Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Lapua Naturalis Bullets - Loads and Performance on Game

Hello again everyone,

I got the chance to do some range tests on Saturday. I also tested the LabRadar for the first time. It works pretty well but took some time to learn how to work the menu options.

300 WBY Update: You can see my friend shooting my 300 Wby rifle in the picture below. I had loaded four sets of cartridges from with 79 grain N560 to 82 grain. The velocities very nicely increased from what I had measured before and reached a maximum of about 3100 f/s. I did not get the highly-accurate touching groups that I obtained before with 78 and 79 grain charge though. The groups were like this: two shots nearly touching then one about 1.5 inches away!? What is the most likely cause of this phenomenon? Is it just flinching or I should seat the bullets a bit deeper or what?


300 Win Mag Update: I had loaded 10 cartridges with 76 grain of N560 and a long COAL of 3.44". I had obtained excellent accuracy with this load last time so I just wanted to test. I also wanted to measure the velocity of this load since last time it rained and my chronometer failed. Well, it turns out that this load produces very high velocity in excess of 3100 f/s. The accuracy is OK but not outstanding as the previous test. I think this load perhaps exceeds the maximum safe pressure for 300 Win Mag so I intend to reduce it and test a shorter COAL. I think a max speed of about 2950 to 3000 f/s is more natural for 300 Win Mag and the 170 grain Lapua Naturalis bullet. The average velocity along with Min and Max velocity I obtained for this load are shown in the graph below (pale blue color).

Any thoughts or comments? Thank you and happy 4th of July!