Finally!!! Getting good accuracy with Hornady 208gr Amax in 300 win mag

If you have been following this blog, you have seen me struggle to make the 208gr amax work in my rifle.  I had all but written it off but I had 5 more bullets left from a box of 100 and decided, hey, what the heck, lets give it one last try.  I loaded them up at .005 (JAM)  at put 80gr of H1000 behind it.  The next time at the range, while testing some Berger loads I finished up by shooting these into a 1.18" group at 200yards!  I thought to myself,  "No freaking way! This must be a fluke".  But now I couldn't get it out of my head and just had to order another box to see how deep this rabbit hole goes. I am glad I did!

DISCLAIMER/WARNING FOR NEW RELOADERS:  This load data should be worked up to and is for ONE particular rifle (mine).  If you try this load in your gun, it may not feed and worse, it may feed but blow up your rifle causing injury or death. Be very carefull when extending your Cartridge Length over the reloading book published values as there can be dangerously huge increases in pressure. 

Here is the load data:

Bullet: 208gr Amax
Primer: CCI #250
Powder: 80gr H1000
Brass: Federal GMM  Full Length Resized.
COAL: 3.632 (.005 from lands)


I headed out to the range with 20 of these shiney new reloads just hoping that my previous experience wasn't a fluke!

I fired all twenty rounds alternating between two  2" orange spots @ 200 yards.  This provided me with two 10 shot groups.   Time between shots was between 1 and 3 minutes depending on how distracted I was with the 50BMG set up in the spot next to me and the lady on the other side of me swearing about how loud my muzzle brake was. I think we took a couple 10 minutes breaks in there for target change as well.  This is to say that the barrel was all over the place heat wise but it didn't seem to affect the outcome much.

The end result was that I ended up with two 10 shot groups which were well under MOA.

The group on the left was 1.625" and the one on the right was 1.7".
Average velocity was 3010FPS. I am super happy about this.  Ballistic calcs say this load is supersonic out to around 1 mile. Not sure that I need to shoot that far but still very cool to know!