It seems the 80gr Amax may be causing some people a few headaches at the moment. I was asked recently to post some data on the projectile and the custom PT&G reamer I use.
It works for me in a 30", 8 twist Krieger barrel hooked up to a Barnard action. The accuracy is very good and I have not had a single problem with a stray flyer. The reamer was designed specifically for the 80gr Amax projectile.
The bullet diagram was taken from Bryan Litz's new book "Applied Ballistics For Long Range Shooting". Its a great book and worth buying for his bullet diagrams and tested bullet BCs alone.
Here is the bullet:
Here is the reamer:
Ian
Last edited by IanP on Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for this information Ian
This is very good information as Hornady would not give me this information.
I think quite a few shooters will appreciate this information
Cheers Rich
I heard reports from some good shooters who had some realy bad lots of A maxs. Are these bad lots isolated cases? Are the new lots coming out now as good as the fist few batches?
We have just started using the AMAX, mainly due to the price, but otherwise they look like a nice bullet (??).
We are using a PT&G Wylde reamer, all throats are done with UNI throater, a much easier way to get throats right.
My wife's FS rifle originally shot them really badly, with a 2 MOA grouping average. It will now do 1/3MOA (so far up to 500 yards), and still have some more work on the barrel tuner yet. Using 25.4gr 2208 powder, CCI 450's, Lapua brass, AMAX bullet - typical stuff. As far as we know, she holds the range record at 1000 yards recently using the SMK.
Have not noticed any flyers, shots outside the group at short range miss the spotter, thats about all. Now my wife has the challenge of learning to read conditions!!!
Yet to see how the AMAX's perform at 1000 yards - the true test.
G'day Rod,
I have 600 Amax's (came with my new rifle) and am eager to develop a load, my current load is 25gn 2208 in a lapua case, Fed 205 primer, 80gn SMK seated .010" off the lands, this was the load supplied by the previous owner. I have no idea about the chamber, but I suspect it was cut for 80gn SMK's. He hasn't loaded any Amax's so I'm starting from scratch, you didn't mention seating depth? I plan to back off half a grain and do a ladder group, up to 25.5 in .2 gn steps, then do the same seating .020" off the lands stepping down in 5 thou steps until they are touching, from memory my COAL for the Amax touching the lands is 44.4mm. I don't have a comparator yet so I guess it's all relative. I have Winchester, Lake City and PMC brass in addition to the Lapua's, I was hoping to use the others for practices and keep the Lapua's for Club Championship days.
Of course all rifles will shoot a little differently. We spent a fair while getting the load right (and added a barrel tuner) to get the AMAX to shoot.
We only use our best ammo for all shooting, no dodgy stuff. We don't feel it is much use to practice with ammo that you are not 100% confident of, especially at longer ranges. We believe every shot is practice, and should be shot like it is to win the Queens.
Our current load is using 0.010" jump in a fairly long throat. From memory, the OAL (ogive) is + 0.200". The seating depth is pretty much the same with the SMK and AMAX.
As I said before, we use a throating reamer, so dont pay much attention to what the chamber reamer gives us for throat length. We load a round and set the chamber from that, not the other way around.
Menu
Newest members