7x64 Vs 308

[Minette Mccandrew]

Iam getting a 7x64 barrel for my Blaser R8 - and wanted to canvas any tips on reloading - use will be mixed but objective of reloading is an accurate, long range round that is reliable in a straight pull - (so FL sizing) and makes the best of a 23 inch barrel

I can get Lapua brass so that is a good start - the R8 barrel has a sensible twist rate (1/8.5) which is not always the case in Blaser barrels so I can run the heavier, higher BC ELD-X which is then multi purpose (I like to find one bullet/powder/charge weight combo per barrel/rifle and then focus on getting to know it and using it well)

The 7X64 is very close dimensionally and ballistically to the 280 Remington although neither brass nor loaded cartridge is interchangeable. (Actually, it's the other way round as 7X64 is very much senior to the US upstart near-copy!) The advice on loads is to use 280 Rem data and subtract 5% from the maximum for safety. So look up pet loads on the 280 if you don't find much on the Brenecke.

Redding Deluxe are standard non-bushing dies. Good quality IME. If the neck tension is too high, remove the expander in the sizer die and get or if you already have one use, a mandrel type expander die which allows interchangeable mandrels designed for expanding the neck before neck-turning. I use the Sinclair expander die body and the same company's 28E model expander on all my match sevens and the degree of neck tension is just where I want it. The K&M equivalent should be fine too. Lube the inside of the neck before use, or else shell out for a very expensive carbide mandrel.

I should have qualified my reply to say N560 which is very much slower burning than N160, and in fact often acts as a slower burning powder than N165. My experience is that it can be finicky and also need max pressure loads to perform consistently. In sporter length barrels, one symptom of it being unhappy is muzzle flash like I've never seen with anything else! Viht doesn't list this powder with any bullet weight in the cartridge.

N550 should be happier, but if you look at the recently revised Viht data, both N550 and N160 are shown for the 160gn Nosler Accubond, the nearest to what you're using. N160 perhaps a little surprisingly gives another 50 fps over N550.

Hornady in its most recent manual has data--sets for both 280 Rem and 7X64, but no Viht powder loads - in fact there is not much Viht data in this manual anymore and recent additions like the 6.5 Creedmoor have none at all (likewise Sierra). Both it and Lyman 50th just out (for the 280 alone here) show best results from IMR-4350 and for best MVs IMR/H4831.

Ramshot Hunter (Hornady lists 52.6gn max for its 162s for 2,600 fps in a 22-inch barrel Sauer 101, not the highest MV in the table) QuickLOAD computes another 90 fps from this combination for nearly 2,700 fps and a very good match to the cartridge and bullet. (Using the 162 AMax as I don't have the ELDs in my version.)

Alliant Re19 and 22 should both work. QuickLOAD suggests Re19 is an excellent match ballistically, but if you're chasing MV several more grains Re22 and a compressed load gives almost as high MVs as you can safely get.

With the FL die but with sizing button removed and a sinclair carbide mandrel (as Laurie suggested) I got consistently sub 2 though run out and a nice smooth bullet seating that suggested the expected 2 though neck tension. So thank you Laurie. I only wish they did lee collet dies in this caliber.

One should now the anatomy and design of the 7x64 - especially the throat. If the 7x64 chamber is cut as a standard chamber the throat will have a very gentle lead angle = long freebore, making it impossible to seat bullets close to the lands. The design was made to keep the pressure down and to boost velocity. I shoot a modified Tikka T3 with AICS LA magazines. I load all my ammunition to a COAL of 87.00mm which gives me a crazy long bullet jump. Taking the design into consideration one should focus on concentricity and an optimum guiding of the bullet by utilizing full contact between bullet bearing surface and case neck. It can to some degree be compared to the 6.5x55 which also accepts very long bullet jumps.

Dies: In the absence of FL bushing style dies I bought a standard FL RCBS sizer die. I got my gunsmith to ream the neck section out so that it would only size the body and push the shoulders back. Fireformed brass will be sized so that shoulders are pushed back 0.002". I size the neck with a 7mm Rem Mag, Lee Collet Neck Sizer - yeps it is generic and works perfectly! You can buy different mandrels to play around with neck tension, brass brands etc... I have two - one for Lapua brass and one for GECO/Ruag brass. Concentricity is kept at or under 0.002" runout.

For seating, I use a Forster BR seater - very nice die! Forster actually makes a Bump, bushing die for 7x64 Brenneke. This die will only push the shoulders back and size the neck. It will not resize the body.

N560 has been a nightmare to work with. No matter what I did I could never get ES under 10m/s. There would always be pressure spikes. I always use premium brass, primers, load techniques. I load to very tight tolerances and even tried annealing, but nothing helped. I should say that I have loaded for one rifle that shoots like a dream. It is also a custom TIkka T3 with a 24" Lothar Walther barrel, 1:9" twist. It shoots 180gr ELD-Ms loaded with N560 through one hole with MV of 835ms. ES is very low. This is the only rifle chambered in 7x64 in which I have managed to get good results with N560

So would seem in line with expected data and at deer stalking ranges I certainly wouldn't worry about it. Probably not that vital for LR targets either as after a couple of shots the powder temp will be raised by the chamber being warm

For fans of the Lee collet neck dies I have found that the Lee 280 remington/7mm express collet die will do a job, as Laurie suggested, on the 7x64 neck after FL sizing. I have not done a side by side comparison with the sinclair mandrel on run out etc

The first was 8x64 from 1912 which was designed in a an attempt to get a government contract for a more powerful military round than the 8x57. The attempt was in vain, but as the 7x57 was already popular Brenneke also constructed the 7x64 in 1917 - 40 years before the almost identical .280 Remington was introduced. Designed solely as a hunting cartridge the 7x64 is very widespread in Central Europe as several countries here have banned the use of military calibers for hunting.

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The motherboard is a DN2800MT. After installing 7x64 I was surprised not seeing unidentified hardware (that's a first for me with Windows), however, I noticed straight away that Windows was using the build-in GPU drivers. Those are so basic that even Patience starts complaining about the lack of graphics performance.

Not long after that I found out that Intel refuses to make 64 bit GPU drivers for this motherboard, while there are 64bit chipset, LAN and sound-drivers available. So why make those and not GPU drivers?

Then I found someone on this forum who linked to a beta driver (GFX_Vista_Win7_64_8.15.8.1050_Beta5.exe) that supposedly supports this particular GPU. Well.... after running the driverinstaller and a reboot, I got a BSOD. Another reboot -> BSOD. Safe-mode -> delete GPU driver -> no more BSOD, but crappy graphics performance due to the standard Windows driver being used again.

After a second attempt, not using the driverinstaller but let the device manager install the driver, it seems to run without problems, didn't get BSOD's anymore. Now I haven't tested much, Windows starts, graphics performance increased and Patience is no longer nagging about crappy graphics, gonna try more tomorrow.

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