Deer legal

When reloading from reloading manuals i find that my loads do not have the same velocity's or ft lbs as stated in the manuals, would it be safe to exceed these loads as long as there are no signs of over pressure? so that i can get a deer legal load of 1700 ft lb with a 95/100 gran bullet. my rifle is an RPA 243 with a 1 in 8 twist and 26" barrel.

There are actually two questions - is it 'on' to exceed listed maximum loads, and the suitability of .243WCF for deerstalking in England and Wales vis a vis compliance with the Deer Acts.

Taking the latter first, many stalkers using this cartridge unknowingly break the law as their ammunition - factory or handloaded - doesn't achieve the required minimum ME of 1,700 ft/lbs. Taking my own recent experience of the cartridge, some Hornady 100gn BTSP cartridges bought in early 2009 averaged 2,754 fps out of a brand new Remington 700 SPS rifle with a 24" barrel. That is 200 fps below the nominal claimed factory MV of 2,960 fps from this load, and equates to 1,683 ft/lbs. I'm sure it will kill deer perfectly efficiently, and fortunately the countryside is not full of police officers carrying chronographs. It has been noted frequently that owners of 20" barrel 243 rifles and even many of those with 22" barrel models have precious little chance of being legal. Turning the issue around, this raises the question of whether the various acts of parliament are in fact 'fit for purpose' if the .243WCF is potentially illegal, especially on roe deer! The problem was most likely caused by Winchester itself when it introduced the cartridge in the 1950s. In an age when privately owned chronographs were virtually unknown, the company could inflate its claims for the cartridge's performance and get away with it. Unfortunately, the 'experts' advising our government on the content of the proposed legislation used the .243 as the baseline and believed those claims, hence 1,700 ft/lbs ME! Winchester has long since reduced the cartridge's nominal performance, but that's no help now.

Going back to the other question, I will neither advise you to exceed nor to stick with manufacturers' maximum charges listed in their handloading manuals - that has to be a question for you and the confidence you have in your expertise in the matter. Here are points you should consider:

• 1. Can you be certain your chronograph is accurate? A small error can knock the calculated ME down enough to apparently cause problems. For instance, if you want 2,800 fps with a 100gn bullet to be sure of exceeding 1,700 ft/lbs with all cartridges (providing 1,741 ft/lbs), a mere 1.5% low reading on the chrono' reduces the results to 2,758 fps / 1,688 ft/lbs.
• 2. You don't say which powder or bullet maker's manual(s) you are using. Most use test barrels that conform to minimum CIP or SAAMI specifications for bore and chamber size, likewise throating angles and length. Tight chambers and bores raise pressures, hence MVs. Few factory rifles conform rigidly to such specs, hence you get lower MVs (but also pressures). A few (Hornady and Speer) do their pressure testing with such industry-standard barrels, but an out of the box factory rifle to obtain published MVs - brought on by past complaints from handloaders that MVs in the manuals were not attainable.
• 3. Are you using exactly the same components as listed in the manual? The case in particular can vary substantially in wall thickness between makes - a lighter / thinner case has more internal room when it obturates in the chamber, so produces less pressure / MV than a thick one. This often applies to Vihtavuori loads which have been worked up in sturdy Lapua brass. US made brass is often (but not always) thinner, so reduces pressures.
• 4. Manufacturers are aware of the ambient temperature ranges their products may be used in - midday in the Arizona desert or Australian bush summer produces very hot cartridges that raises pressures substantially with most powders (Hodgdon 'extreme' examples excepted). They must take this into account when they publish loads data - as should the prudent handloader in his / her loading practices. Tales from US Service Rifle shooters abound of .223 Rem loads worked up for AR15 match rifles in the cool New England spring that blow a percentage of primers clean out of the case in the 95 degrees heat seen during National Matches at Camp Perry in July / August. In particular, manufacturers have reduced maximum loads for many ball powders in recent manuals for this reason. Conversely, there is less risk of heat-induced over pressure in the British Isles.
• 5. Many handloaders, especially long-range target shooters, exceed manufacturers' maxima, some by quite large margins. Most have no problems but a few do. If one indulges in such practices, a lot more things have to be taken into account - any component change particularly primer; major temperature rise as noted above; new bottle of powder from a different 'lot'; new barrel even from the same maker and gunsmith chambered with the same reamer - can push an almost too hot load into dangerous territories. Likewise, a new lot of cases may vary in their capacity from the previous one. You need to watch case condition very closely, especially primer fit in the pocket through using a hand-operated priming tool, not the bench press attachment that won't tell you if they've become a slack fit needing hardly any pressure to be seated.
• 6. You use an RPA action - this has pluses and minuses if you work up past listed maxima. The plus is that the Quadlock and Quadlite actions are strong and rigid, and these and similar actions often give excellent results at very high pressures - unlike many two-lug factory actions whose lugs don't bear evenly. The firing pin has a small diameter and fits its hole in bolt face closely - so primers do not rupture / 'crater' until you're well into the red zone on the pressure gauge. The bad news is that the RPA and similar actions are so well made and everything fits up so well, that many 'traditional' over-pressure signs don't appear, or only do so at dangerously high pressures - in particular hard bolt-lift, flattened and cratered primers.
• 7. Have you thought about using a lighter bullet that allows higher MVs to be achieved safely? As ME is more sensitive to velocity than bullet weight it is usually easier to achieve 1,700 ft/lbs with a 90-grainer than a 100 in .243. You need to exceed 2,920 fps with a 90gn Nosler Ballistic Tip or Partition, which may be easier to obtain than 2,800+ from a 100gn bullet. The same Remy 700 SPS that wouldn't reliably provide 1,700 ft/lbs with factory 100gn Hornady ammo, and only just achieved the ME floor with 100gn Sierras over a maximum helping of Hodgdon H4831sc, saw an average of 3,065 fps (1,887 ft/lbs) and good accuracy from Nosler's maximum listed charge of 44gn Vihtavuori N160 for the 90gn Ballistic Tip, even if that was down on what the manual said it should be (3,172 fps).
• 8. Finally do your present handloads work? That is, are they accurate and kill deer efficiently? If so, why subject your rifle to higher pressures that accelerate wear and reduce case life disproportionately? I would no more counsel you to ignore the law than powder manufacturers' load warnings, but that may be a better solution in these circumstances!

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