COAL 7mm08 Tikka 150gr ELDx

Hey team,

a good friend of mine has given me a rifle to work up a load for a very nice Tikka 7mm08 with a very nice Loopy scope, he's spent a fair bit of his available funds for a long time, im going to reload for him a stack of ammo to get him out bush shooting and on the range.

So measured up OAL with my handy dandy Hornady AOL gauge, checked it a few times, wrote down my results, put it beside a factory load and though, hmmmmmm, went back check and re check, yep pretty much the same OAL, looked online and i must be doing something wrong or this rifle has a long throat?

is this the norm for these rifle?

the good thing is he bought an after market mag from Australia i think that potentially was to address this particular opportunity

cheers

Just seat to the lands of you can and work back from there if you need too.

I've never had or used a tool.
Projectile of choice in brass of choice, seated as long as your die goes. Some people will tell you to slit the neck, I don't. Some people will say "you need to be seated at least a calibre depth into the neck", I don't (but usually end up deeper anyway). Colour in the slug with a vivid so you can see where the rifling touches. Single feed them and slowly cam the bolt home, and back. If you haven't removed the injector then try and get a grip on the case before it's thrown across the room. Test several. Average. Back off .02". Load Dev.
With this measurement I'm then confident measuring Base to Tip (rather than base to ogive) and still being safe.

Likely your mag lenght will dictate your longest COAL though.

Sounds like a good "do it all' combo. I want to see if these will mag fit in my mates Remy one day.

No the tikka throats arn't overly long, it's the Eldx bullets that are long and skinny and go a long way up into the throat compared to a normal bullet. What factory round did you compare it too?
Factory Precision hunter 150ELD-X are 2.787 inch long which is 0.189 inch from that lands (nearly 5mm)! in my Tikka
I havn't been able to come close to the factory load in speed but have go slightly better groups.
I used 2.8 oal and 2208, start at minimum charge and work up these are way longer that the SMK that ADI used for their data.

@winaa Thanks that's exactly the comment i was after, i will send you a PM cause im still surprised the OAL i got, still i will back it off 5 thou and go from there.

im exceedingly aware of how seat and work out the mechanics around bullet jump etc, hell I've even make sulphur casts of the chamber to better understand the rifle im working on.

i never however thought that they would reduce bearing surface to increase BC dynamics.

I load for my nephews 7mm08 and the 150 gr ELD X , in his Ruger Hawkeye I seat the bullets at 73 mm or 2.92 inch .These if the magazine.

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Originally Posted by Mooseman

I load for my nephews 7mm08 and the 150 gr ELD X , in his Ruger Hawkeye I seat the bullets at 73 mm or 2.92 inch .These if the magazine.

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sweet, I might load some up for my mate for a treat...he's holding onto the 139ssts blindly (hard to argue when he shoots more deer than me)

In!

"Tikkas normally like some jump in to the lands"

Out!

Mac

I’ve got a similar rifle setup also shooting the factory eldx 150gn - sorry to hijack but how much would each reload cost you to make (minus the brass and hardware). Currently on the fence about whether to invest in a start up kit of my own. Factory ammos close to $4 per round!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mooseman

I load for my nephews 7mm08 and the 150 gr ELD X , in his Ruger Hawkeye I seat the bullets at 73 mm or 2.92 inch .These if the magazine.

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@Mooseman, can you please give me a help? Current doing a Load development to a client with the exactly same setup as Tertle and just curious what velocity/velocities you achieving… Will give an "update" of my achievements when i get back to work monday...

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Originally Posted by PERRISCICABA

@Mooseman, can you please give me a help? Current doing a Load development to a client with the exactly same setup as Tertle and just curious what velocity/velocities you achieving… Will give an "update" of my achievements when i get back to work monday...

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how did you get on? I'm about to do some loads tonight, one batch to match the OAL of store bought, then a weee sample of some at 2.92

Sorry for the late reply everyone…
Customer Tikka like 40.5gr 2209 @ 2.800"… Velocity 26?? don't remember exactly (i think it has a 18" barrel)...

Attachment 119480

I had the same issue using the Hornady gauge with 145 ELD-Xs in my .270 Remmy. Struggled to get a consistent measurement, it seemed highly dependent on how hard I pushed. Used the method @mimms described and got a consistent measurement 0.9mm longer than what the OAL gauge suggested.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tertle

how did you get on? I'm about to do some loads tonight, one batch to match the OAL of store bought, then a weee sample of some at 2.92

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@PERRISCICABA
2209? are you sure or did you mean 2208
Nice group by the way

Quote:

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Originally Posted by winaa

@PERRISCICABA
2209? are you sure or did you mean 2208
Nice group by the way

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Thank you for the heads up, I was wrong!!! The actual powder IS Varget! The 2208 (for some reason) didn’t replicate the results of Varget!

cheers for the “eye opener”, forgive my bad mistake!