300 Savage ~ Collet vs. Pacesetter Dies

[Ranch Dog]

I've settled on the 300 Savage I want to shoot, my Rem 722, and I sold my Savage 110WLE this past week. This 1949 722 is the cat's meow, I really like it. It was a Texas Hill Country whitetail rifle that saw a lot of care over the years and was sold to me as being 95% but it is more like 99.99%!





I have a cast bullet that I designed for the 300 Savage, a TLC310-165-RF, but I wanted to ring the rifle out on a jacketed bullet first to see what the accuracy potential of this arm is. My choice of jacketed .308" bullet for the Savage and my hunting is the Speer 150 SPRN #2017. The powder I like for this cartridge is Varget, I've had great success with it back when I had a Savage 99 and it has worked well in both the bolt guns as of late. Off to the races! I settled on 42.0-grains of Varget as I wanted to see at least 2600 FPS from out of the 24" barrel.

I special ordered a Collet Die set for the 300 Savage but I sent them my TLC310 and I didn't think to include a .308" bullet as well so that they could fit & include a mandrel for both bullet sizes. I removed the included mandrel from the collet die, it measured .307", so I thought that ought to be good enough as that is the diameter of EzXpander used with the Pacsetter dies. Well, it is not enough! Below is the target that I shot to compare the difference.


The shot string, 5 shots, highlighted in yellow are those that were loaded with the Collet dies. The 100 yard group was so shocking that I walked back to the house and loaded 6 cases with the Pacesetter set and those are the unhighlighted holes, a 1.706" MOA group at 100-yards!

Quite a difference and it is all about neck tension. I pulled the components from the remainder of the Collet prepped cases and ordered the stock .308" mandrel (.3055") from Lee. With a kinetic puller it only took one whack to unseat the bullets but three hard whacks with a case loaded with the Pacesetter dies. I want to use the Collet dies to cut down on the wear of these cases sharp shouldered cases are under plus hopefully realize an bit of an accuracy gain per the Lee claim.

Here is the rest of the specs for my 300 Savage loading with the Speer 150-grain SPRN (#2017):

• Mixed brass fired 5 times previous
• Brass length - 1.871 (spec)
• Cartridge OAL - 2.560"
• 42.0-grains Varget (3.05 cc) dropped with the Perfect Powder Measure & verified with the Safety Scale
• Average 2634 FPS (24" barrel)
• SD 13.40 FPS
• ES 43 FPS

Anyone notice the case?

[RBHarter]

That looks almost like a head and neck separation.

[Ranch Dog]

That looks almost like a head and neck separation.

Yeah, the soot around the base of neck at that sharp shoulder makes it look that way. These case are probably 30 years old, some old school headstamps! Here is one.

300Sav_mixed01.jpg

[Ranch Dog]

Just looked it up, Dominion closed up in 1955! That case is only a year younger than me at best! Six loads isn't that bad I guess!

[Ranch Dog]

Oh heck! The other part of this mixed lot is "Savage". Seems it only made from 1890 through 1926! I will get a picture of it!

[357cyrus]

Jeesh! I just scooped up a box of Hornady brass for mine this past summer. I'm hoping they'll last me a while. I'm running a 165 Partition at an easy goin 2300 FPS. Still more oomph than a 30-30, yet easy on the brass, rifle (1927), and my shoulder. Have you put one of those Speers on any critters yet? Im interested in using them for another project.

[Ranch Dog]

Jeesh! I just scooped up a box of Hornady brass for mine this past summer. I'm hoping they'll last me a while. I'm running a 165 Partition at an easy goin 2300 FPS. Still more oomph than a 30-30, yet easy on the brass, rifle (1927), and my shoulder. Have you put one of those Speers on any critters yet? Im interested in using them for another project.

I've used them through a 308 Win as have some of the fellows that hunt out here. They perform very well.

[akuser47]

Nice rifle, and looks like a great future for her on your ranch.

[Steve]

Quite a difference and it is all about neck tension. I pulled the components from the remainder of the Collet prepped cases and ordered the stock .308" mandrel (.3055") from Lee. With a kinetic puller it only took one whack to unseat the bullets but three hard whacks with a case loaded with the Pacesetter dies. I want to use the Collet dies to cut down on the wear of these cases sharp shouldered cases are under plus hopefully realize an bit of an accuracy gain per the Lee claim.

I have spun the mandrels of the collet dies in a drill while using 400 grit wet sandpaper to reduce the diameter. This worked for me to tighten the neck for my 30-06. Taking only a small amount at a time until the bullet fit the way I wanted.

I used short pieces of case neck split and slipped over the mandrel at the mushroomed end for a shim so the drill chuck could tighten on the mandrel. Wish I would have kept my old lathe!

[Ranch Dog]

Thanks Steve and my inclination was to do that but this rifle is bound to a cast bullet design that needs the existing mandrel. It also caused me to order an oversized mandrel for my 35 Rem, which I hadn't considered, for this factory set of dies. I bought it .002" over and will chuck it up in my drill press and work it if needs adjusting.

I've had some contractors out here on my house since Monday, stuff that momma wanted done for her Christmas, so the 300 Savage was on hold for two days while I rode herd on them. They finished at quitting yesterday so I'm going to get back on this today.

I did tear open a new bag of SuperX stamped brass. It was factory primed so I punched all the primers out so I could anneal the entire lot on my annealer, which is done. I'm going prep all 50 cases before I load any more; trim, primer pockets truing, and flash holes.