600 Yards With the Krag

[musketjon]

Match update;
AGAIN, the Corps has cancelled our match. Seems they'll be working on the fire breaks in the impact area. Damn. I was looking forward to trying a new load.
Jon

[musketjon]

Match rescheduled for this coming Sunday, August 6th.
Jon

[musketjon]

Shot the 600 yard match yesterday. Used IMR4350 and Hornady 178 gr ELD bullets. Each string of fire had a possible of 200-20. My first string was a 104-1. Second string was a 127-0. It was a slight improvement over the 150 gr bullets and IMR4895 I used last time. I used online load data from the Nosler site. In their testing, IMR4350 was the most accurate powder tested. 42.0 grains was their most accurate load so I went with it. It only has a velocity of 2190 fps. A tad bit slow for 600 yards perhaps? Their max load is 46.0 grs of IMR4350 at a velocity of 2460 fps. Maybe I need to try a higher velocity for the longer range. What say you? We were using standard MR-1 targets. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from the old gal. Every shot however, would have hit a man-sized target.
Thanks.
Jon

[Parashooter]

A score of 127 means your average shot is a 6. The MR 6-ring is 8 MOA. Check your load benchrest at 100 yards. If it's producing better than 8 MOA there, the problem is your shooting and wind estimation, not the load or rifle.

The 2190 fps load should be adequate to stay supersonic to 600 yards but you should be working up a load that groups well from the bench in your rifle, rather than trusting the "most accurate load" suggestion from Nosler (which was undoubtedly developed with a different bullet and rifle - and may just reflect the load producing the lowest velocity deviation in their testing).