Post by GLSHOOTER on Mar 27, 2018 14:44:20 GMT -8
I received a new upper from Ritch built with a Tactical Ordnance 6X6.8 a couple months ago but thanks to the Arizona winter being wetter and winder than normal I had not shot it. I’ve been getting reports on how well these barrels shoot and was anxious about getting it to the range. The chamber on this one is cut to the original specifications and designed to allow for reaching the lands with most bullets from the ASC magazines I favor that will load out to 2.316.
As many of you know Starline has come out with 6.8 SPC brass. I have lots of 6.8 made by Federal and Silver State but wanted to evaluate it.you. Truly a good example of that in play for me. I decided to run these against same same loads using old Silver State Armory brass.
I decided to load most of it up in 6X6.8 with a few remaining as regular 6.8. This decision was made as I shoot at least 50 rounds of wildcat 6.8 variants as I do the OG so since that’s what I do that’s what I did. I did check for case capacity on the 6.8 and will tack my observations on that at the end. Case forming was easy this time as I used the new one step custom Hornady dies that we had ordered. The cases were as pristine coming out as going in.
I chose to load mostly the 85 Sierra Game King on this test as this is a great deer chambering and also added some 58 ZMAX as this one has its roots as a coyote cartridge. If it won’t shoot those it would be a bust but I had faith in this tube. It is an 18” five groove polygon barrel and I was very interested to see the speeds as most of my shooting has been done with a 24” in this one. The poly rifling has consistently outperformed my standard rifled barrels in same same loadings and every indication I had seen showed the fives appear to be shoot even better than the outstanding threes I have.
So here goes the range report of my foray. The set up as I used that day in the desert is pretty basic. Temperatures ranged form 83 to 97 degrees over a six hour period. I shot three different rifles that day and put around 250 rounds down range. I hadn’t touched a long gun in almost four months and my technique was terrible. I do need to go in and readjust the trigger as the let off was a bit inconsistent and in tandem with my poor bench work I turned many ½” groups into 0.8’s and 0.9’s. Lots of yips..LOL
The first groups I would do were shot with the Starline brass and H322 I dialed in the scope at 25 yards with two rounds and set the stand out at 100. First three shots were promising and I went for a five shot group to round out my first batch. It looked good through the scope so I grabbed the next load up in the progression and put three more down range. Since my Starline brass supply was slightly limited I was shooting some five and some three shot groups. The Silver State was all shot with fives as I have a nice supply of it laid in. As you can see these aren’t bad and the bottom group is what I would consider adequate. I chose H322 on this one as others had great luck with it while mine had been less than stellar. It no doubt is a barrel specific issue so I can’t fault the powder at this point.
I found the speed on these very nice and it will certainly do the number on deer size critters. But that was only one powder and I wanted to try out some H4895. This powder has done well for me and the velocities have been very good. Once again the 85 Game King at a nice mild load level. Subsequent higher charge levels opened up somewhat. Still good enough for deer slaying but not shoot their eyes out like I like yet I suspect once I get the trigger reworked I can shrink the groups way down to the 0.5 range.
I did shoot that same load in the Silver State brass and speeds were 37 FPS less and the group was bigger but if I subtract the leaker out of the bottom it would be a super effort. Even so it was pretty decent . The four good ones went into a 0.403 BTW.
I had one last powder to try and went with RL15. This is what I’ve used in my 500 yard loads with 87’s in my F-Class matches and it has done well for me. It showed some decent potential in this tube too. You might notice that the speed was up there like I like to see in these 6 MM’s. I will be looking at this one a bit more in the future.
Across the board I was happy with the 85’s in this barrel. Now for the scoop on the brass. Firing same same loads in the SL vs. the SSA I found that none of the Silver State had issues in rim or ejector markings. On the Starline out of 50 cases fired I experienced mild rim bending from the lowest to highest in all three powders. The H322 that I shot first was relatively mild to start but at 27.0 grains I was seeing definite bend. The H4895 loads showed nothing on the lower loads but quickly bent and ripped rims at a grain higher level of 29.1. Not good. The RL15 loads at 29 were ting bending with the 30.0 showing slight burrs and ejector markings. Assessment? Not a good choice for these. The decreased capacity is working against the brass as is the obvious softness.
As I mentioned this cartridge was originally designed for shooting varmints i.e. coyotes. It has proven to work well in the field out to past 400 yards many times and even has a 646 yard antelope to its credit. For this mere mortal that’s a poke hat I won’t be trying any time soon. That being said I did load up a test bed of the 58 ZMAX for Zombie Coyote .
I was about out of Starline when I grotto these but really wanted to try the H322 in them so see how this one ran compared to my other tubes. I only loaded three shots at each level with the Starline and split the jumps at 0.2 grains between steps. My testing was twofold as I wanted to look hard at this brass and get the most data out of the least rounds that I could get. I shot same same loadings in the Silver State for comparison. I had enough SSA to shoot five at each level for this test.
My first SL group using H322 at 30.7 shot into 0.873. Not bad but it was bending already. The 30.9 showed flatter primers and bending. At 30.1 I had a failure to extract. No big deal except when I knocked the case out I found it was already decapped, had a nice round black hole for a pocket and part of the rim had been ripped clear off. Well I figured this was a bit excessive as I’ve shot this load before on a couple of trips so decided one more shot was sent down range. Same result with smoke roiling out and a stuck case. No primer and a big rim rip. The plus was the two rounds went into 0.772 though it was the hard way. I figured at this point I’d save the third one in that batch and defer shooting the next higher levels of 31.3 and 31.5. I like data but not stupid test data .The average for all three groups was way under an MOA BTW.
Next I shot the same loads using SSA brass. All five loads, twenty five rounds total, showed no issues with nice round primers post firing. The last one at 31.5 grains was decent for a final turn off the bench with this one. I was pleased with the speed of 3546 out of the 18” tube and as it showed no real pressure I might go another 0.2 on it.
I ran out of brass so limited the 58’s to only the one powder but I will revisit the bullet again in the near future. I want to try some 70 TNT’s on the next session as I have around 500 of them and they are a varmint bullet deluxe.
In summation on this I found the 6X6.8 Tactical Ordnance barrel to easily be tunable across a spectrum of loads. I found the accuracy was outstanding and would be very consistent with the right trigger in the future. On the brass I was disappointed in the Starline. It obviously is very soft and if I had a bunch of it I would revisit all loading data shot previously in other brass and revise everything down by a minimum of a grain across the board. I did find that speeds with the SL were 20-50 FPS higher than in the SSA but the early demise of my components is unacceptable to me.
Greg
ADDENDUM
I mentioned I saved some of the brass for the true 6.8 SPC loads. I selected a mild load of 28.8 of Benchmark and the ubiquitous 110 VMAX for this test. I shot factory Hornady, gasp, and loads utilizing Remington, Starline, SSA and FC and some 1X fired Hornady.
This is a 17.5” barrel. Factory loads showed me 2621 or about what I expected. My selected base load of BM showed a variation between on the new brass of 2526 (Remington)to 2539(FEDERAL). The lowest was 2521 with Starline. Statically a wash for such a small sample. The fastest non-factory was the 1X Hornady at 2586.
Capacity, post firing, was interesting. Hornady – 35.58 Remington-35.9 Starline-36.08 Federal- 36.18 and SSA a whopping 37.8. This is a classic illustration of you must match your loads to your brass if you want long life or if you shoot a mix master blend of cases you should load to the smallest capacity of the bunch that is safe. Like using loading data for a smaller cartridge in a bigger one prudence does pay off as we noodle for catfish at the bench. Accuracy was so so on this test and was not really a consideration. Seeing how much slower than the factory load was on these I was not surprised. I did eak out a sub-MOA with the Federal brass but bumping everything up will be tried next time out. These were the first 30 rounds down the tube on this one.
Brass summation. Case capacity as above showed me something. Brass damage comparison showed Starline exhibiting bent rims from even this mild loading. A real disappointment with both tests showing the same issue. The brass is inexpensive but it is not for me. I will pick up some S&B for a test in the future as it is well liked by many.
As many of you know Starline has come out with 6.8 SPC brass. I have lots of 6.8 made by Federal and Silver State but wanted to evaluate it.you. Truly a good example of that in play for me. I decided to run these against same same loads using old Silver State Armory brass.
I decided to load most of it up in 6X6.8 with a few remaining as regular 6.8. This decision was made as I shoot at least 50 rounds of wildcat 6.8 variants as I do the OG so since that’s what I do that’s what I did. I did check for case capacity on the 6.8 and will tack my observations on that at the end. Case forming was easy this time as I used the new one step custom Hornady dies that we had ordered. The cases were as pristine coming out as going in.
I chose to load mostly the 85 Sierra Game King on this test as this is a great deer chambering and also added some 58 ZMAX as this one has its roots as a coyote cartridge. If it won’t shoot those it would be a bust but I had faith in this tube. It is an 18” five groove polygon barrel and I was very interested to see the speeds as most of my shooting has been done with a 24” in this one. The poly rifling has consistently outperformed my standard rifled barrels in same same loadings and every indication I had seen showed the fives appear to be shoot even better than the outstanding threes I have.
So here goes the range report of my foray. The set up as I used that day in the desert is pretty basic. Temperatures ranged form 83 to 97 degrees over a six hour period. I shot three different rifles that day and put around 250 rounds down range. I hadn’t touched a long gun in almost four months and my technique was terrible. I do need to go in and readjust the trigger as the let off was a bit inconsistent and in tandem with my poor bench work I turned many ½” groups into 0.8’s and 0.9’s. Lots of yips..LOL
The first groups I would do were shot with the Starline brass and H322 I dialed in the scope at 25 yards with two rounds and set the stand out at 100. First three shots were promising and I went for a five shot group to round out my first batch. It looked good through the scope so I grabbed the next load up in the progression and put three more down range. Since my Starline brass supply was slightly limited I was shooting some five and some three shot groups. The Silver State was all shot with fives as I have a nice supply of it laid in. As you can see these aren’t bad and the bottom group is what I would consider adequate. I chose H322 on this one as others had great luck with it while mine had been less than stellar. It no doubt is a barrel specific issue so I can’t fault the powder at this point.
I found the speed on these very nice and it will certainly do the number on deer size critters. But that was only one powder and I wanted to try out some H4895. This powder has done well for me and the velocities have been very good. Once again the 85 Game King at a nice mild load level. Subsequent higher charge levels opened up somewhat. Still good enough for deer slaying but not shoot their eyes out like I like yet I suspect once I get the trigger reworked I can shrink the groups way down to the 0.5 range.
I did shoot that same load in the Silver State brass and speeds were 37 FPS less and the group was bigger but if I subtract the leaker out of the bottom it would be a super effort. Even so it was pretty decent . The four good ones went into a 0.403 BTW.
I had one last powder to try and went with RL15. This is what I’ve used in my 500 yard loads with 87’s in my F-Class matches and it has done well for me. It showed some decent potential in this tube too. You might notice that the speed was up there like I like to see in these 6 MM’s. I will be looking at this one a bit more in the future.
Across the board I was happy with the 85’s in this barrel. Now for the scoop on the brass. Firing same same loads in the SL vs. the SSA I found that none of the Silver State had issues in rim or ejector markings. On the Starline out of 50 cases fired I experienced mild rim bending from the lowest to highest in all three powders. The H322 that I shot first was relatively mild to start but at 27.0 grains I was seeing definite bend. The H4895 loads showed nothing on the lower loads but quickly bent and ripped rims at a grain higher level of 29.1. Not good. The RL15 loads at 29 were ting bending with the 30.0 showing slight burrs and ejector markings. Assessment? Not a good choice for these. The decreased capacity is working against the brass as is the obvious softness.
As I mentioned this cartridge was originally designed for shooting varmints i.e. coyotes. It has proven to work well in the field out to past 400 yards many times and even has a 646 yard antelope to its credit. For this mere mortal that’s a poke hat I won’t be trying any time soon. That being said I did load up a test bed of the 58 ZMAX for Zombie Coyote .
I was about out of Starline when I grotto these but really wanted to try the H322 in them so see how this one ran compared to my other tubes. I only loaded three shots at each level with the Starline and split the jumps at 0.2 grains between steps. My testing was twofold as I wanted to look hard at this brass and get the most data out of the least rounds that I could get. I shot same same loadings in the Silver State for comparison. I had enough SSA to shoot five at each level for this test.
My first SL group using H322 at 30.7 shot into 0.873. Not bad but it was bending already. The 30.9 showed flatter primers and bending. At 30.1 I had a failure to extract. No big deal except when I knocked the case out I found it was already decapped, had a nice round black hole for a pocket and part of the rim had been ripped clear off. Well I figured this was a bit excessive as I’ve shot this load before on a couple of trips so decided one more shot was sent down range. Same result with smoke roiling out and a stuck case. No primer and a big rim rip. The plus was the two rounds went into 0.772 though it was the hard way. I figured at this point I’d save the third one in that batch and defer shooting the next higher levels of 31.3 and 31.5. I like data but not stupid test data .The average for all three groups was way under an MOA BTW.
Next I shot the same loads using SSA brass. All five loads, twenty five rounds total, showed no issues with nice round primers post firing. The last one at 31.5 grains was decent for a final turn off the bench with this one. I was pleased with the speed of 3546 out of the 18” tube and as it showed no real pressure I might go another 0.2 on it.
I ran out of brass so limited the 58’s to only the one powder but I will revisit the bullet again in the near future. I want to try some 70 TNT’s on the next session as I have around 500 of them and they are a varmint bullet deluxe.
In summation on this I found the 6X6.8 Tactical Ordnance barrel to easily be tunable across a spectrum of loads. I found the accuracy was outstanding and would be very consistent with the right trigger in the future. On the brass I was disappointed in the Starline. It obviously is very soft and if I had a bunch of it I would revisit all loading data shot previously in other brass and revise everything down by a minimum of a grain across the board. I did find that speeds with the SL were 20-50 FPS higher than in the SSA but the early demise of my components is unacceptable to me.
Greg
ADDENDUM
I mentioned I saved some of the brass for the true 6.8 SPC loads. I selected a mild load of 28.8 of Benchmark and the ubiquitous 110 VMAX for this test. I shot factory Hornady, gasp, and loads utilizing Remington, Starline, SSA and FC and some 1X fired Hornady.
This is a 17.5” barrel. Factory loads showed me 2621 or about what I expected. My selected base load of BM showed a variation between on the new brass of 2526 (Remington)to 2539(FEDERAL). The lowest was 2521 with Starline. Statically a wash for such a small sample. The fastest non-factory was the 1X Hornady at 2586.
Capacity, post firing, was interesting. Hornady – 35.58 Remington-35.9 Starline-36.08 Federal- 36.18 and SSA a whopping 37.8. This is a classic illustration of you must match your loads to your brass if you want long life or if you shoot a mix master blend of cases you should load to the smallest capacity of the bunch that is safe. Like using loading data for a smaller cartridge in a bigger one prudence does pay off as we noodle for catfish at the bench. Accuracy was so so on this test and was not really a consideration. Seeing how much slower than the factory load was on these I was not surprised. I did eak out a sub-MOA with the Federal brass but bumping everything up will be tried next time out. These were the first 30 rounds down the tube on this one.
Brass summation. Case capacity as above showed me something. Brass damage comparison showed Starline exhibiting bent rims from even this mild loading. A real disappointment with both tests showing the same issue. The brass is inexpensive but it is not for me. I will pick up some S&B for a test in the future as it is well liked by many.
