.22 PPC And 6mm PPC
Using IMR 8208 XBR Member Willard Scherer
Testing on paper targets showed this load is suffi ciently accurate for prairie dog hunting.
ing bug. While moving around the world in the military I couldn’t devote a lot of time or money to varmint shooting, as I wasn’t in one place a lot. Living in the West for the last 35 years I managed to get in some varmint shooting. Then, after retiring a few years ago from 13 years of federal service and 20 years in the military, about all I do is prairie dog shoot. I read a lot about short, stubby cases, so last year I purchased two .22 PPCs and a 6mm PPC to shoot prairie dogs. To be able to shoot 5,000 to 7,000 prairie dogs a year, as I do, I must reload and do it fast. The short, stubby case of the PPCs makes for easy reloading and shooting. Using the Dillon RL 550B I can load around 250 cases an hour, if the powder fl ows correctly. If I use ball powder I can do that, but it’s usually very dirty and temperature sensitive. Most ball powder doesn’t fi ll the case, and if a small portion of foreign material is in the case it will not be seen. An overcharge condition will exist. I’ve had this happen, and it is not good. Then along came IMR 8208 XBR. While it isn’t a ball
A
Tight groups on paper with this load show that the author has another winner for fi eld use on prairie dogs.
powder, it will fl ow through my Dillon powder measure very well, and fi ll the case to a level I can see. On two prairie dog shoots it has proven not to be temperature sensitive. On the fi rst shoot the temperature was 100 degrees or better on both days. On the second day I sat in the sun and left my ammo in the sun and shot 15 or 20 prairie dogs in about twenty-fi ve minutes just to see what would happen. No problem. My rifl e got hot, but not overly hot. The bolt lifted easily and extracted the case. I don’t load maximum loads – I want to keep my prairie dog guns for a while. I don’t weigh every charge because it takes too much
time. I’m not a bench rest shooter – I shoot prairie dogs. Using my Dillon RL 550B, I can keep the charges to less than a tenth of a grain difference by using the same motion each and every time. With IMR 8208 XBR, I weigh every tenth or so charges on my RCBS electronic scale to see if I’m staying within a tenth of a grain of my wanted charge. Most of the time I stay right on. Of the nearly 30 targets fi red over my chronograph, most have a standard deviation of 32 fps or less, and many are under 20 fps. Several have single digit standard deviation. If I weigh every load I probably could get them all to a single digit standard deviation, but why bother. The type of brass makes a difference. At fi rst I bought
IMR 8208 XBR powder fl ows well through the author's Dillon powder measure and is not temperature sensitive.
Page 168 October — December 2011
Norma PPC USA and Sako PPC USA brass at about a $1.00 each, which was way too much money for a retired GI. Plus, it was very hard to fi nd. At the indoor range I belong to I posted a note that I needed some .22 PPC and 6mm PPC brass. I didn’t really think I would get a response at all, but I did. A bench shooter called me and said, “I have over 600 pieces of used Lapua .220 Russian and 6 PPC brass you can have.” This statement raised a red fl ag. “How many times has this brass been fi red,” I asked, trying not to sound too excited.
s a teenager using a .22 Long Rifl e to shoot ground- hogs in Indiana, I’ve always had the varmint shoot-
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