.243 Savage 11/111 issues

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bmthunter

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I have been reloading ammo for my .243 Savage Model 11/111 FCNS for over 5 years now, and still have not been able to produce accurate results. I have been using 95gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip with IMR 4831 at 41.5 gr. Recently I went a little over board and decided to test different powder weight with the same 95 gr. The powder ranged from 40 gr. to 44.5 gr. with three rounds per. No such luck. My shot placement was all over the place. I know the rifle is sighted in at 100 no questions asked, so I removed that from my probable cause. The only two things left I can think of are 1) the rounds I am making are completely off, but after my 30 round experiment I am doubting that. And 2) the rifle itself is the issue.
No I did not fire all 30 rounds within seconds of each other. I am aware that the more the shoot and the more heat is applied to the barrel it starts to expand and do all sorts of funky things to the ballistics. I let the rifle sit for 5-10 minutes until the barrel cooled off.


What are some thoughts or tips that y’all have I might be able to do? I am wanting to fix this issue before rifle season opens up here in Texas so I can finally take it out and get some deer with it.(Season opens for me on Nov. 5 and ends Jan. 15)


Thank you all in advance for the help.
 
My wife has a savage 111 lady hunter in .243 and we found it shoots great with 36 gr of varget and 85 gr barnes tsx bullets. 5 shot sub 1" groups. It shot terrible with IMR 4064 powder. It also shoots H4350 with 100 gr hornady's similar to the barnes but not as tight of groups. We got good results with .050 off the lands for the barnes and .010 off the lands with the hornady. YMMV but those loads are great with my wifes rifle.

I feel your frustration. I am still fighting to find a load that works in my Sako 85 in .30-06. I have not been able to produce good groups with any of the Barnes 150 and 180 bullets but it shoots one ragged hole with Fusion factory 165 loads. I tried MRP powder and it shot really low velocity and not very accurate. I also tried H4895 and it shoots a little better with higher velocity. I am going to try some imr 4350 ~57 gr and some 165 hornady GMX's to see how it shoots with them next. I also might try a different powder with the 150' barnes to see if I can get something to group as well as the factory Fusion loads.
 
It's easy enough to determine whether the cause of the inaccuracy is the reloads or the gun.
How does it do with factory loads, and which ones?
Can you be more specific about what is meant by "not been able to produce accurate results" and "shooting all over the place."
 
Could try some flat-base bullets like the 95gr Hornady SST. Had a 243 that would shoot 2" @ 100 yds using factory federal blue-box in 80 and 100gr. Tried 58s, 75s and 100gr boat tails, etc, nothing did as good as the factory loads. Finally tried some 95gr SSTs over some Win 760 and viola, 1" to 1-1/2" at the worst. I traded that rifle for a stray dog and then let the dog go...
 
Check the torque on your action screws. Are your scope bases tight? Is your scope rings tight. IIs your scope holding zero? Is your barrel copper fouled is it clean and needs a little fouling?

Sorry for so many questions but there are so many issues than can cause inaccuracy.
 
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95 gr nos bal tip 2800 fps 6mmBR 29 gr IMR-4166
7 pounds with scope
<1" 5 shots at 100y
sighted in out to 500 yards
3 weeks ago I hit the buck in the spine while aiming for the lungs at 158 yards.
Equipment works fine, I am the problem.
 
Most 6mm BR have an 8" twist, IIRC. The .243 has a 10" twist. The 1.115" 95 grain Nosler is just fine with an 8" twist, but a 10" is, as 243winxb pointed out, right on the edge of stable.

Under standard ICAO conditions, the stability calculator gives that bullet a gyroscopic stability factor of about 1.15 at 2790 fps (the estimated velocity from a 20" Savage 11 barrel with 41.5 grains of 4831). A stability factor of 1.3 to 3.0 is what Sierra recommends for "hunting accuracy", and 1.4 to 1.7 for best target accuracy. So the OP needs a shorter bullet.


bmthunter,

Welcome to the forum.

If you want to stay with 95 grains, the Nosler Partition Spitzer is 1.025" long and that is enough shorter than the Ballistic Tip to raise the gyroscopic stability factor to about 1.48 at that same velocity. This is a lower BC bullet, I expect (didn't look it up, but Partitions usually are) but at least it should stabilize well.

If you intend to keep shooting heavier bullets in the .243, you might look at getting a barrel with an 8" twist. A 9" will work in good weather, but the 8" will hold up in the coldest weather, when the denser air becomes a stability issue. Sharp Shooter Supply, which specializes in Savage work can turn any blank you choose to buy to have Savage threads and chamber it for you. Douglas will chamber their own blanks for you at an added charge and will give it any twist rate you ask for.
 
"...The .243 has a 10" twist..." Usually 1 in 9.125 or close to that, not 1 in 10. Winchester and Browning(same place now)use 1 in 10 and nobody else. Savage uses 1 in 9.25. Which is odd enough. Remington uses 1 in 9.125.
"...a barrel with an 8" twist..." Totally unnecessary to buy a cu$tom barrel.
"...not been able to produce accurate results..." What do you call 'accurate'? Have you worked up by half a grain from the Start load? Or just picked a few and hoped?
44.5 grains of IMR4831 is 1.7 over max for a 95, according to Hodgdon. 44.5(C) is Max for H4831. Very likely to just be a different manual.
Anyway, as mentioned, makes sure the stock screws are tight and change powders. Been using IMR4350 with Speer 90 and 105 grain bullets out of a 1 in 9.125 barrel for eons. The rifle's barrel isn't up to great accuracy, but it shoots 2 to 3 inches(minute-of-deer) with both bullet weights all day, every day.
 
The 6mmBR rifle in the pic above I built two months ago on a Rem700SABDL has a Pac Nor Stainless Super Match. 1-8" Twist. 6mm. Polygonal rifling. 28" long. Factory Remington Mountain Rifle Contour. 2# 8 oz = 40 oz threaded, chambered, and crowned 27.125" long.

The 6mmBR rifle I built in 2007 on a 1918 Sav99 takedown was Shilen select match 5.1 pound 21.5" 14" twist stainless.

The 243s I built on Mausers in 2003, 2008, and 2008 were all 10" twist crummy Adams and Bennet barrels from Midway.
 
got my savage 111 used about 3 years ago. it wouldnt group better than 2 in @100 y. tried every factory ammo from 80 to 100 gr.
started reloading 100 gr hornandy interlocks or 100 sie prohunter spitzers. did load workups with h4895 imr 4895, 4350 and win 760 using coal of 2.650 in groups shrunk to 1 moa at or near max loads.
me wanting smaller group sizes adjusted my oal ( rifle specific) to 2.7 in. i was amazed to see ten round groups into a half in at 175 yards.
sorru about my unedited post, my cell started havin a mind of its own.
 
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I didn't realize the Savage used a 9.25" twist. I looked at the 11's on their web site, but the spec list only gave barrel length and chambering without twist, so I defaulted to the SAAMI standard test barrel for .243 Win, which uses a 10" twist. Still, even at 9.25" pitch, the stability factor problem remains for the Ballistic Tip. The estimator gives that bullet 1.2, which doesn't meet Sierra's recommended minimum of 1.3 for hunting accuracy. At stability factors between 1.0 and 1.3 you wind up in a kind of Neverland, where some individual rifles will still shoot a bullet well enough while others will not. That may have partly to do with rifling pitch tolerance, which isn't usually published, but in some rifles can be off by 5% or so.

T. O'Heir said:
"...a barrel with an 8" twist..." Totally unnecessary to buy a cu$tom barrel.
Click to expand...

I don't know any other way he can get an 8" to 8.5" twist on the gun. If he wants to shoot that particular bullet from that particular gun badly enough and to get top accuracy from it, the faster twist is the only way to make it happen that I can see. Whether or not it may be justified as "necessary" or rejected as "unnecessary" is entirely up to him to decide. Personally, I'd just use shorter bullets in this case, but I did get a custom twist 6.5 mm barrel from Douglas for my 6.5-284 because I knew exactly which bullet I would use with it and that I would stick with that bullet until the barrel was shot out (which doesn't take long in 6.5-284). But that was for match shooting. So this all depends on your purposes and objectives. You get to decide for yourself.
 
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