Bullet seating depth is something I had planned on exploring a bit but its gonna have to wait. I also would be very curious to see the effects of annealing the cases. Especially after seeing what it did for your groups.

This is the kind of "stuff" that makes reloading fun.....
Annealing is definitely something to consider adding to your routine.

Keep us posted.

Well I got the 50rnds done for test on my lee single stage. Then I got a wild hair and dug out the Dillon 550B and ran 10rnds through it with a 26gr charge. We'll see how all of these do tomorrow.

https://youtu.be/IHalFy1bmiE

I met up with Col_Temp at the seattle rifle club again today to test these rounds at 100yrds. This time I started with a full 10 rounds of factory hornady 55gr ammo. That netted me a 3" group. Next up were the reloads starting with 10rnds of cfe223 at 25.6gr. The whole group comes in at 3", without the 2 flyers it's a 1" cluster. The 25.8gr group came in at 2.25". Now 26grs was my best group last time but this time I just blew it and netted a 2.5" which was a bit frustrating. Now the 26.2gr group tightened back up to 1.5"-2". That was followed up by 26.4gr coming in at a very solid 2". At this point I loaded up the 10rnds of 26gr's that were loaded on the Dillon 550B. These came in at 2" as well but with 4 all in the same hole in the bullseye.... Apparently I just decided to be a 2" shooter today.. But I do feel pretty good about the 26.0-26.2gr range of powder. Enough so, that I'm gonna add a little powder to the dillon a load enough for several mags. When things calm down I will be swapping the 6-25x50 viper onto the rife just see if I can actually make these little 55's shoot into an inch.

Is this all with a 1-6x scope?

Yes sir! I'm using the SFP 1-6 primary arms scope with acss retical.

Well, my vote is to put that big scope on, and test with that. I understand your position on this, but that's my vote.

And break out those big bullets, too.

Great report and good results...

I am with the "cake eater", slap the big scope on and get serious.

Speaking of the heavies, I forgot I've held off posting these from last time. So here are the pictures of hornady 75gr projectiles... Starting with the top picture working left to right with 5 shot groups....

22.5gr = 2.5"
23.0gr = 2"
23.5gr = 2.25"
24.0gr = 1.75"
24.5gr = 1.25" *** Best group
25.0gr = 1.75"
25.5gr = 3.5" < pressure signs
26.0gr = 3" < more pressure signs

All of this was again with the 1-6 scope at 100yrds

^ Looks good!

In my experimentation of ladders, using a Chrono is essential to a consistent group. I have found in experiments that two different groupings on seperate days ( with a 30 deg temperature deviation )with the exact same powder charge can vary, as Im sure most experienced hand loaders have.

I started studying Standard Deviation on my rounds with a chrono and found that my groups that held a 20 SD or lower typically were more accurate for groups in various temperature variations.

Ironically, the old school powder...black powder, which is an explosive, not a flammable powder like smokeless, holds my personal record for standard deviation..... 5.6 SD for a 10 shot group.

AA5744 was 2nd best... 7.38 SD.

AVG StdDev Min Max Spread TrueMV Shots/Sec Group Size
1312.5 7.38 1302 1325 23 1312.5 0.04 0