Hi All,
I took my new Winchester 73 44-40 to the range today.
I fired 100 rounds loaded with Accurate's 43-220C which is a double lube-groove boolit. They were lubed with LBT Blue Soft lube.
The load was 7.8gn Unique and was averaging 1180fps out of the 24" barrel and shot very accurately.
After 100 rounds over the course of a couple of hours there was no ring of grease on the crown like i often have with my 20" barreled 92.
The bore was very clean except for the typical greyish carbon from Unique. No evidence of leading at all. No evidence of remaining lube and no unburnt powder.
My 92 often has unburnt powder and lube in the bore after firing the same load.
So my concern is that there might be insufficient lube on these bullets to get through a 24" barrel
I did notice that on the 20m target i used for the initial zero that there was some splattering of lube on the target. Not a whole lot but this tells me that there was still lube on some of the the bullets when they left the barrel and was probably spun off from centrifugal force imparted by the rifling.
Should i be concerned at all and maybe look to a harder lube for the longer barrel?
?