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Marlin Junky
09-13-2007, 10:08 PM
Has anyone had success with their .358 Hawkeye using SAECO #352 beyond 2000fps?

The best I've been able to do is 2MOA with Special Ball-3 (H-380) for about 2040 fps. My 50+ year old 336 (24" barrel) will match this velocity and beat this level of accuracy with 5 to 6 grains less powder (AA2520/DP-74 vs. Special Ball-3) and do it with a softer boolit.

H414/760, your next!

MJ

P.S. I just wanted to add that my barrel was very clean afterward so I'm concluding my lube is fine at this velocity. I'm shooting 19+ BHN boolits and have nice rounded primers and smokey case necks. Could my pressure still be too high?

Bass Ackward
09-14-2007, 07:11 AM
Has anyone had success with their .358 Hawkeye using SAECO #352 beyond 2000fps?

The best I've been able to do is 2MOA with Special Ball-3 (H-380) for about 2040 fps. My 50+ year old 336 (24" barrel) will match this velocity and beat this level of accuracy with 5 to 6 grains less powder (AA2520/DP-74 vs. Special Ball-3) and do it with a softer boolit.

H414/760, your next!

MJ

P.S. I just wanted to add that my barrel was very clean afterward so I'm concluding my lube is fine at this velocity. I'm shooting 19+ BHN boolits and have nice rounded primers and smokey case necks. Could my pressure still be too high?


MJ,

Pressure too high? For a 19 BHN bullet? I don't think so. Are you running a chrono? How is your ES?

You're breaking new ground. I gotta tell ya, I have NEVER gotten the ignition out of a ball powder good enough for low pressure use to work for cast bullets, in a rifle, unless it was compressed. Even the newer balls that don't need magnum primers. Position sensitivity at lower pressures always killed me. Best cast luck for me, comes from a full case of sticks.

Marlin Junky
09-14-2007, 08:05 AM
Bass,

Spl Ball/H-380 are super powders for cast... at least in the 30-30 with heavy boolits.

Here's my 14 round string (forgot to record #15) at 46 grains:

2132, 2114, 2119, 2135, 2121, 2161, 2131, 2136, 2136, 2139, 2119, 2129, 2146 & 2141

ES=32
ave=2133
std.dev=11.9

However... 44 grains grouped better with the following stats (15 rounds):

ES=93
ave=2043
std.dev=27

I started the day with 20 rounds using 44 grains and shot 3, 5-shot 2 MOA groups. The fourth 44 grain, 5-shot group strung vertically into slightly over 2" at 75 yards (almost 3 MOA). The best 5 of the 20 rounds went into just about 1-3/8" at 75 yards. Then I went to 45 grains and got some vertical stringing and one really wild 12 o'clock flyer. 46 grains put 15 rounds into 3" (at 75 yards) with 10 under 1.75". The latter was a normal shaped, albeit sloppy group.

My barrel was mopped with JPW a few days earlier and remained very clean after the 53 round range session that took place over the course of just about 3 hours.

I'm using a 6X scope at 75 yards, so I definitely can see what I'm doing and I'm starting to wonder if there's a barrel bedding problem because it seems like there's a 2000 fps velocity ceiling as far as accuracy is concerned. The Hawkeye wears a plastic stock.

I've attached the 46 grain target below. This target does not reflect the good stats with 46 grains of Spl-Ball and I think some tinkering with the bedding (it's very tight around the barrel) might be in order. I've also attached the two better 5-shot groups shot with 44 grains of Spl-Ball so you can see how the point of impact rotated counter-clockwise. The best target (the center one) was shot just before the right hand target. The orange aiming spots are all the same size at 1.25".

MJ

Bass Ackward
09-14-2007, 11:44 AM
Sounds like you are looking at this logically and you have the history with the rifle. Could still be quite a few things at this point, but you will zero in on it. Some people hate this stage. I think it's the most fun. After I get them shooting, usage drops way down at that point because something else is fighting for my attention. From this I can emphatically say, molds are cheaper than guns. :grin:

If you even think it could be bedding, you know about the down and dirty use of a business card to test it quick. If you do, and this is a plastic stock, try to keep the bag under the stock where the card is located for all shots. This is so positioning doesn't factor in since the card isn't really stable. If it makes a material difference in accuracy either way, then you may be right and need to focus on this more closely.

Marlin Junky
09-14-2007, 01:41 PM
If you even think it could be bedding, you know about the down and dirty use of a business card to test it quick. If you do, and this is a plastic stock, try to keep the bag under the stock where the card is located for all shots. This is so positioning doesn't factor in since the card isn't really stable. If it makes a material difference in accuracy either way, then you may be right and need to focus on this more closely.

Bass,

I was going to put the "shim" (business card) in the barrel channel as near to the recoil lug as possible and run the 46 grain charge of Spl-Ball again next Thursday.

MJ

Junior1942
09-17-2007, 04:36 PM
Maybe your RPMs are too high. . . .

Marlin Junky
09-17-2007, 09:35 PM
Maybe your RPMs are too high. . . .

I sure hope not. I'll also shoot various loads with RCBS-35-200 this week in the 1800 to 2100 fps range.

MJ

Junior1942
09-17-2007, 10:14 PM
I sure hope not. I'll also shoot various loads with RCBS-35-200 this week in the 1800 to 2100 fps range.

MJIME, 114,000 RPMs is max. That's 1900 FPS in a 1 - 12 twist barrel be it a 30-30 or a 45-70. The same 1900 FPS gives 136,800 RPMs in a 1 - 10 twist barrel. In a 1 - 9.5 it's 144,000 RPMs.

Look at the velocities listed in the back of the "Fouling Shot." About 95% are below 1800 FPS.

waksupi
09-17-2007, 10:34 PM
From my experience, 1-12 permits good results up to around 2100 fps. in the .358 win . After that, you need to work at it.

Marlin Junky
09-18-2007, 05:28 AM
From my experience, 1-12 permits good results up to around 2100 fps. in the .358 win . After that, you need to work at it.

That's what I fear.

I bought this rifle to hunt big game with cast boolits knowing the 12" twist was not the optimum. We'll see what happens on Thursday but I'm anticipating a new barrel somewhere down the line 'cause I'm thinking BHN 15 or softer boolits are not going to be accurate in this gun. It's been interesting to witness that a 24" .35 Remington with a 16" twist will out shoot a 22" .358 Winchester with a 12" twist in both the accuracy and velocity department with softer (< BHN 15) boolits.

MJ

Bass Ackward
09-18-2007, 07:22 AM
I certainly wouldn't give up yet. Many people let the RPM theory interfere with their thought processes. If I stay at 14 BHN, I can get 2400 fps out of a 210 grain bullet. Raise the weight to 220 grain and tops is now 2300 fps. Go to 250 grain and tops is about 2100 fps if I don't raise my BHN. But raise my BHN and I can increase these figures a ways.

If you follow the trend, you will see that it's weight killing me, not RPMs. Now look at twist rate. The faster the twist rate, the steeper the angle of the rifling. The steeper the angle of the rifling, the more resistance to forward motion of the bullet. Effectively, adding the same effect as MORE bullet weight. The more weight, the more pressure on the base, so the harder you have to make your bullet or the top end accuracy / velocity will drop. So you have to CUT bullet weight with a faster twist. This is contrary to most jacketed / twist rate logic. And of course, then you would need a shorter throat to handle it.

If you see improvement with the 760 class powder, maybe I can get you to pick up a can of 4831 or RL19 and see what happens. :grin:

waksupi
09-18-2007, 07:55 AM
MJ, I don't know what you are looking for. I have killed deer, elk, and buffalo with my 1-12 .358 Win. Only portion of bullets recovered was some scrap in the buffalo, after breaking a foot of bone or so in the neck. Do you have T Rex in your neighborhood? My 277 gr. bullet, at 2080 fps, has a point blank range to 225 yards.

PatMarlin
09-18-2007, 08:02 AM
We autta start a 35 club. Very intersting thread. I have left my 35 Rem 336 in the safe for 4 years now, with hardly any cast boolit work with it. Your results sound interesting.

I figure I'm at or very near 2100 with my 358 and the saeco 352 now, and it's shooting as good as I can hold it at 100 1" and less. That's with 4895 and LP primers. I can plink a 4" dia gas cylinder out at 200 everytime. I'm definitely done for deer.

Not sure what the twist is.

Marlin Junky
09-18-2007, 01:33 PM
I certainly wouldn't give up yet. Many people let the RPM theory interfere with their thought processes. If I stay at 14 BHN, I can get 2400 fps out of a 210 grain bullet. Raise the weight to 220 grain and tops is now 2300 fps. Go to 250 grain and tops is about 2100 fps if I don't raise my BHN. But raise my BHN and I can increase these figures a ways.

If you follow the trend, you will see that it's weight killing me, not RPMs. Now look at twist rate. The faster the twist rate, the steeper the angle of the rifling. The steeper the angle of the rifling, the more resistance to forward motion of the bullet. Effectively, adding the same effect as MORE bullet weight. The more weight, the more pressure on the base, so the harder you have to make your bullet or the top end accuracy / velocity will drop. So you have to CUT bullet weight with a faster twist. This is contrary to most jacketed / twist rate logic. And of course, then you would need a shorter throat to handle it.

If you see improvement with the 760 class powder, maybe I can get you to pick up a can of 4831 or RL19 and see what happens. :grin:

Bass,

Your synopsis sounds logical. Are you talking about a 12" twist .358 Winchester? I'm not sure how to process the information though because my last tests with SAECO #352 at 250 grains (ready to fly) used a relatively hard boolit and a pretty slow powder. We'll see what happens with further testing.

My testing Thursday will include RCBS-35-200 at about 205 grains ready to fly. I didn't perform hardness tests but using clip-on WW metal, these boolits weigh several grains more. I'll repeat the test with SAECO 352 and 46 grains of Spl-Ball but I had the stock off last night and it appears the only place the barrel touches is at the forearm tip; i.e., the forearm is hollow. Nevertheless, I think I'll put a business card under the recoil lug to lift the barrel a bit. I'm also temped to increase the powder charge to 47 grains 'cause the chrono stats didn't start to behave until I reached 46 grains of Spl-Ball.

MJ

Marlin Junky
09-18-2007, 01:39 PM
MJ, I don't know what you are looking for. I have killed deer, elk, and buffalo with my 1-12 .358 Win. Only portion of bullets recovered was some scrap in the buffalo, after breaking a foot of bone or so in the neck. Do you have T Rex in your neighborhood? My 277 gr. bullet, at 2080 fps, has a point blank range to 225 yards.

Waksupi,

I might need to reach out a little further 'cause I'm going to end up hunting the prairie for antelope and deer. Thought an RCBS-35-200 at around 2400 fps would be pretty good medicine.

MJ

Marlin Junky
09-18-2007, 01:56 PM
I figure I'm at or very near 2100 with my 358 and the saeco 352 now, and it's shooting as good as I can hold it at 100 1" and less. That's with 4895 and LP primers. I can plink a 4" dia gas cylinder out at 200 everytime. I'm definitely done for deer.

Not sure what the twist is.

Pat,

I need more data. Please chronograph your load and provide boolit hardness or at least their bare weight. What do you mean by, "Not sure what the twist is." Are you not talking about a Ruger Hawkeye?

MJ

waksupi
09-18-2007, 08:51 PM
Well, considering I've shot a lot of deer and antelope on the east side of Montana with pistols and flintlocks, all I can say is, crawl closer!

PatMarlin
09-19-2007, 10:13 PM
Pat,

I need more data. Please chronograph your load and provide boolit hardness or at least their bare weight. What do you mean by, "Not sure what the twist is." Are you not talking about a Ruger Hawkeye?

MJ

Sorry mj, mines a mauser.

Marlin Junky
09-20-2007, 06:55 PM
Time for more targets...

For today's rounds, I seated SAECO 352 approx. .015" deeper and it was much cooler today than last week so I needed an additional grain of Spl Ball to approximate the velocity last week.

The first target on the left is the one shot with 46 grains of SplBall behind SAECO 352 and it really sucks. The second target from the left was shot with 47 grains. Case necks were sooty with both loads.

The third and fourth targets from the left (the double targets) were shot with RCBS-35-200 at about 204 to 205 grains ready to fly. You can see the charge weights, powder type and velocities printed next to the targets. The RCBS boolits were not heat treated, just alloyed clip-on WW metal. The cartridge cases were very smokey all the way down to the rims but it looks like things were starting to behave as the charge was increased to 41 grains. I think when I get back from Sheridan in a couple weeks, I'll cast a batch of 35-200's and load up some 10 to 15 round strings using 42, 43 and 44 grains of DP-74. I'll also try the slightly faster AA2520 in both surplus and canistered form. At least I can see a trend toward success with RCBS 35-200. Getting SAECO 352 to shoot from the Hawkeye is another story... a horror story. :-? Somewhere around here I've posted my results using DP-74 behind SAECO 352 and they were just plain awful at 2100 to 2200 fps, so going to a slightly faster powder isn't the answer. I may try squeezing 48 grains of Spl-Ball-3 and H-380 behind SAECO 352... life sure would be easier if I had some pressure reading equipment.

MJ

P.S. Click the thumbnails for a larger view so the numbers are easily read. All targets were shot at 75 yards.

Marlin Junky
10-09-2007, 06:31 PM
Here are the results of shooting 50 rounds loaded with SAECO 352 and 47.9 grains of Spl Ball-3 (like H380). The first two targets were shot with clip-on WW boolits heat treated for 1 hour at 425F. The second set was heat treated at 450F for one hour. The top two targets of the pairs were shot with boolits sized .3585" while the bottom targets were shot with boolits sized .358". I guess one could say that there's less vertical deviation with the slightly narrower boolits.

The barrel remained clean all day long, cases had just a bit of soot on the necks and the chronograph stats were excellent.; i.e., single digit SD's. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I was pushing them too fast. I haven't done a hardness test on the 425F HT'd boolits yet but the 450F boolits registered about 19.5 to 20 BHN the day before they were shot.

Maybe the Hawkeye will shoot RCBS 35-200 beyond 2100 accurately but its 12" twist has been a big disappointment to me... especially since I can shoot less than 2MOA with SAECO 352 at over 2000 fps from my 55 year old 336A in .35 Remington... with several grains less powder.

MJ

Bass Ackward
10-11-2007, 04:21 PM
Are your problems from a 12 twist? Or just a pressure related phenom caused by the 12 twist?

Where's that can of RL19 / 4831 when you need one? :grin:

Marlin Junky
10-11-2007, 07:32 PM
Are your problems from a 12 twist? Or just a pressure related phenom caused by the 12 twist?

Where's that can of RL19 / 4831 when you need one? :grin:

Hey Bass... good to hear from you. Problem could very well be the latter but it doesn't matter anymore because I'm convince to work with a 16" twist when soft boolits are desired for factory-dup loads. I have a jug of DP-85 (Ramshot Hunter) but there was just enough powder residue in the barrel from the SplBall-3 (H380) to make me happy. I have little doubt this rifle will shoot Lino boolits at full throttle but WW metal?... forget about it.

Back to my 16" twists. I'm thinking about rechambering my .357 H-R barrel to something on the 38-55 case or a .358 Bellm (.444 case). I'm waiting for input from Bellm. The .358 Bellm has a nice long neck and I might be able to shoot the .360-260-SWC from it. The .360-260-SWC did pretty good from the H-R Whelen with about 26 grains of 4759. I need to slow the burn rate down a few notches and try that boolit again in the Whelen... perhaps run through my .358" die next time. Here's the 15 round target I shot with .360-260-SWC from the Whelen at 1750 fps. The range was 75 yards.

MJ

6pt-sika
10-16-2007, 11:29 PM
This doesn't have a whole lot to do with your question , however .....................

A month or so ago one of the guys here ordered a stainless synthetic Hawkeye in 338 Federal . I happened to be there when he ordered it and also when he picked it up . SO needless to say I got to look at it [smilie=1:

That little rifle felt really nice to me :roll:

I had been planning on getting a 338 Federal barrel for my Encore Pro Hunter , but I think I just may very well end up with a stainless Hawkeye instead !!!!!

But sorry fella's this is another that will not be for cast [smilie=1:

Marlin Junky
10-17-2007, 02:41 AM
I gave my .35 Whelen a work-out today with the 260 grain (bare weight) SWC and I really just pulled the charges out of my butt; however, I was surprised how well 38 and 39 grains of DP-2200 shot. Historically, DP-2200 has not been one of my better powders for reduced charge loads. Boolits were ACWW metal and the velocity was in the 1900 to 2000+ fps range. More experimenting with powders in the RL7 to DP-74 range through the 16" twist to follow. I also need to find the optimum boolit diameter. I fired a 250 grain ACWW boolit through the Whelen with about one and a quarter grains of AA#2 into a rolled up blanket and the thing measured .3570" max. Based on what I saw at the range today, it looks like .3575" boolits may shoot a little better than .3585" boolits. This cheap lil' gun has come a long way since I started my .35W project with .3605" boolits. I'd really like to find a powder that burns consistently in the 30 to 40 grain range while delivering 2000 fps to the 260 grain gas-checked, ACWW metal boolit. DP-2200 did a pretty good job today but the large extreme spreads (79 and 89 fps) for ten rounds opened up otherwise very good groups (I was checking groups after every shot). I'm sure the grungy trigger has something to do with opening up the groups too. The trigger issue will be addressed when I can find the time, unless another single shot .35 Whelen crosses my path with a 16" twist in the mean time.

Meanwhile, back on topic: The .358 Hawkeye with its 12" has been demoted to a copper patched boolit shooter. The H-R Whelen will definitely see action in the deer fields out back of the house we'll be building in north-central WY.

MJ