458 win mag PP

[jagdkampf]

I have decided to try paper patching for my .458 win mag. I have been using PP for my 7.5 swiss with pretty good success so why not. My question is this: I sized a 400 gr slug down to .452 and wrapped it twice in #16 paper and it comes out to be .463. Since my bore diameter is .4595 and land diam is .4575 is this going to be too thick and generate too much pressure? I could size them back down to .459 but I am thinking that would be too small. I am using a Ruger #1. Whatcha all think?
Randy

[Brithunter]

Whilst I am not expert with cast or PP bullets I would have thought a slightly thinner paper would bring the diameter down with two wraps closer to the 0.460" which should be about right. Depending on how hard the lead bullet is will determine pressures upon swaging down in the bore I would have thought.. Hopefully someone more knowledgable that me will co me along and help out.

[Nobade]

What size fits in a fired case? .462" might be just about right, considering how big a 458Win Mag throat is.

Now we need 919 to weigh in here, since he has done so much work with the 458.

[offshore44]

The advice that I got was to to patch to the throat on the .458 Win Mag. The .458 is a special case for paper patching, it seems.

Do a search on the 458 Win Mag in the paper patching section to find several informative threads...I've got to go to work right now, but I'll share my experiences when I get back tonight.

Windrider919 is getting very good accuracy out of his rifle, as well as others. I'm getting there, but no nearly as good yet as others here get.

[pdawg_shooter]

I have a P14 i barreled with a Douglas barrel to .458. I have loaded a 430gr PP to just about 2600fps. THAT HURTS! Groups into about 1.75 @ 100 when loaded to around 2250fps. Just the thing for all those rouge elephants out here in western Kansas!

[6.5 mike]

Or an irate pdawg [smilie=w:.

[windrider919]

Heard there was another crazy caster here who wanted to do the impossible....turn the 458WM into a target round. Luckily for him there is this great group of fearless experimenters to egg him on to the impossible!

Truth is, sometimes I still get mind boggled that I have been able to achieve what I have with this cartridge, in several different rifles.

I figured you would look up some of the other threads where all this has been covered before...some of the posts were fairly long and quite detailed and frankly, too long to type up again...maybe someday someone will put all the info from different shooters of the 458WM together into a sticky because it is just a little different than the smaller bore, shouldered cartridges and WAY different than the 'rules' that give the best accuracy with Black Powder straight walled cartridges.

I will repeat the KEY datum I found applies to stock chambered 458's.....the throat is usually massively oversize and can range from .463 to .465 on a .458 barrel. And what I found with PP is that the best accuracy comes when the bullet matches the chamber/throat...not the cast bullet max OD or the jacketed bullet dimensions that are 'safe'. Go ahead and buy some Cerosafe from Brownells or get a local gunsmith to make a chamber cast and see the diameter of the throat and the length from case mouth to the rifling.

In four different rifles, what worked was a .451 or .452 diameter bullet, which was then wrapped with standard paper to at least .461 (or .463). Another question that is important to find out what your maximum OD might be, mike the ID of the mouth of a fired case.....it might be .460 to .463. You need to have the largest Patched bullet you can to fill the throat...but it still has to fit into the case mouth without distortion (using a single diameter bullet).

In a jacketed bullet for safe pressures, you use a bullet no larger than the groove diameter. With Grease Grooved cast bullets you can safely go up .001 over groove. But because Paper patches should be compressible, you can go over a bit more and still not generate too much pressure (Disclaimer - always start with a reduced charge and work up to match YOUR rifle...I have no responsibility for what you do). This means that if you swage the bullet and paper patch as one assembly the 'give' may be gone from the paper and you would NOT want the oversize I am talking about here in most .458WM's.

My rifles - wrap the .452 bullets to .460/.461 [all have throats of .463]....NOT swaging ...do NOT full length re-size the brass, just run into the die so the top 1/2 inch has been sized down .002 and then just a kiss of the .45ACP expander ball to make a .463/4 bell mouth. You should have been able to gently twist a lightly tight PPed bullet into a fired case...now the PPed bullet should be too tight for fingers but go very easily into the case by the press. [For COAL fitting in the magazine the bullet has to go too deep into the case for match accuracy...for single loading, most bullets only go into the case 0.10 to maybe 0.20 so the bullet is as close to the rifling as possible] then, as a separate step, I run the case into the die just enough to straighten out the case mouth, not crimping it into the paper or bullet underneath. All the above is because too tight a case mouth swages the base of the bullet covered by the brass to too small a diameter..losing accuracy. And the too large throat on most rifles NEEDS the oversize PP to center and seal the bullet as it fires. Unlike jacketed or GG cast, the paper is compressible and will easily compress down to perfectly fit the .458 barrel.

Do it right and it is possible to get a single ragged hole at 100 yards...which means at 800 a group that will still fit inside a deers vital zone.

I still sometimes shoot BP with the .458 PP....I don't size the brass at all, just load 95 grains of FFFg, insert a wad to hold the powder in the case. At the range, at the time of shooting I twist/finger push the PPed bullet into the snug case mouth til it bottoms out on the wad, chamber and fire. I have actually gotten some of my BEST groups using this method.

[1874Sharps]

Jagdkampf,

Sehr interessant! I do not think you will have any pressure problems with a larger patched diameter boolit, as patched boolits tend to have notably lower pressure for a given load, all other things being equal, as compared to jacketed bullet loads.

[msp2640]

This is exactly why I enjoy reloading/ casting......don't really need a ryhme or reason to jusitfy what you trying to do. Anyone can reload a 357, 44 or 30-06, but trying to make a 458 run with, as cast or PP is just awesome. This was part of my reasoning for buying a 375 H&H...trying to make a go with it with cast, really have no need for it as a hunting rifle, just wanted a bigger bore to have fun with. My friends (nonreloaders) don't undertand it and others at the range think I'm crazy. Best of luck with your project Bill L

[offshore44]

Howdy Pdawg_shooter and Windrider919! I was hoping that you folks would show up. I always hesitate to speak when the masters are available.

jagdkampf, going with their advice, I am obtaining groups of 2 - 2 1/2" consistently, and that is feeding from the magazine of a CZ 550 Safari rifle. The Czech's build a true safari rifle with, let us say, "generous" chamber dimensions. Boolit shape makes a huge difference in filling the throat.... Windrider's boolit didn't shoot for squat in my rifle and Pdawgs boolit wouldn't chamber in my rifle without damaging the meplat / ogive. It may take a little thought and experimentation to find a suitable boolit.

I'll add that my best results so far have been obtained with a case filling load of powder. Slower seems to be better. Poly milk jug over powder wads have been recommended as well to increase accuracy.

I seat a little deeper than windrider919, but then I"m feeding rounds from a magazine too.

I have three cast boolits that I am shooting at the moment and two different powder that I am using. The boolits are GG or GC sized to 0.452" and wrapped with drafting velum at 350grns at about 2400 fps, 405 grns at 2250 fps and 465 at 2200 fps. I currently use H4895 for most of my loads. I have a 350 grn load that the wife and daughter love to shoot that uses 5744 powder. Very accurate and perfectly adequate for hunting anything around here that a person would want to eat.

Size your cases as little as possible. The 458 needs all the help it can get to keep the boolit aligned with the bore and started down the barrel straight.

The 458 is a great and very flexible cast boolit gun. Round ball plinkers, 410 shotgun equivalents, 45 - 70 substitutes all the way up to cast elephant getters. You just have to understand it's quirks and limitations. I'm very enthusiastic about mine.

[barrabruce]

I just shot one of those things twice at the range on the week - end with factory ammo.
Errghh arrr. Don't know if I'd enjoy it of the bags thou.
Did seem to buck a bit. 500 grainers at 2000 fps. ouch.
Just a little elephant gun apparently.
Think I'll just wimp out and stick to the small stuff. Althou a magazine of 4 or five would probably cure me for a whole days shooting.

God luck with it
Barra

[pdawg_shooter]

Or an irate pdawg [smilie=w:.

Yep, gotta watch out for those charging pdawgs!

[windrider919]

Howdy Pdawg_shooter and Windrider919! I was hoping that you folks would show up. I always hesitate to speak when the masters are available.

jagdkampf, going with their advice, I am obtaining groups of 2 - 2 1/2" consistently, and that is feeding from the magazine of a CZ 550 Safari rifle. The Czech's build a true safari rifle with, let us say, "generous" chamber dimensions. Boolit shape makes a huge difference in filling the throat.... Windrider's boolit didn't shoot for squat in my rifle and Pdawgs boolit wouldn't chamber in my rifle without damaging the meplat / ogive. It may take a little thought and experimentation to find a suitable boolit.

I'll add that my best results so far have been obtained with a case filling load of powder. Slower seems to be better. Poly milk jug over powder wads have been recommended as well to increase accuracy.

I seat a little deeper than windrider919, but then I"m feeding rounds from a magazine too.

I have three cast boolits that I am shooting at the moment and two different powder that I am using. The boolits are GG or GC sized to 0.452" and wrapped with drafting velum at 350grns at about 2400 fps, 405 grns at 2250 fps and 465 at 2200 fps. I currently use H4895 for most of my loads. I have a 350 grn load that the wife and daughter love to shoot that uses Trail Boss powder. Very accurate and perfectly adequate for hunting anything around here that a person would want to eat.

Size your cases as little as possible. The 458 needs all the help it can get to keep the boolit aligned with the bore and started down the barrel straight.

The 458 is a great and very flexible cast boolit gun. Round ball plinkers, 410 shotgun equivalents, 45 - 70 substitutes all the way up to cast elephant getters. You just have to understand it's quirks and limitations. I'm very enthusiastic about mine.

Interesting, I had wondered how they did for you.

Are you crimping any...I found it was death on accuracy to crimp on them. Also, if seated to the SAMMI specs to fit in the standard bolt action magazine...groups increased 3 or 4 times...the bullet just has to jump too far through the throat and I also believe the patch may become damaged. [The problem with UN-crimpted loads then becomes that recoil drives the following bullets deeper into the case....hence why I usually single load when shooting target groups. And accepting 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards for the fully seated, crimped, magazine bound loads] Also, did you lube the mini-grooves before patching...or spray the bare bullet with dry moly before patching. Either one works to help shed the patch cleanly at the muzzle. And finally, like I said in the first post, the paper patch can't be any larger than .0005 to .001 of the mouth of the fired case or seating will damage it...but it needs to be as large as possible to fit the throat.

And just curious, did you chamber a couple of test rounds and then take them back out to see if your feed ramp and chamber mouth were damaging the PP in feeding? I had to reshape/tweak and polish every one of my rifles to stop that. Because obviously, a damaged patch shoots large groups!

For years I keep thinking I would have a custom reamer made that does NOT have the large throat as the standard reamers have. I always wondered WHY Winchester specified it that way...it KILLs accuracy in just about any cartridge to have that...yet in the 458 WM they built it in.!?!? If I ever do have the reamer made the fix is relatively simple, cut the barrel back, re-thread and chamber and it would barely show on most rifles. Or re-barrel with a higher quality barrel then too. I wonder if a couple of guys would want to go in on a custom, PP throated .458WM reamer to split costs? Actually, with a tight throat { .460? }, both jacketed AND regular grease grooved bullets would/should shoot better too.

[pdawg_shooter]

I crimp all my paper patched "working" loads. If it feeds from a magazine I crimp it. For load testing I do not size, just crimp. If you don't get carried away, just enough to hold the bullet in place against recoil, I haven't found any decrease in accuracy. In fact with slow powders (4350 in a 30-30) a crimp helps accuracy. Makes for more uniform velocity.

[nanuk]

WR919
I think the long throat was to keep pressures down when used in HOT countries, like it was designed for, as it is a little sparse on powder capacity for the velocities expected.

[Haggway]

I am going to pretend I did not read this thread. I have a 458 win ruger #1 I have never shot. Thanks for the good information I will file it away though, for my other big bore rifles.

[ebner glocken]

I loaded the LEE 500 gr sized down to .451, wrapped with two rounds of onion skin, sized down to .459, then smeared down with mothers car wax. This bullet was seated to feed in a magazine ontop of a generous load of IMR 3031. Rifle is a custom 98 mauser with an adams & bennet bbl.

A buddy of mine can keep them on a copenhagen can @200yd. Here in SW Mo a chupacabra isn't safe in sight of him. No elephants here, hope they don't migrate from Kansas. My buddy can shoot it well. I can't take the beating.

Ebner

[Old Coot]

I am going to pretend I did not read this thread. I have a 458 win ruger #1 I have never shot. Thanks for the good information I will file it away though, for my other big bore rifles.

Way back when Hornady made a 300gr. half jacket I used to shoot it in my 458 mmod 70 over 45 gr. 2400 (the OLD 2400) with enough cream of wheat to fill the case to the base of the bullet. As I recall it shot rather well at least good enough to kill any deer you encountered under 200 yds, and was very easy on the shoulder. If I may enquire; Why do you have a rifle that you have never shot nor intend to shoot?
Isn't shooting what they are for?
Brodie

[offshore44]

Interesting, I had wondered how they did for you.
...



I thought that I updated the original thread on that...I apologize if I didn't.

Since my experience is applicable to this situation...I'll share what I had / have going on.

I started out with a pristine CZ 550 American Safari Magnum. The only rounds down the tube were the ones that the factory fired. I purchased the rifle specifically to shoot cast. The rounds fired at the factory are the only j-words that have ever been fired in this rifle.

The bore has been slugged. I have not made a chamber cast yet, but I do have the cerrosafe to do that with.

I have three molds from Saeco for this rifle. Two are gas checked and one is plain base. I also had boolits generously donated to the project by windrider919 and pdawg_shooter. (I think, I'll have to check on that to be sure) So...to make a long story longer, I started out with six different boolits in five different weights and four different styles / configurations.

The 350 grain Oregon Trail Laser Cast boolits were rejected right off the bat for paper patching because the meplat was larger than would feed through the rifle's action. This boolit shoots OK at low velocity if single fed as a greese groove boolit. (The CZ action allows for that even though it is a Mauser based action with controlled round feeding. I didn't even attempt to paper patch that one.

The 465 grain Saeco boolit is a gas check design. I fiddled with it for awhile and then stopped because the bearing length is the same as 405 grn Saeco because of the gas check shank. I may fiddle around with it some more at a later date, if I decide that I really need a heavier boolit for something.

The 350 grn gas checked Saeco turned out to shoot surprisingly well after a bit of messing about. It violates a lot of the rules of 458 Win Mag paper patching. It will also turn in three hole groups with the holes touching on occasion. Not consistently, but often enough to tease me.

The windrider boolit is specifically designed to shoot in windrider's 458 Win Mag. It has a small meplat, a nice ogive and "microgrooves" along the shank to retain the paper patch. Nice looking boolit. I fiddled around with this boolit in dummy rounds for quit a while and actually shot ten of the supply that was donated for the project. I tried different paper types, different paper thicknesses, different wrap positions (on the break of the ogive, just past the break of the ogive...etc.) and didn't have as good of success as I did with the 405 grn Saeco pain base grease groove boolit. I stopped at ten down the tube because I wanted to save the rest for when I had more experience with the rifle and paper patching. They were shooting about 2" larger groups than the 405 grn pp boolits. One of the problems that I had was seating them far enough out to be well into the throat of the rifle. I ran out of boolit before I touched the throat. At that point I was probably sizing the cases excessively as well. No crimp, no pre-lube, no post lube and drafting velum wrapped just over the break in the ogive gave the best results with the windrider boolit. Still not as good as the 405's though, but I have some ideas from the 350's that very well may be applicable.

Now for the 405's...continued in the next post...

[offshore44]

The CZ 550 is a true Safari rifle. The chamber is generous size and the throat is long to accommodate the conditions found in Africa on Safari. Hot, dusty & etc. I'm pretty sure the Czech's never intended for this rifle to shoot paper patched boolits. On the plus side, the magnum action has plenty of room to seat boolits out as far as you would ever want to seat them. Even seating the 405's out as far as they will go leaves 3/8", or a little more, room for the loaded rounds to rattle around in the magazine. I haven't experienced any feeding issues though others have.


Now about the 405 grn Saeco's...

I sized the as-cast boolits to 0.452" plus just a hair. This is about 0.0015" to 0.002" over bore diameter for this rifle. This also closely matches the bore riding section of the nose of the boolit. Sizing just barely touches the bore riding section in a couple of places, essentially making it rounder. The nose on the Saeco's (all three are pretty much the same) has a medium sized meplat and a short, round ogive. There is a short straight angle from the meplat into a radius to the bore riding section. Sizing left the crimp groove and three lube grooves. After paying around with various papers, I ended up with drafting velum after trying about a dozen different paper types and thicknesses. Two wraps gives me a diameter of 0.461" plus a little. (Groove size is almost exactly 0.4580" on this rifle.) I wrap from just over the ogive, by about 1/16", and wrap wet. The paper dries to a nice, firm shell that stands up to the velocities that I am currently shooting at. The tails are folded. I tried folded, twisted and clipped, and twisted and flattened. The folded tails give me the best groups. I tried folded with an opening in the center and folded with no opening. The folded, no opening does better. Maybe it protects the base and prevents the base from getting peened or distorted. The boolits are waterproofed with a bees wax / lanolin / volatile solvent carrier mix that dries nicely and doesn't penetrate the patch beyond the first wrap. It's quit damp around here for nine months out of the year. I have no idea whether it acts like a lube or not, but that is not the purpose anyway...

I have tried pure lead, lead and 2% tin, Wheel weights, and Lyman #2 alloy from Rotometals. The #2 alloy is the most accurate, but not by much. I have had no leading with any of my experiments except when the patch paper was inappropriate for the powder charge. I rarely get paper shreds out the muzzle except with the lower powder charges and velum. Most of the time the paper is powdered at the muzzle. Poof! It's gone. The few shreds that I have recovered are the width of lands or grooves and the length of the patch.

Cases: I purchased 150 Hornady cases when I got the rifle and have been using them ever since. I suspect that it may be getting close to time to anneal them; some have been pretty abused with case sizing and loading / dis-assembly. No failures yet. I am using Hornady and Lee dies. I did have to open up my seating die to accommodate the patched boolit size. It made a world of difference in assembled cartridge quality and consistency. I just barely size the fired cases to provide a better grip on the patched boolits. Maybe about 0.002" or less of neck tension is all that I use, at most. The boolits are just big enough that they are a slightly firm thumb push fit into a fired case before sizing. That would be good if I was single loading, but I load from the magazine and need the extra bit of neck tension to help prevent set back. I also use a Lee factory crim die to iron out the neck flare that I put in with a Lee flaring die. I flare just enough to start the boolit by hand. The boolits are crimped in VERY lightly just behind the start of the second lube groove. This does not put enough crimp on the paper to cut it at all. The edge of the case is just kind of "rolled" into the depression in the paper jacket. The paper patch is very slightly cut by recoil very occasionally on a small part of the circumference, and probably explains the flyers that open my groups up by a couple of inches sometimes. That could just be the jerk behind the trigger though as well. The boollits are seated so that they just touch the rifling when chambered. Chamber and eject a round and you can see the rifling on the paper where it rolls over onto the ogive. There is a powder soot mark all the way around the nose and rifling marks in the soot. Pretty cool, actually.

Powder: I got layed off just after I started this project, so the powders that I have used are just what I had on hand. Trail Boss, 5744, IMR4895, Varget and H4895 have been tested. I settled on H4895 for the moment. The charge is just enough to fill the case to the base of the boolit (with the 1/4" seating depth) with very slight compression. This is several grains below the max load for the 405 grain boolit in the reloading manuals. A little powder compression seems to help with boolit setback as well. If I remove any one of three variables, slight crimp, slight neck tension or powder compression, I get boolit setback. It's a fine line, but seems to be working for the moment with these components. That was a problem that took some experimentation to solve.

Feeding from the magazine seems to be working out pretty well so far. The stuff that I have to do to prevent boolit setback is preventing ultimate accuracy, but I am living with that for the moment. Meplat size can be an issue. To large a meplat and feeding becomes problematic. Jams and mis-feeds are directly related to meplat size in my rifle. Single feeding, of course, eliminates that problem. Not all controlled round feed rifles can be single fed though, so that is something to think about. I have actually damaged the nose of rounds with meplats that are too large to feed properly. That is the price that I pay for a Mauser style controlled round feed action and feeding from the magazine.

Results: I am getting pretty consistent 2 to 2-1/2" groups at 100 yards with things the way they are. I started out at about 18" patterns.(That is actually 85 to 110 yards depending on where I am shooting at...I shoot out in the woods locally) The velocity is right at 2,240 fps and varies less than 10 fps depending on temperature. Sometimes it will go to about 14 fps variation, but is always less than 20 fps.

The interesting thing is that the pp 350 grn load using 5744 that I loaded up for the wife and daughter to shoot (reduced load) is accurate enough to put three shots into touching holes and five shots into slightly larger groups. No crimp and way less than a case full of powder. No boolit setback. The boolit is off the rifling by a bit. I have no idea what they are clocking at, because I hit the reset button on the chrony during load development with the 45ACP. They aren't going very fast though. They are more accurate than the same boolit and load using gas checks by quit a bit...the groups are probably less than a third the size. Gives me hope that I can work up a load for the windrider boolits that I have on hand.

I hope this wasn't a high jack of the thread...

[jagdkampf]

Well, I found a few interesting things so far. In order to get the pp bullets to seat in the case, I have to expand the case necks a bit. My Hornady new dimension seating die doesn't like my case necks expanded.:twisted: The little collar that holds the bullet while it is being seated crushes the lip of the case. If I don't expand the case neck then it tears the patch when I try and seat it. Guess I may have to try and find another seating die before I carry this experiment to fuition.
Randy

[Nrut]

jagdkampf,

Maybe you just need to readjust your die and/or hone out the seating sleeve..
First take your seating sleeve out of your die and see if your bullet will slide through it..
If not, hone it out and reassemble..
Now:
Barely screw your seating die into the press..
Loosen seating plug on top of your die.
Put a empty case into your shell holder..
Lever your case up all the way..
Screw your die down until it hits the case..
At that point you have no crimp..
Now seat a bullet to your desired seating depth..
You have a dummy round now with out a crimp..
You don't need a crimp using your #1...

The only negative thing that I have found with Hornady dies is that sometimes the bullet wants to stick in the sleeve as you lower the case after seating..
I stop the sleeve from over riding the little wire spring clamp by just stopping the sleeve with my thumb nail..

[offshore44]

+1 on what Nrut said...

I use the Hornady die set to successfully load my paper patched loads. I messed up several cases until I backed the die out and honed the upper portion of the sleeve to accept the patched boolit. I also bent and buggered up a couple of the retaining spring wires...you may want to get some spares just for giggles. When I crimp, I crimp in a separate operation after the cartridges are assembled. It also helps to break the outside edge of the case and chamfer the inside a little.

I checked the sleeve, out of the die, to make sure that a flared case will slide into the sleeve until the case bottoms out on the crimp step in the sleeve. I then checked the upper portion of the sleeve that guides the boolit into the case to make sure that the patched boolit will slide all the way through with minimal or no friction or compression of the patch. Mine would grab the patched boolit pretty firmly, firmly enough to pull the boolit out of the case anyway, before I honed that part out. I honed the upper portion of the die with 600 grit wet or dry emery cloth with a little oil on it. Wrapped around a drill and spun with a drill motor. Go slow and check often. This is a one way process though, so if you intend to use j-words in the future, you may think about ordering an extra sleeve from Hornady to load the j-words with. As an added bonus, this helped with loading my cast boolits as well.

To adjust the die, I back everything out almost all the way, I put a sized and flared case into the press and raise the case into die. I then screw the die down until the die contacts the case with the handle all the way down. I then back the die out a half to 3/4 of a turn or so and lock it in. Then adjust the seating depth as usual.

[Haggway]

Way back when Hornady made a 300gr. half jacket I used to shoot it in my 458 mmod 70 over 45 gr. 2400 (the OLD 2400) with enough cream of wheat to fill the case to the base of the bullet. As I recall it shot rather well at least good enough to kill any deer you encountered under 200 yds, and was very easy on the shoulder. If I may enquire; Why do you have a rifle that you have never shot nor intend to shoot?
Isn't shooting what they are for?
Brodie

I have only been reloading for about 8 months now. I am to cheap to pay for factory ammo for some rifles. This rifle is on the list to get shooting boolits though, after I get some level of confidence with the 45-70.

[Old Coot]

Can't say as I blame you one bit. Especially once you look at the price of a box of factory for that .458.

[offshore44]

Can't say as I blame you one bit. Especially once you look at the price of a box of factory for that .458.

No lie there...the cheapest that I could find around these parts was over $120 a box of twenty, and very limited selection to boot! Shooting cast on the other hand...still not really cheap, but do-able at least. Better accuracy too. The more that I mess about with this thing, the better that I like it. It's really a very flexible cartridge. It takes some experimentation to get it right,but the results are really worth it.

Interesting thing is, I get measurably better accuracy shooting freehand than off a bench with bags. Especially sitting position. I think that it has something to do with the way the rifle recoils.

[jagdkampf]

Man, this is why I love this board. Thanks for the suggestions on the collar! I don't mind recoil so much. Especially the big bore cartridges. On the other hand I don't shoot it off the bench much. Now, on the other hand, my 300 RUM bothered me. It seemed that the recoil was much sharper. I had to put a brake on it.
Randy

[Old Coot]

I did a paper on recoil for my Physics class in College. Basically felt recoil has two components the momentum -rearward- of the rifle against the shooter which is equal to the momentum of the projectile and other ejecta when the weapon is fired. This can be quantified as: M1equals M2 or Momentum equals velocity X mass, and Velocity1Xmass1 equals velocity2Xmass 2. The real kicker is the faster the bullet reaches its terminal velocity the faster the butt stock comes back against the shoulder. Load a 458 to the same velocity with IMR 4198 and IMR 4895 and tell me which load is more uncomfortable to shoot. The equation also explains why a lighter rifle hurts more. The Butt is coming back at a higher rate of speed and you can't get out of the way as easily.

Now that I have you all bored to death and completely confused Bye.
Brodie

[303Guy]

Now that I have you all bored to death and completely confused ...Not at all. I've always said that to tame recoil one should go for a heavier bullet and slower powder. Tame felt recoil that is. Or at least the discomfort of recoil. But no-one seems to agree. But I've done it and it does hurt less and the scope smack on the eyebrow is reduced also. Muzzle lift may be higher though.

[Old Coot]

303Guy: You have been correct all these years. The most uncomfortable rifle I have ever shot was my DaDs 338 Winchester, and It was a Browning Auto which supposedly reduced the recoil. I ran it down mathmatically and what it boils down to is the 338 Win has the FASTEST recoil of the bunch. I other words the buttstock comes back so fast that you have a hard time getting out of its way. Acceleration is change in velocity divided by time. A 338 bullet goes from zero fps to over or near 3000 fps in about two feet, and a few micro seconds. The but stock goes from zero to whatever fps in those same micro seconds. The longer it takes the bullet to accelerate to its velocity, the longer it takes the but stock to accelerate to its own particular velocity giving your poor shoulder more time to get out of the way. It is the difference between a push and a slap. All velocity does is make it easier to hit your target at an UNKNOWN RANGE because the bullet drops less than one moving slower.
Brodie

[Old Coot]

A heavier bullet at the same velocity as a lighter one will actually recoil more. However, while the heavier bullet creates more force against your shoulder that force act over a longer period giving your shoulder more time to move back and away reducing the FELT RECOIL.

Sorry for the double post, but I warn you not to encourage me too much on this subject. Brodie

[jagdkampf]

Sucess! I finally got the base of the collar reamed to the right bevel and honed out the interior to allow the pp boolit to fit, adjusted the whole thing and went out shooting. I didn't get to try it at longer range but at 35 yds all 3 holes were touching so I think that bodes well. Now that I have the kinks worked out I will do some load development. My first load is a 430 gr flat nose pp to .461 over 70 grs of H322 and mag primer. Recoil is stout but manageable. I shot from standing position but I imagine from the bench it's gonna be a short session. I'll post more after load development.
Randy