milkman
08-24-2012, 11:26 AM
I just purchased a LAM2 and have been trying to wring out a couple of rifles to see how they like BAC. It's been hot enough that I fire a string of 5 shots with one rifle and while it is cooling, I load and fire 5 rounds with the other. One is a 30-06 the other is 35 Whelen.
The 30-06 was having a bad problem with horizontal stringing. The barrel had contact through most of the tupperware stock, so I free floated it and loaded and fired 5 more rounds. The group was worse and about 7" lower than previous. I quit in disgust.
I went back this morning to try again and noticed the powder for the 35 Whelen on the bench and powder in the dish I use to trickle power from. When I started loading umteen years ago I made it a practice to only have one powder on the bench at a time, so what was that powder doing there. I compared the powder in the dish to the powder for the .35 and they were identical and completely different from the correct powder.
I loaded the correct powder and the group moved back to it's original position.
I'm lucky the powders were fairly close in burn rate and were loaded to low pressure and really lucky to have my fingers and eyes, after 64 years I have kinda gotten used to them. Forget about double checking ---TRIPLE CHECK everything.
Milkman
The 30-06 was having a bad problem with horizontal stringing. The barrel had contact through most of the tupperware stock, so I free floated it and loaded and fired 5 more rounds. The group was worse and about 7" lower than previous. I quit in disgust.
I went back this morning to try again and noticed the powder for the 35 Whelen on the bench and powder in the dish I use to trickle power from. When I started loading umteen years ago I made it a practice to only have one powder on the bench at a time, so what was that powder doing there. I compared the powder in the dish to the powder for the .35 and they were identical and completely different from the correct powder.
I loaded the correct powder and the group moved back to it's original position.
I'm lucky the powders were fairly close in burn rate and were loaded to low pressure and really lucky to have my fingers and eyes, after 64 years I have kinda gotten used to them. Forget about double checking ---TRIPLE CHECK everything.
Milkman