Working on the range

My dad came down last weekend and hooked me up with some reloading supplies, and a bench he built by hand.  Can't thank him enough for that.  More on that in a future post.

We spent a few days working on some data and getting all the equipment set up.  All we could do was pick some starting loads and head to the range to test them out.  These tests would include getting average velocities using a chronograph, zeroing in the rifles, and seeing how they grouped at 100 yards.

I only worked up one load for my daughters 7mm-08 since I really had no starting point with that caliber.  I loaded it about medium range based on the data I had.  It proved to be a pretty good starting point as I was able to get them to group pretty good after I got the scope zeroed in. This will provide a good base to start from.  I'm pretty happy with the group, but I'd like to see the velocity a little higher.  This caliber is starting to prove itself as being one of my favorite, and I can see myself picking up one of these in the future.

After I got my daughters rifle dialed in I let her have her time.  She jumped right in and started sending some lead downrange.

I had put up some new targets so I had a hard time seeing where she was hitting since they were dark, in fact we thought she wasn't even hitting the paper till we went up to get the target.

A serious confidence booster for my daughter, and she couldn't have made her dad and grandpa more proud of her.  Like I said before, we will be spending a lot of time at the range before hunting season so I can only see her improving.

I was up next with the 280.  I had a few more loads to try out.  I started out with a pretty conservative load and wasn't impressed too much with the velocity.  My next load was the one that my dad had been using for a while, but with a different bullet.  The velocity was faster, and more in line with what my dad had figured for this load when he developed it.  I had one more load to try as I had decided to make one a little hotter.  Just these few grains increased my velocity by about 100fps.  I was getting close to 3,000fps which was pretty amazing.  Not to mention my groups were looking pretty good, even considering the barrel being pretty warm after doing a fair amount of shooting.  I expect that had something to do with them not being a little tighter.

I'm happy with our first outing to the range, and I've already started working on some adjustments to the loads we started developing.  The options are endless when you do your own reloading.