Bent Ramrod
05-10-2009, 10:21 PM
I checked out the Catshooter Keith .32 Group Buy boolit in my Savage 23C. This rifle seems to like the lighter .32 boolits, so I figured it would be the best test bed of the three I have.
The cartridges came out with a partial crimp from the seating die. I did not run them through the Lee or C-H crimp die. the cartridges were loaded singly rather than through the magazine. The boolits had been sized and lubed to .314" for my pistols, but were resized to .311" to better suit the preferences of this rifle.
With W-W cases, CCI small rifle primers and 9.5 gr of 2400, I got a 7/8" group at 50 yards. Lesser loadings expanded the groups to 2", but no more. With SR-4759, I kept getting clusters of two and three under an inch, but away from each other so that the totals were 1-1/2" to 2-3/8," this last with 4 under an inch. I did get another 7/8" group at 10.5 gr. This 7/8" spread of five shots at 50 yards is as good as the rifle does with Ideal 311419, an 80-gr gas check design that it particularly favors.
The odd spreads of clusters in the other groups might be the rifle's comments on my as-yet pretty amateurish technique of casting in a six-cavity mould. I didn't weight the boolits; I'll do that next time for 100 yard evaluations.
The cartridges came out with a partial crimp from the seating die. I did not run them through the Lee or C-H crimp die. the cartridges were loaded singly rather than through the magazine. The boolits had been sized and lubed to .314" for my pistols, but were resized to .311" to better suit the preferences of this rifle.
With W-W cases, CCI small rifle primers and 9.5 gr of 2400, I got a 7/8" group at 50 yards. Lesser loadings expanded the groups to 2", but no more. With SR-4759, I kept getting clusters of two and three under an inch, but away from each other so that the totals were 1-1/2" to 2-3/8," this last with 4 under an inch. I did get another 7/8" group at 10.5 gr. This 7/8" spread of five shots at 50 yards is as good as the rifle does with Ideal 311419, an 80-gr gas check design that it particularly favors.
The odd spreads of clusters in the other groups might be the rifle's comments on my as-yet pretty amateurish technique of casting in a six-cavity mould. I didn't weight the boolits; I'll do that next time for 100 yard evaluations.