Shamanic Guide: Take no load for granted

Never take a load for granted. This weekend was proof of that. I had two rifles out this weekend. These were slam-dunk no-brainers, that I had been putting off in lieu of some tougher loading projects. The fault was mine—these were problems I should have been discovering in June, not September.

The first was the Savage 99 in 308 Win. It’s the one I’ve been talking about recently.

The other was the Marlin 30-30. See Ode to a 30-30

I thought it was going to be a quick exercise. Fire a few rounds out of each, prove the rifles were still shooting where they should and put them away for gun season.

The first problem was the Savage 99. I couldn’t get it to group with last year’s rounds at all. I tried some from a batch I loaded last week, and everything smoothed out and I was back to MOA cloverleafs. What happened to this batch that had been on the shelf since last November is anybody’s guess. Oh well. I’m glad I had a fresh batch to fill the gap.

The Marlin was a bit different. This was a light 150 Grain / H4895 load. I’d used it for two years for #2. The H4895 made for minimal recoil. I had been shooting tacks with it last year. This year I added a crimp die. The theory was a light crimp with the new die would increase pressure only slightly and even out any variations. I had expected a more accurate rather than less accurate load. To test this hypothesis, I crimped some of last year’s rounds. Blech! The crimp had screwed everything up. It wasn’t until I tried three rounds out of a hot barrel that things finally settled back into a 1 inch group. Since there is no way to get a barrel pre-heated while deer hunting, this load is now on the re-work list. My next step is to knock a bit off the velocity and try again.

Moral1: Take nothing for granted. Test every load and every batch. When moving from batch to batch of a known load, make sure to take a sample of the previous batch along to test against the new one.

Moral2: Don’t put a good deer gun away at Thanksgiving and expect it to be shooting the same at Labor Day.