A basic fact of shooting is that practically no rifle, I don't care how expensive/exotic/boutique it is, is going to shoot great with every load you shoot in it. This means that if you choose anything other than a mainstream caliber, you may very well have a difficult time finding an acceptable load for it. Handloading is an entirely different matter. It gives you the ability to experiment and tailor a particular load to your rifle. So, in other words, if you go with a non-mainstream caliber, you better be prepared to learn to handload.
EDIT: And another thing......when you buy ammo and find a load that your gun likes (more than one good group, of course), buy plenty of it BUT, check the box and make sure it is from the same lot. Components often change from lot to lot. When it does, all bets are off. Might shoot....might not. When handloading, you control the parameters. Sometimes you will discover a load that tends to work well in a number of rifles. I call them universal loads. I found one in .270 with a 130gr. bullet, another couple in .308 and one in .223 using Varget. Speaking of .308, Federal has some sort of special magic when it comes to Gold Medal Match ammo. Darn stuff shoots well in a lot of rifles. I don't know exactly how they do it, but they seem to get it done with a high degree of regularity.
One of my friends did load development for Jarrett Rifles. He found the same thing about different rifles (made just alike) liking different loads. Sometimes they like the same load/sometimes they don't. Like my youngest son in college says.....you never know till you know. That is part of the fun and mystique in handloading. It is a brave new world. Give it a try.....but don't extrapolate data....it can hurt.
Last edited by CWPINST; 06-22-2018 at 03:53 PM.
If it ain\'t accurate at long distance, then the fact that it is flat shooting is meaningless.
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