What I Learned at the Range + How I Did

[Maven]

The weather was mild enough yesterday to allow a trip to the range with my SBH (and no gloves!). Although there's still snow on the ground and the ground itself is still frozen, the parking lot has almost become a mosh pit. I.e., muddy and slippery, the kind of mud that will pull your shoes off and make a mess of your car. Obviously other club members took advantage of the break in the weather to shake off cabin fever. One of them brought a beautiful Mauser sporter with him: Double set triggers, octagonal -> round bbl. with an integral rib + a fore-end wedge, much like a T/C Hawken has. While I admired the rifle, he told me he fired it with CB's, but leaded the bore end to end. He also tried jacketed bullets with "moderate" handloads with new brass, but got head separations. Although he had slugged the bbl., he decided to pull the action from the stock after the head separations in order to ascertain exactly what type of Mauser he had. Pulling the action was very revealing as he found that he had a J-bore and was pushing .323 jacketed pills through it (with "moderate" loads). The head separations could have been a headspace + high pressure issue, but I'm guessing the latter since he's a bit new to the reloading game.

After yakking a bit, I began testing my 10.5" bbl. SBH (as issued) with an untried WC, cast from a newly acquired Belding & Mull single cav. mold. Once I cleaned it up and polished the cavity, it cast beautiful bullets, which I sized to .432". I loaded them in 2x-fired MagTech brass with 8gr. Unique and Fed. 150 primers. OAL was 2.39" and I roll-crimped them in place. How did I do? Resting the pistol butt on my rifle bag (and my butt on the seat!), I got several groups of 5 shots in 1.5" and one of 5 shots in 1.125". This is one of the few home-cast WC's I've shot that doesn't need to be seated backwards, i.e., base forward, to get accurate results. Btw, the SBH will shoot that well with the Lyman & RCBS Keith CB's and almost as well with the Lee TL Keith. The Lee button-nosed WC needs to be seated backwards to approach this level of accuracy and is somewhat of a PITA to cast, but then so was the .38/.357mag. version.

[dubber123]

You might want to try Trailboss in your wadcutter loads. I got a Lyman 180 wadcutter a while back, and it shoots superbly in my T/C .44 with Trailboss. I had to load them a little warmer than I hoped, (I was looking for around 750 fps.), but they shot under 1" at 50 yds. (scoped). Very clean burning also. Did you chrono these loads? I would guess around 1,000 fps.?

[Maven]

dubber123, While I didn't chrono. the WC/8gr. Unique loads (I didn't even weigh the WC's from the new-to-me mold.), but previous outings with Lee WC's and TL's put the velocity somewhere between 1,000fps - 1,050fps. Trail Boss sounds like an ideal powder, but it may be hard to find in my neck of the woods (only 1 dealer and mostly IMR & Alliant powders). Thanks for the tip!

[dubber123]

I lucked out in that a guy from the pistol shoots I attend has an FFL and brings the stuff right to the shoots. After the first jug, I went and bought all he had. Kinda greedy, but nobody around here stocks it either. It won't break any speed records, but it really fills up a case like nothing else. In the cartridges I have tried it in, accuracy really picks up the closer to the bullet base you get.

[JeffinNZ]

Hey Maven. Did you post those photos of your trip down this way?

[Maven]

Jeff, With Buckshot's help I posted them in early February under the Shooters category.