Great Day At The Range.

[Southern Son]

Well, I finally got a day off that lined up with the other guys in the gun club and we went out and had a shoot. It was my first with my new Steve Brooks 535 grain Creedmore mold boolits. with the frist three driving bands at .449, the round chambered easy, even with the barrel heavily fouled. Lubed with Matthews No 2 and getting 3, 10 second breaths down the barrel between shots the fowling never really got too bad. Load was 75 grains of Wano FF compressed 0.115 of an inch, with a 1/8 inch lube cookie of Matthews No 2 sitting on a beeswax wad to kee the lube cookie out of the powder. On top of the lube cookie and under the boolit was a .030 LDPE wad. Average Velocity 1175fps, Standard Deviation was a bit over 6fps (6.3 I think, I can't find my range notes). Out of 10 round, it took me 2 to bet on target and then I stuffed up 2 more (I could not find any black circle targets, they were all red squares or red circles with white centers which made holding the same aim difficult, I will have to take some black pistod targets next time), leaving me with a 6 round grou measuring 1.150 inches at 100 yards. Easily the best I have done since getting the green mountain barrel fitted.

Ihave been trying to attach a photo of the target, but there is something wrong and it won't upload, might try again later.

[Razor]

Few questions here there Southern Son...

Err...Whut kalibur we talkin' here ??
What gun ?
What range ?
Sounds like you had fun


Razor

[montana_charlie]

One more question...
Why use a grease cookie under a grease grooved bullet?

Have you thought of printing your own targets with your computer?
I have a picture file that makes a (reduced) 100 yard version of the standard 44-inch 1000 yard target. That means the 'black' is 4.4 inches across, and fits neatly on typing paper.

I usually print them in 'draft' mode to save ink, and they look just fine.

Do you want a copy?
CM

[Southern Son]

Razor, the rifle is a Uberti Hiwall, 45/70 caliber with a 32 inch Green Mountain Barrel. Like I said, range 100 yards. I might try upping the powder to 80 grains, there is so little compression on 75 that I could not upturn the case to push it through the sheet of beeswax for the wad. I rechecked the maximum OAL I can go with this new boolit and found that I am actually at least 0.060 off the lands, so I might be able to squeeze a little more powder behind the boolit and get it closer to the lands. The great thing about shooting real gun powder, there are so many things you can try.

Montana Charlie, a copy of that target would be fantastic, thanks mate. The range I shoot on has 100, 200 and 300 meter mounds, we had set up on the front side of one of them making the range near enough to 100 yards. The 4.4 inch aiming mark would be perfect.

I was thinking of using a 25 meter pistol target from the 300 meter mound. Only problem is alot of the blokes who shoot at this range use 22 magnums and small centerfires, so they are happy at 100. I really want to try this load out at 300 to see if things hold together, 1 inch at 100 yards don't always mean 3 inches at 300, if you know what I mean. If I can get it shooting well at 300, then a nearby club is building a 500 meter range so I will be able to go over there and see how I can go at 500, don't know what size target would be good for that, but I have heaps of time to find out anyhow.

For some reason I still can't post a photo of the target, this is getting frustrating.

[Southern Son]

I'll try upload this target again. Even with the two flyers, the group goes under 2 MOA. You can see (hopefully) how crappy a target it is to aim at without a scope sight.

[montana_charlie]

Southern Son,
Here is that reduced 1000 yard target.
I got the original as a .pdf file from longrangebcpr.com, but reformatted it as a .jpg file so I could edit it...to add preprinted spaces for my own 'notes'.

Right click on the thumbnail and select 'Save Picture As' to download it to a location on your computer.

Use Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to open and print this file, and select the 'Full page photo print' option...not the 'FAX' option...to get the full 4.4-inch size. (FAX mode reduces it a little.)

If it doesn't print out right because of being uploaded to the forum, PM me your email address and I'll send you the actual file.

(By the way, I have the same target formatted to print out on two sheets of paper, with each containing half of the target. When taped to the backstop by overlapping correctly, the 'bull' is 10 inches. You might like it for 300 yards even though it's not quite to scale. PM your email address and I'll send you those two files.)

Enjoy...
CM

[Southern Son]

Thanks for that, I have sent a PM to you.

[Nardoo]

Southern Son,
I am a thousand miles even more south than you and find that Wano likes more compession. My 45/90 likes .250" and my 45/70 shoots best with .200" compression. I use Wano PP now but found FFg the same (only a little dirtier).
I do not use grease cookies and find my good old Aussie home made, lanolin based lube more than adequate. Let me know if you want the recipe.
I am surprised you get accuracy with a bullet of .449" on the driving bands. Seems pretty small. Did you mean .459"?
Keep up the great shooting - you have found a great load and I doubt you will be able to improve on it!

Nardoo

[Razor]

WOW ! Outstanding 100 yd group...

Razor

[Boz330]

Southern Son,
I am a thousand miles even more south than you and find that Wano likes more compession. My 45/90 likes .250" and my 45/70 shoots best with .200" compression. I use Wano PP now but found FFg the same (only a little dirtier).
I do not use grease cookies and find my good old Aussie home made, lanolin based lube more than adequate. Let me know if you want the recipe.
I am surprised you get accuracy with a bullet of .449" on the driving bands. Seems pretty small. Did you mean .459"?
Keep up the great shooting - you have found a great load and I doubt you will be able to improve on it!

Nardoo

Nardoo,
He said that the first 3 bands were .449 and then they go up to .459. Helps get the boolit aligned perfectly and increases case capacity. Some of the boolits allow getting as much powder in a 45-70 as a 45-90 will hold or darned close.

Bob

[Southern Son]

Nardoo, Like Bob said, the first 3 bands are .449, the last 2 are .459. I saw someone post on an forum somewhere a comment like "turns your 45/70 into a 45/90", just means that more bullet is up the barrel and less is in the case, which means that you have to fill the air space with something else, I choose powder. I have tried Wano PP, I could not see any difference in the amount of fowling, but I have only tried it a couple of times, and I sift my Wano FF. I really wish someone would start importing Swiss or Goex, just to get a little selection, try something different, I have not found anyone with Swiss in Queensland for 3 years.

CM, thanks again for the targets, I have printed up a batch and glued them on old sheets of cardboard (stops the paper ripping so bad and it is easier to measure the group after you finish shooting). I will hopefully be back out at the range this Sunday and with a better aiming mark, I will try the load again and see what I get (hopefully I will get a bit more time to shoot, last week I only had time for 10 rounds).

Something I forgot to mention up top is that there is also a newspaper wad over the primer. After I fire off the last 40 rounds of this load, I will try upping the powder charge and the compression, see what that does.

[Nardoo]

Graeme Forbes has Swiss as we speak. At Au$90.00 per kg it is a bit steep for me as I can get Wano PP for $39.00.

Nardoo

[Boz330]

Graeme Forbes has Swiss as we speak. At Au$90.00 per kg it is a bit steep for me as I can get Wano PP for $39.00.

Nardoo

WHOOOO, that will put a crimp in your shooting. Swiss here is $17 USD and if you get 25lbs it is $15 and a little bit. Although I haven't bought any in a while and the US$ is weak against foreign currency so it might be more right now. Goex Express is supposed to be equivalent but no difference in price, or wasn't.
I find that the Swiss is just cleaner burning and seems to be easier to work up loads with.

Bob

[Southern Son]

Nardoo,
Sent you a PM, and where do you get Wano PP for $39.00, I have to pay $50-$55 for plain old FF.

[Nardoo]

Southern,
The importer of Wano (do not know his name) attends our Rondies and sells it from the back of his car. F grades are $35.00. I believe he is from Sydney.

I have also used Goex FFg and do not find it any better than PP.

Nardoo

[Southern Son]

How things can change in 7 days. Last Sunday I went to the range, the weather was fine, there was little wind, the sun was shining and I did OK with the Hiwall. Today was the opposite. A deep low pressure system has formed off the coast to the east of here, bringing clouds, rain and high winds. I couldn't get onto the rifle range because of how wet things were, so me and a couple of fellas went onto the pistol range. I took my 458win mag out, complete with it's new scope thinking I would zero it with some reloads I had made with some cast boolits. According to the manual, I was well under the starting load, so these loads should have been quite sedate. I managed to fire just 6 of them before the scope mount gave up the ghost and the scope came flying off the rifle. It appears that the mounts skidded off the front of the dovetail and at this point the objective bell of the scope hit the rear express sight on the still recoiling rifle. This then flung the scope back at me, giving me a Weatherby Eybrow, over my non shooting eye. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF GETTING HIT BY THE SCOPE OVER YOUR NON SHOOTING EYE WHEN THE SCOPE BREAKS OFF THE RIFLE. I will never hear the end of this at home either, my wife thinks that this is very funny and will be telling everyone she meets.

[Razor]

I'm taking it that you're ok..Glad to hear that..
Hopefully not be too bad since the Missus is ragging on you..

Last Sunday I went to the range, ........ and I did OK with the Hiwall.

OK ?? OO KK ??
One raggedy hole from I-don't-know-how-many rounds...!! OK ??
Lordy.. someday maybe I can do that ok...

Razor

[Southern Son]

Razor, yeah, I'm OK, luckily the flying scope hit me in the head.

The missus might be a little worried, she said it should have a couple of stiches (like some quack is going to get anywhere near my face with needles) and the ragging has settled down much faster than I thought it would.

[montana_charlie]

Razor, yeah, I'm OK, luckily the flying scope hit me in the head.

The missus might be a little worried, she said it should have a couple of stiches

Super Glue will close up smallish cuts. Just don't get sloppy and glue your eye shut...
CM