I am loading for a bunch of Juniors that go through ammunition like it was peanut butter and jelly and I need a consistent, good load for service rifle. Our club guns are built-up rifles with Cradock Precision barrels (1:8) and we use Vortex Viper II service rifle scopes (4X max). They are not precision, expensive rifles but they are more than sufficient for a group of beginning Junior shooters. We have found that the serious shooters buy their own rifles by the their second year – if not sooner.
Like everything else, components are hard to come by and expensive, but I found 32-pounds of WC-844 powder from CDVS (but out of stock now) and blended (very carefully) the four jugs together to give me consistent powder that I can use without having to recertify each jug as I run through it.
Just about every 69-grain BTHP bullet has a sweet spot at about 2800 FPS and I was able to get that velocity with 24-grains of this particular batch of WC-844. For reference, last year’s WC-842 took 23.4 grains to deliver 2800 FPS and my old jug of WC-846 also takes 24-grains – – – – BUT YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY!!
Load Data:
Powder: Surplus WC-844
Powder charge: 24.0 grains
Primer: CCI 41; 5.56 Military
Case: Mixed vendor, mostly LC – many times reloaded
COL: “Magazine length”; I am loading for 6 different rifles and I don’t
want any jams in rapid fire strings
Muzzle Velocity: 2800 FPS nominal
Downrange Velocity: 100 yards – 2543 FPS 25-shot average; SD 28 FPS; Extreme spread 82 FPS
OK – now how does it shoot?
I had five different shooters fire five-round groups from one of the Junior service rifles. We were shooting off a bench using sandbag rests. It was a still day, but about 4:00 PM EST on a dark, dull cloudy December afternoon. The red-dot in the Vortex II was very handy for aiming. We used a 3-inch Shoot ‘n See center and we were shooting on a Silver Mountain electronic target at 100 yards. The target system does all of the group size calculations for us making an evaluation like this very quick and accurate. An instructor also fired a five shot group from a Savage bolt gun using a 9X Bushnell scope (unfair advantage).
Results:
InstructorB Savage bolt gun 0.76 MOA
Instructor1 Service rifle 0.93 MOA
Girl 1 Service rifle 1.30 MOA
Boy 1 Service rifle 0.93 MOA
Girl 2 Service rifle 1.47 MOA
InstructorB Service rifle 1.53 MOA
The average group size for the five service rifle shooters was 1.23 MOA. For reference, the X-ring on the NRA SR-1 target is 1.35 inches in diameter – for all practical purposes 1.35 MOA.
What is my conclusion from all of this?
With a reasonably accurate rifle and a reasonably accurate load – the Rocky Mountain Reloading 69-grain BTHP bullet will shoot as consistently as just about any shooter can hold. You can shoot a more expensive brand-name bullet, but 99% of shooters will not be able to tell any difference. If you are reloading for a bunch of Juniors, that 15-cents per shot mounts up quickly!
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