. With a rifle that is new to us the 1st thing we do is clean it until there is no copper from other bullets in the barrel. I recommend this...
hammerbullets.com
 
First off, clean your barrel to bare metal and get all "foreign" copper put of it. Then shoot the Hammers. You should see a dramatic difference. Also, don't mix the copper bullets you shoot. Hammer metallurgy is very diff from Barnes or other brands of bullets.
 
thanks for the info fellas. My barrel started clean with the exception of verifying zero with 3 rounds of the Barnes down the pipe. I need to find out the powder and charges used and will come back for some more intel. I was shocked with the groups because I see all you shooting dime sized groups or smaller with everything hammer. Seem to be pretty awesome bullets but I need to tinker with the loads I guess
 
Hammer bullets also like to be crimped with decent neck tension to start that's why most of us use the lee crimp die. We can adjust the level of crimp and tune our loads with it.
 
Jemurr3 said:
Hammer bullets also like to be crimped with decent neck tension to start that's why most of us use the lee crimp die. We can adjust the level of crimp and tune our loads with it.
Click to expand...
Yupp. We did crimp the neck. I’ve been so busy with work and vacations this month I haven’t been able to get back to the range to shoot again. I do appreciate all the comments and info.
 
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