Do guns like certain bullets or powders?

243ME

243ME

New member
I have been reloading for a few years now and in the last two guns i have loaded for I have found that the tightest groups have come the same powders when switching bullets. I dont know if certain guns like certain powders or certain bullets. For example in my 243 I have used IMR 4831 and got clover leafs with 90 grain nosler balistic tips. When I switched to 70 grainers with the same powder my groups got even tighter yet. I tried about five different powders in my 243 for comparison with 4831 being the most consistant. Today I took out a buddies 300 RUM to load test out 180 grain swift scrioccos. We originaly loaded this rifle a few years back with 180 grain Nosler balistic tips with H1000 grouping the best. I tried six different powders in eight loadings for the scirocco and again the H1000 grouped the tightest. Is there a ryme or reason to this with the powder thing? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
Some days, its feathers. Other days, its chicken.

I started in '75 and find to this day, handloading is ever more fascinating.

If you find a pattern or powder preference, yes.

Many rifles like certain powders but not as hard and fast as you have observed.

A good many rifles like a few good powders. Sometimes just switching primers or case brands or even seating depth can "bring it all together"

BUT sometimes you find a rifle that is SOOOOOO picky that you need to hog up a certain LOT NUMBER of a certain powder to get good accuracy.

A rifle like that sometimes needs a "road trip"!

Three 44s
 
I have been loading for over 30 yrs and I believe if you try hard enough you can find about any combo of bullet/powder that will shoot well in a firearm. It is just some rifles like more combo's than others.
 
I do a lot of load development, and find the performance of both powder and bullets will vary from one rifle to another.
For example my Remigton 700BDL in 7mm Rem. Mag. shoots beautifully with IMR4831 but with little else. Some rifles will shoot almost anything well, others are super finicky.
The same applies to bullets. You just have to try a lot of them to find out. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal
 
Ditto to what the others have said. My extreme example was my sons Win Shadow in 223WSSM. What a pig. We tried 7 or 8 powders, 7 bullet types/weights, with multiple combnations of each. The ONLY, and I mean only, charge that grouped was 44gr IMR4350 under a 50gr Nosler BT or a 52gr Sierra hpbtm, and these only went into 2". Everything else went from a 6" 'group' to off the paper. That gun went away, and now he has a Browning, same caliber, which we have not had the chance to shoot yet. I hope its not "out of the frying pan into the fire".

My Sako Vixen in 222mag shoots pretty much everything well, with a few combos at about 1/2".
 


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