a lesson in simplicity

[stephenj]

i like to shoot, i also enjoy reloading and casting my own boolits .
but if i am to be 100% honest ... the reloading and casting came along because i enjoy shooting it it lets me do more of it .

like a lot of others here at times the mad scientist in me takes over and in the quest for that perfect load i start experimenting ... alloys powders cases tools molds ... you all know the routine .

but i recently discovered something , sometimes when we get obsessed with the experimenting we stop seeing the tree's because that darn forest is in the way .

i learned this lesson with an old mk4 martini henry 577-.450

i have been experimenting with the old gal for quite awhile now , just like everyone else ive tried differant alloys bullet diameters tons of powders seating depths you name it i have tried it . including making my own sights

want to know what i learned ?
well i learned one of the simplist things there is to learn .... no matter what i did
i can not make the rifle shoot better then i can .
thats right .. no matter what i did i just could not get it to shoot better then me

i could stretch the truth a bit and tell you how i can sit down on the bench and shoot
tiny 1 inch groups all day long .
but i cant .. on a good day with good light using iron sights i can average 2-3 inches
and call about 65% of my fliers .

but let me get back to my point ... some times keeping things simple is all we need to do .
here is how simple my martini is to load for ...

case prep
using a fired case .. i first neck size using a die i made , the die reduces the neck just about .003 to give me enough neck tension to hold a .468 dia bullet in place .
i can also elect to not use the neck sizing die and just beagle my mold to drop a boolit at .470-471 ish ... boolit size doesnt affect my rifles accuracy any .
if its somewhere between .465-.475 it'll shoot
i then add what ever large pistol primers i have handy

powder charge ... this is realy simple ... i simply pick a charge weight of unique between 10.5 and 13 grains and load it ... point of impact might change slightly but group sizes wont .


then i seat a boolit ... .
now i dont have to be picky here, i dont have 577-450 dies so i usualy use a .475 seating die or even a .45 colt die . seating depth doesnt matter .. leave the boolit hanging out to get it further out in the throat or shove it way back in till it is seated against the driving band ... if the boolit is mostly round and between .465-.475 dia it will shoot .
and no need to be overly picky .. lube grooves and base edges a bit rounded who cares .. the rifle dont .
and dont be afraid to use any old lube you have on hand ... the rifle doesnt care .



its realy that simple .. prime and charge the case .. shove in a lubed boolit and it will shoot the same 2-3 inch group as a match grade load you spent 2 years developing .

i imagine a few people will be skeptical ..if you are you are more then welcome to come to my home and see it first hand

[nagantguy]

You have ended up in the same spot as me, or I as you. Shot idpa last night my "match grade" .45 boolits and my "plinking grade" .45 gave no difference on target while running and gunning and hitting a steel.popper to stop the clock. The difference is the match ones keep occupied for hours and hours and are heated slightly before lube/sizing and then lubed again only the most pretty boolits go in the shiney Star line cases. The plinkers get made quickly by the hundreds don't get sized, lubed with whatever even some less than perfect homebrew recipes and if some at random pass the plunk test they get the green light. Best time of the night for that idpa course was 14:23 seconds my best time of the night was a shade over 22 seconds and I only dropped one shot all night, so instead of a zero it was a one. After years of separating the rounds by how pretty they look and how long they took to build I lost a little bit of the reason I started casting in the first place, to shoot more.

[Cherokee]

How strange it is that loads I developed 20-30 years ago in the same guns I'm shooting now just do not shoot as accurately as they once did. None of the new loads I have developed in my guns seems to shoot as well as the old loads did years ago. Guess stuff today is just not as good as it once was - couldn't be that I've changed in 73 years. I still love to shoot and care less now if the spread is 3-4" or 1-2"; 4" will still get the job done on man or beast. My casting/loading now days is to shoot for fun.

[waksupi]

How strange it is that loads I developed 20-30 years ago in the same guns I'm shooting now just do not shoot as accurately as they once did. None of the new loads I have developed in my guns seems to shoot as well as the old loads did years ago. Guess stuff today is just not as good as it once was - couldn't be that I've changed in 73 years. I still love to shoot and care less now if the spread is 3-4" or 1-2"; 4" will still get the job done on man or beast. My casting/loading now days is to shoot for fun.

Also a good possibility of throat erosion to the barrels over those years. Should be good for cast, just try seating them a bit longer.

[44man]

How strange it is that loads I developed 20-30 years ago in the same guns I'm shooting now just do not shoot as accurately as they once did. None of the new loads I have developed in my guns seems to shoot as well as the old loads did years ago. Guess stuff today is just not as good as it once was - couldn't be that I've changed in 73 years. I still love to shoot and care less now if the spread is 3-4" or 1-2"; 4" will still get the job done on man or beast. My casting/loading now days is to shoot for fun.
It's cause you shake as bad as I do now! Shot a few last week and the red dot danced a circle like Saint Vida's dance.:bigsmyl2: