The saga of this rifle is long and sad. The short version is that I have been unable to get it to shoot straight. There WAS a good reason. The barrel was mis-marked. It was marked as a .375 caliber barrel. It is in fact a .358 caliber barrel. After more than a hundred .375 caliber bullets down the bore, I discovered the error. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy about it, but MidwayUSA refused to even answer my emails regarding it. Be that as it may, I "reset" things and am now loading .358 caliber bullets from it.

For this range session, I have loaded 3 bullets:
1) The Nosler 250-grain Partition,
2) The Nosler 225-grain Accubond, and
3) The Remington 200-grain PSP.

I shot the Partitions first - 100 yd.

About 2" high and 2 1/2" wide. Certainly nothing to write home about. However, when I got up to go down range to check the target, I noticed a screw loose on the deck. It turned out to be a screw from the front ring. :angry: I replaced the screw and checked the rest of them. :frown The MVs were: 2768, 2760, 2770. The average is 2766 f/s. Pretty close together. (A sample size of 3 is just too small to get a meaningful standard deviation.) However, all were a bit "hot". Stiff bolt lift and flattened primers. This load - 60.9 grains of Accurate 4064 - is too hot for my tastes.

The next bullet was the 225 Accubond. The load was 60.2 grains of Accurate 4064. The reason this charge is lower but the bullet is lighter weight is because the Accubond is much longer than the Partition. Plus it is a boat-tail and the Partition is flat-based, therefore the seating depth is much greater for the Accubond and therefore the charge is in fact less than for the heavier Partition. The velocities were: 2847, 2849, 2818, 2819. The average is 2836 f/s, with a standard deviation of 14.8 f/s.

You'll note that there are 4 MVs and only three holes in the target. That's because the first shot missed the WHOLE TARGET. I assumed - incorrectly - that the loose screw was not a "big" deal. It was. I had to re-bore-sight. Once bore-sighted, you see the three shots. About 4" high and about an inch wide.  Good windage, but horrible elevation.

The final bullet was the Remington 200-grain PSP. It's charge was 69.2 grains of Reloder-17. MVs are: 2981 and 2900, for an average of 2890 f/s.

About 2" wide and 2 1/2 inches high. Not particularly impressive. The reason there are only two shots is that I had a first today. I've had full head separations before, but I've never had a case remain in the chamber. I tried to get it out with a cleaning rod, but no go. Therefore, shooting was over for the .358 Steyr. I'm thinking that the shooting may be COMPLETELY over for this rifle as configured. It just seems 'snake-bit'. The barrel is 26" long, so I may just cut the majority of this chamber off and start over.

Nice muzzle velocities, but all of the loads were hotter than I care for. Like I said, I think it's time to start completely over with this barrel.

Paul

You've not had much luck with that barrel, time to change - you know floggin a dead hoss n that..

It may not be the barrel. Could it be rechambered to 358 Norma?

Quote from: sakorick;139563It may not be the barrel. Could it be rechambered to 358 Norma?

Yes. I don't have that reamer but I do have a .308 Norma Mag reamer and a .358 neck reamer.

It's not "the barrel" per se, it's the chamber. But the chamber is an integral part of the barrel. Rechambering is going to happen regardless of the final cartridge chosen. At this point - and I knew it was coming as soon as the new Ruger "magnums" came out a year after the Steyr was released - the Steyr brass is an issue in terms of availability. Before I chambered it in .358 NM, I'd have to see how easy it is to make Norma cases from something else more easily acquired. Might be .338 WM/7mm RM cases would work. Could just use the Ruger magnum cases and not have to deal with the belt, but don't have any of those reamers. Could just turn belts off of Win Mag or Rem Mag cases. I'll probably stick with the Steyr because I am hard-headed.

Those MVs - and more to the point, MEs - are impressive. In those bullets, there is some SERIOUS down-range energy. The Partition is still carrying 2655 ft-lb with an impact velocity of 2187 f/s. ME is 4247 ft-lb though. It didn't seem too bad, but I was shooting it in a Lead Sled.

The Accubond has an ME of 4018 ft-lb with a 300 yd energy of 2454 ft-lb at an impact velocity of 2216 f/s.

The Remington has an ME of 3709 ft-lb with 300 yd energy of 1807 ft-lb at an impact velocity of 2017 f/s.

Cutting a couple of inches off of the barrel length will lower all of the values and more importantly, decreasing the loads will lower them more. Still, at their current values, they have plenty of room to spare.

Big around matters...

Paul

PS - By the way... the QuickLOAD-predicted MV for the Partition load was 2626 f/s. That's 140 f/s slower than actual. "Input" to QL was "perfect", so something's going on. I suspect a tight neck on the chamber. Dropping the MV to the predicted value of 2626 f/s drops the ME to 3829 ft-lb; the 300 yd energy to 2366 ft-lb and impact velocity to 2065 f/s. Still excellent down-range values. Trajectory with 2626 f/s MV is 3" high at 125 and 7" low at 300.

For the Accubond, the predicted MV was 2722 f/s; the actual, 2836 f/s - a difference of 114 f/s. Again over 100 f/s higher than predicted.

For the Remington, the predicted MV was 2872 f/s; the actual, 2890 f/s - a difference of only 18 f/s. That would suggest that the neck isn't the problem. Maybe the bullets were "into the lands" on the longer heavier bullets, but they shouldn't have been.

Almost all of which is moot considering that I am going to rechamber the barrel. MVs WILL go down both due to shortening the barrel AND reducing loads.

Paul

Factory brass is readily available for the 358 Norma. It's very popular in Europe. I have never seen a successful necking down of the Steyr case.....there must be a reason for that.

Quote from: SakorickI have never seen a successful necking down of the Steyr case.....there must be a reason for that.

You might want to check your memory banks:

http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12770&highlight=Steyr+Long+Throat

http://www.thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12857&highlight=Steyr

Sub MoA at the bench, and shooting a doe mule dear in the head at 300 yd is "successful" by my reckoning.

Regarding brass availability:
1) MidwayUSA (which I no longer do business with) has .358 NM in stock for A DOLLAR AND SEVENTYFIVE CENTS A PIECE.
2) Cabela's is out of stock, but if they had them they are TWO DOLLARS A PIECE.
3) Custom Brass and Bullets has them in stock for $1.73 each.
4) Midsouth Shooting Supply has them in stock for $1.81 each.
5) Und so weiter...

I have 150+ .376 Steyr cases in hand.

Paul

PS - Forgot this one: http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18476

Also forgot to mention that "magnum" heads are nominally 0.535" in diameter. The Steyr head is 0.494" in diameter. 0.494 is  A LOT closer to 0.473" (nominal bolt face for Mauser Model 98 action), than 0.535" is. I'd probably go with a Whelen before I went "magnum". Originally, I was thinking AND USING .284 Win cases which have 0.473" rims on 0.500" heads.

Paul

Nothing wrong with the 35 Whelen. The more I shoot mine the more I like it. The one I'm building....well I need to get going on it.

One of the 'nice' things about the Steyr case - in addition to the ones mentioned above - is that it isn't as long as the '06 and therefore fits a little better in a milsurp Mauser action. (The Steyr case is 60mm long. 3mm shorter than the '06 and 3mm longer than the 8x57.)  The Whelen will fit in a milsurp Mauser, but you have to seat the bullets, especially the heavier ones, pretty deep thereby using up case capacity with  bullet butt. The Whelen - and other '06-derived cartridges - get best performance in a non-milsurp action. That said, the 8mm-'06 is a cartridge I like very much and "works" in a milsurp Mauser action. However, 8mm bullets - even the heavy ones - are as a rule shorter than .358 caliber bullets. Also, the ACKLEY version of the Whelen has a nominal case capacity of 76.0 grains, the standard Whelen's capacity is 70.2 grains. The nominal case capacity of the .358 Steyr is 80.0 grains. As always, diameter - be it in cases or bullets - "matters".

Paul

Certainly sounds as though that would be a  good idea.
Any chance the barrel internals are messed up from using it as a bullet sizing die?

I have given that possibility more than passing thought, Don, and I can't think of any 'process' that could have transpired other than 'stretching' the chamber, and that did NOT happen. Remember that I don't load things "hot" - at least not on purpose - and that's a good thing in this instance because it was flattening primers as it was. I don't think/can't think of anything that could have been harmed or "moved". Nonetheless, I have made the decision that I am going to shorten the barrel to 23.3125" (as you might guess, there's more to that length than just shortening the chamber), and recut the chamber.

There are many potential cartridges I could change to, but in reviewing why I chose the Steyr case, I remain convinced that it is a good choice. An almost identical case is the .284 Win. I used those cases interchangeably with the Steyr. If I remember correctly, the Win case is just a hair shorter.

Paul

PS - I just checked the nominal length of the .284 Win case, and it is 2.17"/55.12 mm which is about 0.2"/5mm shorter than the .376 Steyr case at 60.45mm (2.38"). That's 'tolerable' in the face of case availability. There's another case I used - the 7.5x55 Swiss - which is 2.188"/55.58mm nominally. The biggest problem with the Swiss case is that the rim is REALLY thick. Too thick to ensure CONSISTENT extraction. I was having to thin them about 0.01".

Paul

Here's my statistical analysis of the groups produced by shooting these three bullets. First the 200-grain Remington bullets:


Then the 225-grain Accubonds:


Finally the 250-grain Partitions:


Of primary interest to me is the value for the Area of the 95% Confidence Ellipse seen in cell "F16". For the 3-shot 200-grain Remington group, that value is 394 square inches. For the 225 Accubonds it's 29.5 square inches. Not horrible, but not 'good' either. For the 250 Partition it's 70.3 square inches. Pretty bad.

If you look at cell "B3" you will see the value of "Student's t". That value is based on the sample size. Notice that it is "2.92" for 3-shot groups, and "6.134" for 2-shot groups. More than twice as "bad". The larger the sample size, the smaller the Student's t value. The Student's t value is a MULTIPLIER of the variance observed in the shot string. Therefore, the greater the number of shots you are using to determine the parameters (average, variance, etc.) the better the estimate of 'reality' you will have. Since the smaller the sample size the less confidence one has that the samples used actually REPRESENT REALITY, you have to broaden the PREDICTED parameter.

Taking "max spread" as an indicator of THE BOUNDARIES AROUND where the "next bullet" is going to hit is "optimistic" at best. Put another way, it's fooling yourself. There are PLENTY of people in the world that want to fool me, I don't need to fool myself. What I want to know is my BEST GUESS at where the 'next' bullet is going to hit based on where the last "X number" of them hit. Max spread is "easy", but it's not "good" for making that prediction/guess.

Paul

PS - If you have MicroSoft Excel and would like a copy of the spreadsheet so you could perform your own calculations, shoot me a PM and I'll email a copy with some instructions to you .

Paul

I am reminded of the little fellow in L'l Abner who had the little black rain cloud over his head at all times.
You just seem to attract mal and mis functioning things.  

Maybe I'm just more willing than most to tell the unvarnished truth about the 'things' I have and how they REALLY work... Or... I have more patience for stuff that doesn't work at first, and try to get it to work. As I 'look back', I see that I am fundamentally an optimist. Optimism can get one in trouble.

Paul

Quote from: gitano;139622As I 'look back', I see that I am fundamentally an optimist. Optimism can get one in trouble.

Paul

 Now aint that the truth

Waaalllll....

I had some time this evening so I tore the @#$%^&* thing apart and completely "re-did" it. Cut it off 1.22", threaded it, chambered it, remounted it, and test-fired it. It is MUCH better. The barrel fits the action better. I cut the chamber "by hand". (I'm actually liking doing it that way better.) AND... When I put the measurements of the fired case into the case capacity calculator it came up with 79.29 grains of water. I measured 79.3. That's NEVER happened before.

The paper-whipped (QuickLOAD) numbers are "good". Easy to get 2000 ft-lbs to 300 yd with both 225 Accubond and 250 Partition. Neither at max pressures greater than 48,000 PSI. Maybe I can get out this weekend and shoot some paper AND some 'steel'. Although, the powder I am interested in is Vihtavouri N-135. I don't have much of that left, and I don't think I can get any more in any reasonable amount of time.

Regardless, I am very pleased with the "new" rifle, and am looking forward to shooting it at paper. There's that old optimism again...

Paul