Just finished a short 40 round run to try out a new (to me) bullet in Lake City brass. I made these specifically for the spare parts gun. Trying to squeeze 1 MOA out of it.
Hornady 62gr FMJ, LC trimmed to 1.754, seated to 2.254, CCI 400, and CFE223.
Research showed this bullet likes to be pushed hard in a 20” 1:9 barrel so I started warm with 26.6gr of CFE223 and stepped up incrementally to 27.2gr (0.3 under max). That should put me somewhere between 2850 and 3010 fps.
The woeful part. Powder measure (Lee Auto Drum) and scale (Frankford Arsenal) conspired to drive me a little batty. The measure just would not throw the exact same charge each time. 80% off by +/- .01gr. Then the scale decided to mess with me. Over by .02, no problem, just dump powder until desired result. NOPE!. I’d dump like 5 to 6 granules of powder and the weight dropped -.04 at times. AND THENNNN… I’d throw a few granules, seriously, like not even ten little specs of powder, in a case that was light by 0.2 and now it is over by 0.1… So I basically had to trickle (without a trickler) all 40 rounds and keep weighing over and over.
I only get this into the weeds for load development or when loading at or near max because +0.4 gr over max can ruin your day. I’ll be testing these at the Stafford Forge Clay and Rifle rang day, date TBD. If I do not like the results, I have some other powders to try.