Group troubles with my home made mold.

[44man]

I copied the LBT 320 gr. WLNGC and came out with 330 gr. The LBT and the Lee 310 gr. shoot perfect with 21.5 gr. of 296 but I could never get mine to match them. I loaded 5 each of 22 and 22.5 to see what would happen. They were no good so I went to 20.5 and 21. The groups were very good at 50 yd's and with the 20.5 load I had 4 in 3/4", the right shot was called when I seen a little white to the left of the dot. Darn dot covers the whole center of the target at 50 yd's. 21 gr. also shot good so now I know to reduce my load a little.
The targets from left to right are 20.5, 21, 21.5, 22, and 22.5 gr. of 296.
This is my old SBH that now has 56,220 shots through it. Pretty good for an old timer!

[lar45]

I'm currious as to how rough the extraction was at 22.5??
Looks like the lower end loads are doing great.

[slughammer]

...the right shot was called when I seen a little white to the left of the dot. Darn dot covers the whole center of the target at 50 yd's.

You may have tried this already, if so, others could maybe find this usefull. Perhaps the best target for a dot sight at 50 yards is one that has been adjusted to have a "halo" show around the dot. Use a copier to enlarge your current target several different percentages to find the one that gives the best halo effect. ( I watched a friend put 8 out of 8 into an inch at 50 using this technique.) The bulk of my work is at 25 with open sighted pistols and I have tried black circles of several sizes, finally settling on 2.5 inches as best for my eyesight.

Your targets show some mighty fine shooting and even better that it was done with boolits casted from a homemade mold. Thanks for sharing.

[44man]

Lar, cases fall out! I have gone to 24 grs. with the LBT with no problems but backed down to the most accurate because as I increased the charge the groups opened more with each change. These boolits hit so hard a deer does not know the difference between 19 and 24 grs.
You have to remember that a large increase in pressure does not always show up on the brass or primer in revolver cases and even unsafe loads will not give hard extraction. Sticky cases can mean a gross overload.
Cast boolits can take more powder to weight then condom bullets. I would never go that high with heavy condom bullets.
I have also found if two boolits are the same weight, but one has a gas check, the gas checked one will increase the pressure over a plain base.
I never load for the hottest loads, only the most accurate. I go up to what I consider safe to see what the groups do, but always find a lighter load shoots better.

[44man]

Slughammer, I will try to have a friend increase the targets at work for me. I am retired but a friend makes piles of target copies for me. I am kind of stuck with what I have for a while though.

[Bass Ackward]

This is my old SBH that now has 56,220 shots through it. Pretty good for an old timer!

44,

You can take this for what it's worth, but I would watch this gun. I lost one with less rounds that the forcing cone cracked. This ruined the frame for barrel replacement. This is not always the case from a crack, but classic for my luck.

With the round total you have , the heat from high pressure loads has bound to have made the forcing cone area brittle. Many people believe that this is not a problem with cast, but powder heat is powder heat and erosion is still erosion.

A competant metalurgist can heat treat the cone area and return your existing barrel it to it's origional hardness. Then if wear from erosion is an issue, the barrel can be set back a turn before it cracks and the origional dimentions re-established.

I can recommend someone if you would like. Just PM me. But otherwise, you risk turning a prideful piece into a part sourse.

[Willbird]

I will agree on the use of a white center for precise aiming, some of the nicest groups I have shot with a scoped pistol were with targets that allowed 4 tiny dots of white to appear at the crosshair interesections.

White is not required, any bright color would work, I would think that the adhesive price labels sold at walmart would work, they make rounds and squares and they could be ganged up to give the required sized light colored aiming point.

There was an article several years ago about a man who got extremely tight groups from TC contenders, at extended range(400 yards or more) .....he insisted that the best target for that type of shooting to be able to spot hits with a spotting scope was plain old steel, he simply spray painted the target between groups.

Bill

[454PB]

I've been making my own targets from scrap paper for years with this stamp.

[44man]

454, I like your target and will make some to try. Thanks. I would do better with crosshairs instead of a dot, but I blew the guts out of my new Swift scope just sighting it in.