Benchmark Powder

BadKarma said:

Super great in .223, not so great in 308 anything thus far. Varget works best for me
in 308.

Click to expand...

WHAT IS YOUR RECIPE WITH VARGET? NOT HAD GOOD SUCSESS WITH IT EITHER,
HAVE HAD SOME SUCSESS WITH BLC-2,BUT REL15 WORKS GREAT. I HAVE GOOD
QTYS. OF BOTH REL15 AND VARGET ON HAND, AND I NEED TO USE SOME VARGET UP.
MY REL15 RECIPE HAS ALWAYS PRODUCED 3/4'' OR LESS IN EVERY 308 I HAVE TRIED
IT IN. MY CZ 550 VARMINT SHOT 1/4''TO 3/8''GROUPS,MY PSS AROUND 3/8'' TO 1/2'' BUT I AM STILL FINE TUNING THE PSS.(I TRADED THE CZ FOR THE PSS) MORE ACCESSORIES
AVAILABLE FOR THE 700 AS YOU KNOW.THE CZ WAS A GREAT SHOOTER AND WELL BUILT
HAD THE HS PRECISION POLICE STOCK,BUT THE L.O.P. WAS TOO SHORT AND THE PALM
SWELL DIDN'T FIT.HATED TO PART WITH IT......BEST SHOOTING 308 I HAVE EVER HAD
SO FAR! THE PSS HAS BIG SHOES TO FILL. MAYBE I JUST NEED A LOAD CHANGE TO FILL,EM.TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PET LOADS, I HAVE ABOUT EVERY POWDER AVAILABLE!

168 Grain SMK
Winchester Brass trimmed to minimum
45 grains of Varget
CCI 200 LR Primers
C.O.A.L. 2.80
This works well with a Nosler Ballistic Tip in 165 or 168 grain if you want to double duty
between paper and prey. My .308 SPS shoots both real well in either configuration.
I'm shooting the SMK out of a 20" SPS Tactical and it's amazing how accurate it is.
Hit Bubba Thornblom up, he turned me on to it. If this one don't work he probably
has something that will. I'm taking this load to a long range school this spring and will
try it out to 1000 yards. Might be a pretty good trick with my rifles short barrel, we shall see.

In all fairness I never really spent much time with Benchmark in 308, I abandoned it pretty quick
in favor of Varget.
In .223 24 grains of Benchmark under a Sierra 55 grain H.P.
makes for a hair splitter out of a Ruger Hawkeye.
BLC2 is good in my .223 700 SPS with a 55 Ballistic Tip. It's a max load in my book at 27.5 grains but
I haven't had any problems with it and it's super accurate.
Hope this helps.

Hey Bad Karma,

If your 168 SMK load will not stay above about 1150 ft/sec at 1000 yards, your accuracy will suffer greatly. The 175 grain SMK with its higher ballistic co-efficient is a much better bullet passed 600 yards.

Try 175 SMK, 43.1 grains of RL-15, you can make the choice of case and primer. I used factory primed FC 08 cases. The primer Federal uses in these cases is a gold colored Fed 210-GMM primer not available as a component.

I think your load should look like this:

Case: Lapua .308
Primer: Either Fed 210-GMM or CCI-Br2
Bullet: 175 grain SMK
Powder: 43.1 grains of RL-15
COL: 2.810"
Muzzle Velocity: 2655 ft/sec from 26" barrel

As usual, my friend, there is no charge.

Sincerely,
Dave (Bubba) Thornblom