Load testing, 35 rem & 300 savage & question

[Buffboy]

I FINALLY got a day with out the wind blowing 40mph and/or raining, so I took the wife's two guns out for a little load testing. A good news, bad news kind of thing, the 35 Remington/200gr Corlokt load is a winner. Good groups, max deviation around 30 fps with an average of 2092fps out of the 336. Pressures (by my reading of the primer) fine for the rifle & load.

The 99 300 savage 150gr Hornady bullet wasn't so good, the max deviation was only 9fps but the pressures don't have much to go up IMO and it's only running 2106fps average. Pretty bad when the 35 Remington is nearly outrunning the savage with a 50gr heavier bullet at a lot less pressure. Don't know if it's accurate, I never hit the target. I shot in the dirt to see where it was hitting and it's about 2 feet low(new scope). I was hoping it would like the surplus WC852. That's really odd because it is supposed to be the rough equivalent of IMR 4350. You'd think the slower powder would give better velocity. I'll have to try some other powders.

As to the question, are there any tricks/dangers about taking the rotary magazine out of the savage? It seems to have good spring pressure but it doesn't lift the last round in the mag up high enough to get caught by the bolt. I'm thinking there's some grit in there catching it.

[Old Savage]

The 35 Rem is right on with mine which is a wonderful gun in accuracy and general performance. The 300 doesn't make sense. It should not have any pressure problems up to about 2600 fps with that bullet. Try some factory ammo and see what you get. Powder in the general area of 4064 ought to be about right. Maybe, 4895.

[Buffboy]

I've been looking at several different powders. I've got quite a bit of WW748 because I don't use it for anything else currently so I think I'll try that first. I've got 3031 and BLC-2 too but I'm a bit low on both and I use both for other loads. The 3031 is what I used for the 35 Remington and I'm gonna be using a lot of that up considering how much my wife likes to shoot the 35. It's good to finally have a good load for it.

[O.S.O.K.]

The 300 Sav is very similar to the 308 Win - just a little lower pressure - w748 should be great and ditto on the IMR3031.

And yeah, 2500-2600 fps should be the velocity for that bullet.

[JDL]

WC-852 is too slow in the .300 Savage so that is why your velocity is a bit low. I have been using 38 grains of WC-844 surplus with various 150 grain bullets with velocities of 2566 fps. 40 grains of IMR-4064 is also giving good accuracy and velocity is close to the same. The discontinued Rx 12 is very good in the .300 if you have any of that.

JDL

[Buffboy]

Well, I still had primed and prepped cases so I put a load together with 748 to try out. 41.5 is the starting load and 42.0 the max with the data I have. 41.5 went 2488fps average. The velocity kept climbing (it was getting hot out there) through the string but the max deviation was still only 26fps so I have loaded 10 more to test for accuracy. I may go out again later.

PS, I didn't have to take the rotor out, a little cleaning and some good lube seems to have cured the problem.

edit: I should mention this rifle has only a 20" barrel, not the 24 that's more common so I'm not gonna get the velocities in the books. All I've seen are testing 24" barrels.

[Ben_Rumson]

I got AVG 2553 fps w/ 150gr Sierra Pro Hunter bullets, 10 shots out of my 20" 99E using 40gr(max)ACCUR2460 following the data that came with my Lee dies..37.5gr is starting..SD was 32.6 ES 97.7
Rem 150s 2505 fps AVG... SD 165.6 ...Had an ES of 568.9! ..one round clocked 2965 fps!

[stretch]

That Remington Core-Lokt is a first-rate bullet. It was designed
back in the '30s, but they got the design right the first time.
They shoot fine in my 35, too. Terminal performance is
terrific on game as well.