geargnasher
03-05-2012, 03:53 AM
I got the opportunity to treat myself to eight straight hours of loading and shooting at my home range today with the 30-160P Accurate boolit and Mr. Goodsteel's .303" HB slicks, paper-patched of course, in my .30-'06 Winchester. Tried a couple of different papers, filler, some new (to me) powders, different patch lubes, two different headstamps, some sized and unsized final diameters, neck tension and crimp, pretty much doped out the gun from one end to the other.
Things that worked:
>BPI Original buffer consistently cut groups in half.
>JPW makes a great patch lube, but some of us already knew that!
>Felix lube also makes a great patch lube.
>As I mentioned on another thread, Ball powders win the day again, and Hodgdon's Hybrid 100V is proving to be everything it's supposed to be for jacketed, even paper jacketed boolits.
>Remington still makes good brass.
Things that didn't work so well, a special point of interest for me since I got to try some things I've been meaning to, and one by accident:
>UNLUBED paper can make barrel hot and throw lots of flyers. Not doing that again, both boolit designs acted really weird with dry paper.
>Slicks are really tough to load right so the paper doesn't accordion during chambering and firing. I got consistent vertical stringing with the slicks using two different papers (green bar and 100% Vellum) when seated to contact the leade but not hard enough to wad up the patch. The patches dried so tight I couldn't peel them with a fingernail, but I made more than one "dummy" round wad up the patch like a soda straw wrapper when closing the bolt. This is something I've experienced before with HV smokeless and smooth boolits.
>Lastly, in case there was any doubt, bore-diameter cores don't group well! I couldn't figure out why, no matter what I did, the 30-160P wouldn't hold under 4" at a hundred or 1.75" at 50 today through multiple powder/paper/filler/brass combinations. Without filler, they were twice that, very depressing. Component changes moved the groups around, but they were consistent in size for the components used. Finally I peeled one and measured it, sure enough, my switch to 50/50 alloy burned me, the second and third driving bands up from the base were .3007"x .3002" while the base was .3015"-ish, more round. So I sent 100 of them downrange in futility. I know the design shoots in this gun (.301" bore, .309" groove) when cast from wheel weights because they are the right size, just like they're supposed to be with that alloy. Tom didn't spec the mould for the diluted alloy, I had my head in my rear I guess.
Anyway, I have a new, larger, heavier, brass version of this boolit mould on order, so I can play with both larger tinned WW boolits and hopefully still be able to shoot the water-quenched low-antimony stuff in this gun.
My shoulder is a bit sore, but I sure had fun, and that's the whole point, right?
Gear
Things that worked:
>BPI Original buffer consistently cut groups in half.
>JPW makes a great patch lube, but some of us already knew that!
>Felix lube also makes a great patch lube.
>As I mentioned on another thread, Ball powders win the day again, and Hodgdon's Hybrid 100V is proving to be everything it's supposed to be for jacketed, even paper jacketed boolits.
>Remington still makes good brass.
Things that didn't work so well, a special point of interest for me since I got to try some things I've been meaning to, and one by accident:
>UNLUBED paper can make barrel hot and throw lots of flyers. Not doing that again, both boolit designs acted really weird with dry paper.
>Slicks are really tough to load right so the paper doesn't accordion during chambering and firing. I got consistent vertical stringing with the slicks using two different papers (green bar and 100% Vellum) when seated to contact the leade but not hard enough to wad up the patch. The patches dried so tight I couldn't peel them with a fingernail, but I made more than one "dummy" round wad up the patch like a soda straw wrapper when closing the bolt. This is something I've experienced before with HV smokeless and smooth boolits.
>Lastly, in case there was any doubt, bore-diameter cores don't group well! I couldn't figure out why, no matter what I did, the 30-160P wouldn't hold under 4" at a hundred or 1.75" at 50 today through multiple powder/paper/filler/brass combinations. Without filler, they were twice that, very depressing. Component changes moved the groups around, but they were consistent in size for the components used. Finally I peeled one and measured it, sure enough, my switch to 50/50 alloy burned me, the second and third driving bands up from the base were .3007"x .3002" while the base was .3015"-ish, more round. So I sent 100 of them downrange in futility. I know the design shoots in this gun (.301" bore, .309" groove) when cast from wheel weights because they are the right size, just like they're supposed to be with that alloy. Tom didn't spec the mould for the diluted alloy, I had my head in my rear I guess.
Anyway, I have a new, larger, heavier, brass version of this boolit mould on order, so I can play with both larger tinned WW boolits and hopefully still be able to shoot the water-quenched low-antimony stuff in this gun.
My shoulder is a bit sore, but I sure had fun, and that's the whole point, right?
Gear