Loading for an 06, been looking for load data for the Speer 110 grain Hollow Point but cant seem to find any data, anyone out there have anything they want to share?

Smitty Speer's manual #13 has the top load listed with the 110 grain bullet with 748 powder with a velocity of 3151 with a starting load of 58 grains and a never exceed load of 62 grains with a velocity of 3356 fps.

The next fastest powder is Re 15 with a starting load of 56 grains and an never exceed load of 60 grains for a top velocity of 3307 fps.

Bob, when I see a given data for 110 grain bullet, can I percieve it is good for any 100 gr bullet type? HP, BT, SP or any other?

I would be watching out for secondary pressure spikes with 748 and a bullet that light. I would recommend you use Reloader 10X or something else intended for light bullets or even faster burning. In the range of 50 to 54 grains, 10X would get the same velocity and peak pressures as the 748 loads mentioned above, but burn more completely in the tube, so you throw less away. Neither powder fills the case really well. For plinking, try Rocky's load of 10 grains of Unique.

As to whether or not a 100 grain bullet would be "good" with those loads: yes from a pressure standpoint, and the shooting gods only know from the accuracy standpoint.

Yup. You didn't say if you want just pleasant shooters, or paint-peeling warp speed loads. (The latter of which are largely counter-productive due to their ping-pong ball like deceleration and horrible wind drift.)

While I always disagree with Nick's "not burn in the tube" beliefs, he is correct about powder choice for this combo. I'd sooner see 3000 fps loads with H322, 4198, RL-10X, AA2015 or Benchmark than warp-speeders with a ball powder, simply due to combustion efficiency. Most companies have data for those powders with similar if not identical bullets. At less than full throttle, bullet differences won't matter that much.

For pure fun, 10 to 12 grains of Unique or Universal in the '06 are indeed a mega-hoot. AND accurate!

can this powder be used on heavier bullets as well or just the 110 gr I asked about earlier, and is this the same Unique I'm using in my 357 loads? tall black plastic container with orange background ( Alliant Unique) ? and is there written data for this or is this from a test tube in your lab ? I cant wait to try this. many thanks.

Yes, it's the same Unique, the nominal shotgun/pistol powder. It's from far beyond your time, but when it first came out, it was billed as a rifle powder! (Beyond my time, too!)

The data is extrapolated (conservatively) from Lyman data for cast bullets, tested in rifles with strain gauge pressure gear and verified by hundreds of reloaders. It's safe as long as you follow normal powder charging practices to avoid double charges.

The only warning is that (as I said) it's like potato chips - darn hard to stop. Letting a kid shoot one is a horrible mistake; you'll NEVER be able to load 'em as fast as a kid can shoot 'em!

Bob, when I see a given data for 110 grain bullet, can I percieve it is good for any 100 gr bullet type? HP, BT, SP or any other?

The manual lists those loads for two round nose and one pointed bullet.

Rocky, can you shoot me over a plinker load for the 243 shooting 55 grain BT using this same powder?

SPEER says the #1835 110grn hp must be kept at velocity's BELOW 2900fps.
top velocity is listed as 2865fps with 56.0grns of 760.

Years ago my uncle loaded some of these bullets and I don't know what powder or how much was used?, but I do recall that the bullets exploded shortly after exiting the barrel! the target had to be within 20' and the pattern looked like it came from a shot gun!!!

. . . While I always disagree with Nick's "not burn in the tube" beliefs. . .

Which beliefs are those? Tell me so I can defend them. :)

In this case it is not burn-in-tube that has me much concerned (though there are three cases I can think of where that does matter), but the secondary pressure spike phenomenon that Charlie Sisk has been able to burst muzzles with consistently in demonstrations. Speeding up the powder or increasing the bullet weight stops the effect. Otherwise, it is just a matter of economy. Why burn 8 extra grains of powder to get neither pressure nor velocity advantage?

Below is a series of three shots with measured secondary pressure spikes from RSI's web site. Note that it appears consistently with every round. RSI said this load is taken from a loading manual. In this case the secondary spike exceeds the main peak chamber pressure, but not proof load pressure, so the barrel is undamaged. I've seen at least one picture of a secondary spike hitting 120,000 PSI, but can't remember where to link to it? Maybe one of Sisk's posts at 24 Hr Campfire?

http://www.shootingsoftware.com/images/sampletracebump.gif

That's the system I use, and I've seen secondary spikes like that, too. But there is some real discussion about whether the spike is real or a factor of the barrel and instrument interaction. Some feel that it is actually reporting a ring wave that bounces back from the muzzle (think of an expanded doughnut that travels wave-like from breech to muzzle and reflects back) It reaches the breech and the strain gauge at or near the same time as bullet exit (the three small x's on the plot) because its speed in steel is about twice that of the bullet, so it travels both ways just as the bullet exits.

In other words, it may not be a real spike at all. The RSI folks have not been able to duplicate Charlie Sisk's barrel bursts, as far as I know. What's happening with Charlie's barrels, I simply don't know, and nobody else claims to, either.

This is one of those areas where even the most educated and experienced engineers and ballisticians go "What the...?"

You seem to have picked up on some theories presented by people confusing wave pressure, reflection and ringing. They also seem not to have done the basics, like looking up the speed of sound in barrel steel. I would be circumspect about those. A reflected pressure wave (the same thing Chris Long's Optimum Barrel Time theory is based on), travels at the speed of sound in the steel, which is almost 19,000 fps, and it loses magnitude as heat with each traversal. The strongest reflection will be the first one, and the bullet has not got much over half way up to speed, much less anywhere near the muzzle, in that time frame. Subsequent passes will be weaker. In other words, a reflected wave would show up sooner and more than once during the bullet's travel down the tube. Additionally, since the wave runs right over a bullet, be the bullet fast or slow, such a wave would not be deterred by going to a faster powder or a heavier bullet. Indeed, a faster powder should give it a sharper and better defined initiation, making it stronger, not weaker, if it were the culprit.

Ringing is a synonym for resonance, and for a resonating reflecting wave to grow beyond the amplitude of the initiating event requires the addition of more energy from a secondary input or a series of inputs in phase with the original wave. That brings you right back to a secondary release of energy occurring. In other words, the laws of thermodynamics still apply and no free energy is being created to explain that large secondary spike. You have to get it from additional energy input. Only a slow burning powder that doesn't completely burn in the bore will have left over energy available by the time the bullet gets out near the muzzle. That points to it as the source.

As to an instrumentation interaction, the elimination of the phenomenon by going to faster powders or heavier bullets again pretty well eliminates that idea. Different guns with different geometries should show such an interaction in a more random distribution. Sometimes with heavier bullets and sometimes with faster powders in some guns. It's timing would change with barrel length. So far, no sign of that, so the interaction idea doesn't seem to fit the observations.

As I admit, I really don't know. Nor do I have the technical background to do more than report (probably imperfectly) what the real experts attempt to explain to me.

They do assure me that they do not believe it is a real spike, because it goes beyond th deformation point of the steel, and with most instances of it (that pesky Sisk guy looms large, LOL!) no such deformation can be measured.

Again, I'm at a loss.

If it IS a secondary ignition of unconsumed powder, what the heck is the ignition source, and how does it burn at what are by then much reduced pressures? Seems like you'd have to add energy (ignition source) to initiate the addition of more energy (the unburnt powder). Which leaves us with trying to explain where the FIRST added energy comes from...

Yup, I'm still flummoxed!

Following the reloader's creed to err on the side of safety, I wouldn't gamble a gun barrel or my safety on those expert assurances. Especially since they are unable, from what I gather from your description, to supply a plausible explanation of the two-peak readout that can be tested. IMHO, they need that, at the very least, if they expect you to ignore what is otherwise a potential danger sign just on their say so.

We know Sisk has blown up barrels. I gather you've seen the pictures, too. We know the loads he's done it with are all light bullet, slow powder combinations that produce secondary pressure readings on the RSI gear. Even if it turned our they are different phenomena, the fact they both appear under similar circumstances means the one may yet be a good indicator of the potential danger of the other. Logically, the fact one can’t explain either event satisfactorily, does not make them unrelated; only that they might be so.
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I, for one, would not need the RSI equipment reading to steer me clear of light bullet/slow powder combinations. The Sisk barrels are good enough for that.

As to ignition of unburned powder, also again, the fact no obvious explanation is available doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. We don’t even know that a second ignition is required? Powder burning more slowly in a lower pressure zone will speed up if a compressed gas wave impinges on it. That might be all it takes. Some sort of hesitation in what would otherwise be a normal burn. It is certainly the case that the pressure gradient from chamber to bullet base gets higher as the bullet gets lighter. About three times higher for 748 firing a 40 grain bullet at the same peak pressure as 748 firing a 69 grain bullet.

That plinking load for the 06 has really peaked my interest. So a load of Universal from 10 to 11 gr and a WLRP and Hornadys 110 gr .308 offerings (they have 4 and one is a V-Max.), could deliver some good 100 yd groups from the Tikka 3 Lite. I would sure like to see the look on the guys faces at the next range day when I put a 1 inch 3 shot group down there from the 06 and all they hear is a cat sneeze.

Chief, I have tried Rocky's load of 10 grains of Unique with the 110 gr HP, and did achieve 1 inch groups at 100yds. As Rocky warned, is was a hoot, the kids cleaned me out of 110 gr HP, must have went through 2-3 boxes of bullets loading that round.

By all means, go pick up a few boxes of the Speer 100-gr Plinker (#1805) or the almost identical Hornady bullet (#3005). Both are half-jacket bullets, very cheap but accurate and devastating on varmints. Seat them just to where the jacket turns in to the large exposed lead nose. Use that 10 to 12 of Unique load.

What kind of velocity would be expectd?

I've used IMR4064 with Sierra's 110gr JHP #2110 Varminter in my '06, but it didn't group well.

I'd love to have another excuse to shoot this rifle and take it afeild.

Thanks!

I load for the 308, and not for the -06, but here's what I get:

10.0/Unique - 1600; 12.0/Unique - 1800; 20.0/2400 - 2000

Interesting note: I first loaded that 10 Unique and Plinker load in April of 1978: 30 years ago. It was more than 20 years before I fired it over a chronograph, after shooting untold numbers of them with perfect satisfaction.

Thanks for the info. I'll try it!

I loaded a box of 110 hp over 11 grains of Unique and shot today, they kept a consistent 7/8 inch group at 100 yds, 6 inches low, Rocky is right, what a Hoot!

One very satisfying thing I've noted is that if you have a two-step reticle (thick with thin in th center) these loads will usually hit very close to where the thick part starts under the center. Makes a handy aiming reference if you are sighted for deer and slip in a Plinker load to dispatch a coyote, fox - or even your lunch!

Yes, that is exactly what I did, the transition from thick to thin revealed a point, I ended up holding the point just under desired point of impact.

. . . I've used IMR4064 with Sierra's 110gr JHP #2110 Varminter in my '06, but it didn't group well. . .

You discovered the other shoe to the same problem that was under discussion earlier. Too slow a powder for such a light bullet. As you go to lighter bullets, their lower inertia and lower contact area with the barrel offer less resistance for the powder to build pressure against. The slower the powder the more it needs pressure to burn either efficiently or consistently. This is why a relatively quick powder makes a good choice for a plinking bullet. At the same time, the lower recoil of a fast powder-based plinking load limits the magnitude of the barrel vibrations that make load tuning important in heavier loads. That means a fairly wide range of light, fast plinking charges can prove accurate.

I got my Hornady 100 gr SJ #3005 in the mail today. I will load them over 10 gr of Hodgdon Universal and see what shakes out. If I get the perscribed 1500 to 1900 fps and accuracy I suspect I will be loading all 300 of the rascals. I see a couple going to the woods next season for the occational critter too but what I can't wait for is the guys at the range when the 06 goes from kaboom to sneeze and little groups down range.

QuickLOAD predicts just over 1800 fps with that load and a COL of 2.27". Let us know what you find?

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5026/100grainhornadysjmy3.gif

Will it make a difference in a 30.06 case since your sheet is for the .308 win.?

Yes, the bigger case needs more powder. My brain transposed Rocky's .308 with your '06 when I ran that. In the '06 the pressure drops to about 14,400 from 18,200 PSI, and you lose about 100 fps in the same 570 mm barrel (22 7/16"). Try 11.3 grains of Universal in the '06 at 2.75" COL. That makes slightly less pressure (17,400 PSI) and slightly more velocity (1,138 fps). Both that load and the .308 load fall remarkably close to Chris Long's theoretically predicted sweet spot at 1.611 ms barrel time for that 570 mm barrel length.

...10.0/Unique - 1600; 12.0/Unique - 1800; 20.0/2400 - 2000...
Do you have trouble with differing ignition based on where the powder is in the case? e.g., do you point your muzzle up before firing to pile the powder in front of the primer?

No. I simply work the bolt as normal. These loads fill the case to about 50% of volume because the powders are very "fluffy". As long as the powder position is consistent (lying level in the case, more or less) these loads are very consistent in velocity and accuracy.

The primer blast stirs it up like a leaf blower, anyway. Ignition is complete. It might make a difference if you deliberately pointed the gun down and settled the powder away from the primer, but muzzle down isn't a very common shooting angle. The normal working of the action generally brings the muzzle up a little - level at worst. Note sometime how people cycle a rifle; the muzzle almost always points up at least a little.

Generally speaking, a fast powder in a long barrel won't show the kind of position sensitivity a slower powder does. That is just because it has so much extra time for burning.

Go ahead and try the muzzle-down/muzzle-up velocity comparisons. Let us know what you find? The old M72 match ammo for the Garand would vary about 80 fps MV between muzzle up an muzzle down, and go from ejecting cases with somewhat flattened to fairly rounded primers in the change, so peak pressure was clearly affected. M72 was last loaded with 46.5 grains of IMR4895, which made the case about 83% full. It shot very well, despite all that potential variability. Partly that is just the consistency of the positions and handling given it by the shooters, but there was not a lot of effect on POI even with intentional position shifting, that I recall. Not at short range, anyway. At 600 yards it might have mattered a bit, but I never tried the experiment beyond 200 yards.