Bad Day For An Experiment

[Don McDowell]

Watch out for the Z1 and Z2 Taylor boys there at Tucson.. they'll have you shooting all sorts of weird stuff in short order..

[Bent Ramrod]

They do like those fancy Ballards for the black powder stuff. That CPA Stevens .22 Zack uses is to lust for. He said he won it somewhere.

Where I used to shoot, Sharps replicas of one manufacturer or another seemed to predominate, with Remington RBs and Browning BPCRs in that order. Here, Sharps are merely part of the Cultural Diversity, with at least as many High Walls and Ballards as Sharps.

[Chill Wills]

Hepburns' rule!

[Don McDowell]

Hepburns are nice. I did find out how to readjust those set triggers, and now just need to find a couple minutes to see if mine is back up and running..
Just about got all the stuff ready for the Borchardt rebuild.

[Lead pot]

Being a life long plumber I should have a Hepburn. Lord knows I changed enough flush handles. I have a chance at a .40-50 Schuetzen in a original with a extra buttstock but I have more shooters then I can shoot now.

Kurt

[Don McDowell]

Ordered a new 1885 40-65 for Carol, almost went with a low wall in 40-50.

[Lead pot]

His .40-50 Hep shoots very well. But I only see him shoot the original flat nosed light bullets with smokeless powder.

[Don McDowell]

I'm really tickled with the way this Hepburn is shooting the 360 gr. original shaped patch bullet. It's .400 diameter before patching, have to seat it deep, but will hold 2 minutes or less at the rams.

[Bent Ramrod]

I took the .44-77 out today to continue the effort to determine the effectiveness (if any) of hollow-pointing patched boolits that are over length for the rifle's twist. It was a rare, relatively calm morning and I got out early. What breeze was blowing came from about 6:30.



I had shot up all my undrilled 524 grain (1.542" length) Brooks boolits trying to find sight settings at 385 M in a gale the last time I was out, so dropped back to 300 M for this campaign. Frittered away five rounds with 1/8" diameter x 5/8" deep holes just getting on target, and then tried five with 3/4" deep holes.



The group is 2-3/4" vertical x 7-1/4" horizontal, with four in 2-1/8" horizontal, but three of the holes still look oval. I tried the 7/8" drilled boolits next:



Three of the five holes look fairly concentric, but two still look a little "tippy." The vertical here was 1-1/2" and the horizontal 5-3/4" with four shots into 2-1/4" horizontal. I then fired five shots with the 1/8" hole drilled 1" deep.



I think by now I was getting kind of beat around. Also people had showed up at the range and my concentration was being distracted ("Is that a Sharps? Wow!" etc. ) The group was 5-1/2" vertical x 3-1/4" horizontal, with four in 3-1/2" vertical. Two or three of these holes are kind of oval-looking too.

The 5/8" holes looked pretty tipped as well, and one was a keyhole, although that one might have been the first one I drilled, which had the melted lead from the drilling irregularly distributed around the hole in the nose. (If you want to drill deep holes in lead, Kroil is Thee Stuff. Otherwise, the lead melts and sticks to everything. Even with Kroil, it isn't exactly a fun endeavor, but we must suffer for Science.)

I have five each of the series 5/8" to 1" deep left so I will try to repeat the experiment at 385 M if I can find a decent day, which should point up any tipping even more definitively. I had read that setting the center of gravity back would allow boolits that are long for the rifle's twist to shoot better.

Even at 300 M, I have to put in a lot of left windage for little or no wind. I zeroed the rifle with different boolits, and maybe these follow some different trajectory out there. Certainly wasted some good control groups finding out that little data point.

I am kind of pleased with the improvements in my bench technique with this light rifle. One got thrown out horizontally on a couple groups, but they were all under 2 MOA at this distance. It is necessary for me to get in early and grab the low bench with the low stool; most of the benches here are kind of high for me.

I used Brent's technique of the bore pig followed by a dry patch, but since I leave the bore pigs soaked when I insert them into the breech, I followed with another dry patch just in case.

[Col4570]

I have been using hollow base Hollow point bullets for a large calibre whitworth rifle.The nose has a 6MM wooden plug.I modified a Lyman Mould to side pour in order to cast both cavities.Although a muzzle loading bullet some of its design might be applicable to your experiments.There is 1/4" of lead dividing the two cavities.the bullets are close to Joseph Whitworths design but with Lube canelures.

[Col4570]

Another view showing the Plug and base.I made a shorter base cavity plug to lengthen the bullet.Regards.

[Bent Ramrod]

Thanks, Col4570.

In my case, a hollow base might set the center of gravity forward, negating the goal of setting it back with the hollow point. Of course, I don't know the extent of the slumping the boolit does when hit by the BP combustion products at high velocity; it may be that the hollow base might get shallower as the boolit slugs up into the rifling, and move the CG back that way.

I was hoping to get a hollow point pin fitted to the mould as soon as I found the optimum depth. So far, there seem to be slight improvements (2 or 3 in 5 not tipping instead of all of them) but it looks like a quick resolution to this question isn't going to happen.

But it's an excuse to do a lot of shooting, so it's not a bad deal at all.

[Don McDowell]

Drop the bullet length to 1.3 inches and group size will be much better in that Shiloh.

[Col4570]

Bent Ramrod,I see your point,my hollow Base hollow point bullets Hit nose on at 500 Yards.Apparently Whitworh tried a Standard Length Minnie Bullet for his Large calibre rifle .565 Calibre and 1 in 26" Twist and it failed to perform well he then tried a Longer bullet which was too heavy he then went for the Hollow Base Hollow nose bullet and it balanced Out ok.The wooden Plug stops the risk of Bullet Slump at the nose.If trying this type of bullet it must sit on the Powder minus a card or Wad.

[Lead pot]

What you have to watch with a hollow based bullet is not to overload it. This is some thing they found out loading the muskets with the mini bullets. With a heavy load the skirt will blow out as the bullet clears the muzzle and this destroys the accuracy.
I have found this true with the bullets I have recovered undamaged from snow banks. Even shallow dished cup based bullets show this problem.
I remember reading one of Pope writings about this and he also mentioned that the base of a mini was a lot of times packed with lard for increased loads during a skirmish so they could keep loading because the lard kept the fouling soft in the hot barrels.

A hollow point bullet is great for expansion but it also changes the balance of the bullet. But it does not change the relationship with the ROT and bullet length. It will change the weight in relation to the length.
Kurt

[country gent]

One thing that is often overlooked in stability of a projectile is velocity. With you hollow pointed bullets ( cast from thesame mould) they are getting lighter as thehollow point gets deeper. If loaded over the same load velocity may be slightly higher showing the results your seeing. A little increase in velocity may be eough to start stabilizing the bullets better. Rate of twist required is determined by Length of projectile and velocity. Changeing the velocity or length of the projectile affects the stability. As a control or simple quick test you might face the bases down .060 and one batch down .125 to see the effect length has.

[BRUCE MOULDS]

velocity and rifling twist are the 2 things that must be matched to bullet length for optimum stability.
with black powder, velocity variations are not huge enough to make a significant variation in rate of spin in order to affect stability.
the long and short of this is that hollow pointing bullets and/or adding plugs is irrelevant .
what don says is the thing to do - go for a shorter bullet.
he has been there.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Bent Ramrod]

The Monsoon rain and winds of last night turned into a nice, muggy, nearly windless day. I moved out to 385 meters and fired the remaining rounds. Wasted some undrilled ones before I could get on-target as usual. The ground was wet, so no dust puffs could be seen as guidance.

The first was the 5/8" drilled boolits:



This one was kind of weird, with two groups of two shots and one keyhole above the target. Two of the holes are rather oval, as is (of course) the keyhole. In looking for a reason for the latter, I found patch fragments on the ground in front of the target:



I guess I wrapped that one too tight, or something. The next one was drilled 3/4" deep:



These were in 5-1/4 vertical by 6-1/2 horizontal. One or two of the holes seem to be tipped. The boolits with 7/8" deep holes were fired next:



The group was pretty terrible, with only three in a recognizable cluster of 3-1/2" x 5". I may have been getting punchy by then. Only two of the holes are not oval. Finally the 1-inch deep drilled boolits were fired:



Here only four holes showed up on the target, 5-1/2" vertical x 5" horizontal. Two of the holes look tipped.

The tipping on the holes does not seem to be a great deal worse for the extra distance. I'll drill some of the least tippy depths and try them at 500 meters next time.

Finally, for Don and Bruce, here is a target with 85 gr Swiss 1Fg and a 456 gr boolit from the Red River Rick adjustable mould, set to drop a 1.329" long slug:



The holes are round and the group is about 4" vertical by 3" horizontal. I'm still going to continue experimenting with the longer boolit, though.