I got a chance to shot last night. I primarily wanted to just test velocity with the W296 and 290gr LFN(Lyman devastator with solid tip). I should have taken a picture of them, but they look just like the devastator minus a hollow point.
I was originally going to test in .5 grain increments, but then just decided to do it in 1-grain increments. I figured that the .5 grain ones would fall somewhere in between the full grain ones(I know, that is pure rocket science there......). I loaded two each of 19, 20, 21. The 19 grain shot around 1190fps. The 20 grain shot around 1250fps. The 21 grain had a pretty big difference between the two, one came in at 1259fps and the other just over 1300fps. I am not sure if it was the round, or the chrony messing up.
Instead of just pushing them out with the ejector, I decided to take the cylinder out to see how they felt coming out.
The 19gr cases almost just fell out. The 20gr cases were a little tighter, and the 21 cases felt even tighter. I did not have to beat any out, but you could tell the difference significantly. One thing to know is that this was a freshly cleaned cylinder, these were the first 6 rounds fired after I scrubbed it spotless the other night.
I am still not sure what to think about what the pressures might be. While I believe it is 'safe' in my gun, there is no data for this boolit and weight. Only the hollow point version. I know Larry has done testing with his mould and, if I remember right, his boolits were 275gr. So is 15gr more going to significantly increase pressures? He uses 23gr of H110. I would think that 21gr should be quite ok. Larry, if your out there, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
I wasn't planning on shooting for 'groups', but I liked how the 19gr load felt and thought a load that produced around 1200fps would be a fine hunting load, so I loaded up 6 rounds with 19.5gr and shot at 50yards. Went down to check and had a NICE(to me) group sitting there. Excited, but once again running out of daylight, went back and loaded 6 more to test at 100 yards. I did adjust the scope for elevation, based on assumed velocity and wanting to be zero at 100 yards.
What makes me scratch my head is how much more left the POI shifted. It was a little left of the POA at 50yd, but its way left at 100yd. Its around 2" left at 50, and 6" left at 100. I guess the adjustment made to the scope could have also attributed?
I know I was not as steady with those shots at 100yd though, not near like I was at 50yd. The trigger creep is still bad though, and I had really not planned on shooting for groups until I work with the trigger. I just thought the 50yd group showed some promise so I wanted to try longer range.
I'm pretty excited though really. I think that after some work on the trigger, then some time with practice, I will be shooting some really nice groups with this thing.