What's up with Imr 8208 XBR

M

mothball10x

New member
After all the hoop-la over this new powder, I have not seen a thing about it since it became available to us all.
Is it being used in BR comp. any thing more in pro's or con's about it ?
 
In Competition Benchrest-Only, Jeff Welker wrote about his experience with
it. XBR @ Visalia Match
Good information.
 
Do a search.
There were 2 threads in the last couple of weeks.
1 by Jackie with a lot of info.
As to the available to all of us....
I have not seen any yet and neither have a lot of others.
 
Like many other popular powders, and primers, and bullets, and cases, and loaded cartridges, it seems to be in short supply. Reloading supplies seem to be sort of like employment in the age of Obama, there's not a lot going around. I guess we just need to learn to live with shortages of this and that. Welcome to hope and change.
 
The only things I can say about it are CON's. Thats right...with a capital "C".

1. I can't seem to make it work.

2. Larry Scharnhorst keeps kicking our butts with it.

In reality, there are several good shooters winning and placing well with it.

Hovis
 
Later

After the Bluebonnet, I am going to get back to seeing if I can make the XBR work down in the lower load range, say 30.2 or so. Some say that is where many are having success. We keep trying to make it act like 133, which it IS NOT.

One friend that is a regular in our Region has decided to shoot the XBR and not fall back on the 133 like all the rest of us are doing. He shot quite well at our first Region Registered match, the load was 31.8 grns. At the Crawfish, he was quite dissappointed in the stuff, that load simply did not work. Remember one of the big selling points was this stuff was supposed to stay put better than 133.

I asked him what his general impression was, he said he didn't buy the powder to let it sit on the shelf, or something to that affect. I have a suspicion that in the near future he will be on top with it. Persistence has it's rewards........jackie
 
jackie schmidt said:
One friend that is a regular in our Region has decided to shoot the XBR and not fall back on the 133 like all the rest of us are doing. He shot quite well at our first Region Registered match, the load was 31.8 grns. At the Crawfish, he was quite dissappointed in the stuff, that load simply did not work. Remember one of the big selling points was this stuff was supposed to stay put better than 133.

jackie
Click to expand...
Once again, as I have said several times before, from the testing I did this powder does not seem to like fast!! About 31.0 or thereabouts works pretty well.
 
8208 xbr in 6mmBR

I have been working with this powder in my F-Class 6mmBR and have found it to be a bit faster than 4895 and VARGET. I normally shoot 30 to 30.3 grains of VARGET but have found 29 grains of 8208 to be maximum my gun with a 105 gr Berger BT bullet. Groups have been as good as VARGET and ES's have been in the 5-6 fps range.

This last weekend I shot it at a 60 shot 600 yard match and won with it is some strange and practically unreadable winds. My score was 583-24X out of a possible 600 and this was 10 points better than 2nd place. I had no high or low shots, but did notice an unusual amount of smoke when shooting and the cases had a gray residue in the necks. Cleaning the rifle was much quicker than with VARGET.

This weekend, weather permitting, I will start working a 223 load up for F-Class as I think this powder will be better suited for the smaller case.

I sure would like to know the Potential Heat of Explosion of this powder to see if it is harder or easier on barrels.

George
 
George,

Congratulations, good shooting!

I have a question, did you clean at any point during the 60 shot match?

I am finding the 8208XBR takes a bit to get shooting out of a clean barrel, but once is up and running I can shoot in excess of 50 rounds easily, without seeing any indications of accuracy drop. My last targets of the day seem to be as good if not better than my first ones.
So my recommendation is to, once fouled, shoot it for the rest of the match without cleaning, as the gun seem to hold the tune all through out.
Don't know if you've seen the same thing.

George C.
 
To Good to be True

Cabrera said:
George,

Congratulations, good shooting!

I have a question, did you clean at any point during the 60 shot match?

I am finding the 8208XBR takes a bit to get shooting out of a clean barrel, but once is up and running I can shoot in excess of 50 rounds easily, without seeing any indications of accuracy drop. My last targets of the day seem to be as good if not better than my first ones.
So my recommendation is to, once fouled, shoot it for the rest of the match without cleaning, as the gun seem to hold the tune all through out.
Don't know if you've seen the same thing.

George C.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be sweet to compete with a rig that would not lose its competitive edge without cleaning during an agg. Hey, is this a 30BR?
Sounds like a 30...... :D
 
Grasshopper,

For match I meant a 200Y score match (25 shots for record, plus warmup, plus sighters). Typically end up using 60 to 70 rounds in a match, give or take.
Please do not extrapolate this to a 2 yardage type of match, which rounds in excess of 100. I have not shot that many in one sitting, so don't know where is the roll off accuracy wise.
My experience so far with XBR has been all positive.
Understanding the impossibility for you to confirm my findings, I take no offense in your sarcasm.

George C.
 
Many people

induse excessive wear by cleaning their rifle way too often. The Jag and rod do more harm than the bullets and powdah.
 
Answers

No, I do not clean during a 60 round match (and I fired 6 sighters also).

My last 20 rounds produced 6X's. The X-ring at 600 ayrds is 2.85" in diameter.

My last match at Memphis before this one was using the same gun, cases, and bullets, but with 30.2 grains of VARGET and the score was a 597-27X and I got beat by more X's. Better winds that day.

George
 
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