After breaking the gun in last weekend (7mm08 Ruger American Wild On Camo Model 1:8.5 twist barrel) with 30 shots of some medium loads with 150 and 175 grain bullets, hardly any copper in the barrel after getting home and cleaning the gun. Went out this morning to do a Scott Satterlee ladder test over the chrono with 150gr ELDX and 175gr ELDX’s. Surprising numbers and glad I followed some data from others about really slow numbers because of listed charges in books. I truly understand that all reloading books are there to keep you safe and every gun behaves differently. I used the data from the Berger and Speer reloading book and info online as they were the only ones that posted charges for H4350 with those bullet weights which is what I chose to use. The interesting thing about Bergers book is it doesn’t tell you type of brass or primer they use which brass capacity and primer charge can vary pressure greatly. Berger didn’t use H4350 as a powder for their 180 VLD only 168’s and the max in their book for that was 42.4 grains As you will see, very light load in my gun. Speers was 44.0 grains max for a 175 grain bullet. So I made my best assessment and proceeded to load. I’m using RP brass, Fed 210 primers and bullet seating depth of 2.875 because my magazine measures 2.885. For those that don’t know RP brass has a bit more capacity than Hornady or Lapua, so a little more powder can be used and seating the bullet farther out than factory spec 2.800 allows for a little more powder. Figured it was a good place to start. I posted my charts for you to look at as I found it pretty promising with the both bullets. Just a note on both loads, neither one showed any signs of pressure or heavy bolt lift from the max powder charges. Comfortable shooting all the way through the test. I’m really hoping the 175’s group out of this gun. If it will, this will make it a 900 yard gun. Nice to know a coyote might fall if seen at that range. Will see how things turn out when I start shooting groups and messing with seating depth.
7mm08 150 ElDX Ladder.xlsx
7mm08 Ladder.xlsx
