.308 win with 165 grain Swift Scirroco

I am trying to work up a load for my Christiansen Arms .308 using 165 grain Swift Scirrocos. I have tried using varget and H4895 loads from the Swift manual and have had terrible accuracy (4” or greater groups at 100 yards). I loaded some Hornady interlocks and had some federal premium Accubonds that can shot groups from 0.65” - 1.15” so I feel confident the gun can shoot well.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what to try?

RStien321 said:

I am trying to work up a load for my Christiansen Arms .308 using 165 grain Swift Scirrocos. I have tried using varget and H4895 loads from the Swift manual and have had terrible accuracy (4” or greater groups at 100 yards). I loaded some Hornady interlocks and had some federal premium Accubonds that can shot groups from 0.65” - 1.15” so I feel confident the gun can shoot well.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what to try?

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Wish I could help you, but I've had the same results with the Scirrocos. I've heard seating them depth, and seating them deep is the key.

Give them lots of bullet jump and watch the groups shrink is the 1st step. Even 1/4" is fine. Yes 1/4"

The next thing is to start with a super clean barrel when shooting pure copper or pure copper jacket bullets. This means no #9. This is needed when shooting regular jacketed bullets then switching to Barnes or Swift. I use Wipe-Out and maybe a 2nd time if needed. Then Sweets 7.62 or Barnes CR-10 followed by Butches Bore Shine or Shooters Choice or Tetra-Gu or one of the Montana products. If I am not shooting for a few days/weeks I then oil the barrel. If I am shooting soon then I do not oil the barrel.
This works very well for better groups and less fouling. As long as you shoot Swift or Barnes you will not need to clean often or as completely. However I have just gotten into the habit of always cleaning this way. I DO NOT clean every time I shoot. I have a 7-08 with about 250 rounds of copper bullets down the tube the last 3 years and have not cleaned it. It still shoots tiny little groups. I do sometime put a dry Bore-Cnake thru the barrel of any of my rifles between cleaning. If you shoot both Swift/Barnes and regular bullets at the range then shoot the Swift/Barnes 1st. But if you shoot any regular bullets then you will need to super clean the barrel before shooting Swift/Barnes again for best accuracy and least fouling

My daughter has a 257R that will but 5 rounds into a cloverleaf group when you do your part. I loaded up some 100gr Sciroccos since she was getting low on ammo. They shot like a shotgun(3-4" group) I checked everything on the rifle and all was good. Then I grabbed one of the older rounds and it was shorter than the ones I had just loaded. Went back and reseated (never crimp rifle ammo) the bullets deeper and back to tiny group. I used the wrong OAL from my data and once corrected all was well.

So seat them DEEP! and SUPER CLEAN the barrel before shooting them.

Spot on advice in the above post. My experience exactly.

Win 748 works great with 165s

Thanks for the advice! I’m seating .080” off the lands currently, giving me a COAL of about 2.8”

I shot 130 grains out of my 6.5 Creedmoor and it prints 0.75”-1” groups reliably. I’ll boost the depth up to 0.120” off the lands on my 308 and see what it does.

Also CLEAN the rifle as stated above. I have had excellent results with Win 748 in my 308win(also 223) using 125-130 and 150gr bullets also.

RStien321 said:

I am trying to work up a load for my Christiansen Arms .308 using 165 grain Swift Scirrocos. I have tried using varget and H4895 loads from the Swift manual and have had terrible accuracy (4” or greater groups at 100 yards). I loaded some Hornady interlocks and had some federal premium Accubonds that can shot groups from 0.65” - 1.15” so I feel confident the gun can shoot well.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what to try?

Click to expand...

I use them in a Tikka CTR .308. Very accurate and effective.

COL is 2,895” or 73,5mm
That leaves a total of roughly 11,5mm seated, of which 9,2mm is bearing surface.

I use Somchem S335 which is the same as IMR3031 or Hodgon Benchmark at 42gr for MV of 2610fps from a 20” barrel

Obviously powders like 4895, Rel12 etc are well suited to the .308

RStien321 said:

I am trying to work up a load for my Christiansen Arms .308 using 165 grain Swift Scirrocos. I have tried using varget and H4895 loads from the Swift manual and have had terrible accuracy (4” or greater groups at 100 yards). I loaded some Hornady interlocks and had some federal premium Accubonds that can shot groups from 0.65” - 1.15” so I feel confident the gun can shoot well.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what to try?

Click to expand...

I have tried both the 165 and 130 grain Scirrocos in my 308 Win 70 Featherweight and my 6.5 Creedmoor in my Kimber Hunter. Neither would produce better the 2” MOA at 100 yards. I also tried different powders hoping I could get them to shoot