Hybrids

[Brad Y]

So.... 6.5mm hybrids... jump em 15 thou to start with?

[bruce moulds]

brad,
try all 3.
keep safe,
bruce.

[RDavies]

From what myself and a few others have found, the Hybrids can be picky as to where they like to be seated. Whereas with a VLD, you jam it .010-.015" and go and hammer the X ring, with the Hybrids, sometimes they like to be jammed by various amounts, other times jumped, sometimes by quite a lot. I know this Isnt what all the initial hype said about them, but it is what a few of us have found.
I would say start at .015", but if the grouping is not great, then start playing with seating depth.
I have only used them in 1x 6.5mm barrel and it liked jamming, but still wasnt as good as the VLD "IN MINE".

Of course, in some combinations, they are tackholers.

[Brad Y]

Rod, the only time I have played with VLD's seriously I found they worked best jumped 40 thou. Definitely have to see what each individual barrel likes. Will start with 15 thou and work from there. Have 140 VLD's and hybrids to try anyway.

[Sambo]

sometimes they like to be jammed by various amounts,

Just curious as to how this works. My thinking had been that jammed is jammed, that is, after the bolt is closed the projectile is pushed back to the same seating depth anyway?

I'd love to know if there is more to it.

[AlanF]

sometimes they like to be jammed by various amounts,

Just curious as to how this works. My thinking had been that jammed is jammed, that is, after the bolt is closed the projectile is pushed back to the same seating depth anyway?

I'd love to know if there is more to it.

Sambo,

Depends on your neck tension. With soft seating you're right, and even with medium neck tension and molyed bullets they push in relatively easily. But with high neck tension, and particularly with tangent ogive and hybrid bullets, there's varying degrees of jamming. Remember when jamming was described in terms of the length of the marks made by the lands?

Alan

[RDavies]

By jammed, I mean touching. Once the projectile is just touching, you can usually go another .020-.025" further into the lands without the bullet pushing into the case. Often, just touching is not so good, but anywhere from .005-.020" into the lands is most common. But as Brad demonstrated, some barrels just dont follow the norm.

[Brad Y]

I will elaborate a bit more on that,

My leadup to last years WA queens was very rushed, I had 3 sundays to work a load for a mates 6.5x47L that I used while he shot FS.

First sunday was 130 bergers and a suggested load from another shooter. 12 at 80 thou jump, 12 at 40 thou jump, 12 at 15 thou jam. Each relay was shooting for group instead of score. Conditions werent great and I wasnt really interested in holding for them so I machine gunned them down. Best vertical came from 40 thou jump.

Following weekend was the same load of 130 bergers and a different load with another powder. Conditions better and I shot for score. Had alot of x rings and three just outside the 6 from wind. Second load I had the condition sorted and shot a 59 but only one x ring. Vertical wasnt as good.

Following weekend confirmed the load I was using and also tried a known short range load of 120SMK's to use at the short ranges if I couldnt get anymore 130 VLD's. I managed to get a box so didnt use the 120gr load for any range.

Not the most ideal way to work a load but it worked. In all honestly I think I could have tuned a jammed load as it still shot okay but the conditions when looking at seating depth were average to say the least and I didnt have time to play further.

My wilson seater arrived today and found the sinclair micrometer top thread for the seating stem is a bit tight, have to re tap it then I can start on loading some ammo for load development. Quite funny, an exact 3 inches OAL gives me a 15 thou jump in my 260 wildcat with 140 hybrids.