I'm Stimped!

[robertbank]

I had my LE #5 out today. I loaded 10 rds 16 gr 2400 under my 314299 bullets and 10 rounds of the the Lee 312215 bullet using the same powder charge. I also had 20 rds of IVI Ball Mk 8Z CDN.

I first got sighted in at 25 yards. After adjusting I started to make 1 hoel 1.5" high at 25 yards with the ball and them moved to 50 yards with the same result.

Now came the fun. My cast are sized 314 GC. AT 25 yards all shot 4" to the right. AT 50 yards they were off the paper to the right.

All shots from a rest.

I suspect my cast are not being driven fast enough as past vel out of my #4 were around 1550fps for the 314299. I would expect the #5 vel to be less.

Help!

Take Care

Bob

[leadman]

It is not unusual for the point of impact to move significantly with different loads. Yours seems top be pretty extreme though.
Barrel harmonics could be doing it. but I suspect something is up with the bedding. Could how the rifle was held or rested.
I have found point of impact will shift more if the forend is directly on the front rest. Usually a hand between the forend and rest is best for me.
Have you checked the barrel crown? Do you have an even "lube star" on the muzzle?

[robertbank]

I am going to slug the barrel in the morning. With the cone flash surpressor it is difficult to see the crown on the barrel. If it was the crown though it should deflect the jacketed bullets as well as the cast don't you think?

I am wondering if I have to bump the velocity to around 1800 fps.

Take Care

Bob

[Frank46]

Bob, did you remove all the old copper and powder fouling that was in the bbl from the IVI ammunition first?. Your off shooting just might have been caused by the copper and powder fouling. I'm kinda anal about getting all of the old copper and powder fouling out of a barrel especially if its going to be used for cast bullets. My acid test is that when I think its all gone is to dry patch the barrel then soak a patch in hoppes and annoint the bbl. Let it sit for three days and do the same again. If I get green scrub some more. trouble is that once my barrels have been castboolited i usually do not end up going to shoot jacketed ammo in that gun ever. Sounds crazy, but sometimes a barrel on a new purchase may have been shot a lot with jacketed bullets and rarely cleaned. The junk that comes out of these barrels is amazing.
I had to break the bank and bought two quarts of hoppes and 2000 patches as I was almost out of hoppes. Maybe I just started a new buying craze. Hoppes and patches. I use a variety of stuff to superclean a barrel for cast bullets. Butch's, red auto rubing compound, white auto polishing compound, remclean on a tight patch wrapped around an old bore brush. And then JB and borebrite. Sometimes I feel like a mad scientist, scientist no mad yes. antway it gets the job done. Frank

[madsenshooter]

You're no doubt aware that you're shooting a rifle that has a left hand twist. Boolits with less velocity than that of the military ball you were shooting would have less gyroscopic drift to the left and therefore impact to the right of a point of aim established with said ball loading. At least that's the way it would work in a perfect system, which none of us have. Differences in point shape and bullet weight also play a part in different impact points. I used to have one of those little Savage single shot .22 rifles. It was unreasonably accurate, one could see the bore was off center, but the impact points of different brands of ammo were very predictable with it. Remington shot 2 inches to the left and 3 inches higher than Winchester, which always gave the best grouping.

[robertbank]

Frank46 - I spent an hour scrubbing the barrel out iwth a variety of chemicals and with a wire brush wrapped in Chor Boy. The patches in the end were coming out clean. Now I am not saying the barrel is as clean as a new baby's bottom but pretty clean. Will do some more though and see if it helps.

madsenshooter - What I find frustrating is that my cast bullets even at 25 yards grouped 4" right of POA instantly. At 50 yards they were off to the right a good 10" but grouping there. Something is certainly causing the bullets to throw off to the right. This happened with both the 314299 Lyman and the Lee 312155. The former is a round nose and the latter a pointy nose.

I will slug the bore this morning. and if necessary cerro safe the muzzle to see what the crown looks like.

This gun is primarily going to be used as a truck gun loaded with soft point jacketed rounds so unless I get a cure quickly I will limit the guns use to just that and limit my .303 casting to my #4 Longbranch. It just doesn't make much sense to me for the POA to shift so drastically but then rumour has it that Elvis is dead to....go figure.

Take Care

Bob

[beemer]

I have had that happen with several rifles, the latest ones being two K31s. Both were shot using jacketed and loads worked up, cast loads shot 6-8 in. to the right at 100 yds. I even had lower power jacketed loads print to the right and move left as the charge was increased.
Both rifles are very accurate with jacketed so I feel the rifle there is nothing wrong with them but I really don't know what causes this.

Like I said I have seen this with other rifles, the K31 being the worst. Some of us tend to dedicate rifles to cast or jackets so it is not noticed as often.

beemer

[docone31]

My Smelly, once I got the load dialed in, was very accurate, then the drifting started! I mean real drifting!
I removed the forestock, and did the three point bedding reccomended for competition.
Issue solved!
The barrel was heating up and just walking around! Those barrels, if you are in full wood, get real hot, real fast.
It is a simple bedding process, and I used JBWeld. I used Auto Wax for mold release.
It took maybe 30minutes. I also replaced the trigger guard screw which had a mangled head with a Metric Allen Bolt with a Truss Head.
Next time at the range, it did not matter how many rounds I fired. They were all POI. after that.

[robertbank]

Well here is the rub. The gun, with the front sight set virtually dead center in the dovetail shoots right as described above with cast (hot or cold barrel). Throw in a jacketed round and back to POA. Crazy! I just slugged the gun and the bore is 312 with good engraving in evidence. I am going to jump the veloicity to 1850 fps using 23 gr of 4227 and see what that gets me. The bullet should be stable at that velocity. I am in the process of doing a thorough cleaning of the barrel then another try.

Take Care

Bob

[docone31]

Well, here is the rub.
When I fired my 185gn paper jacketeds with 38gns of 4895, they were lousey. Might as well have tossed them and seen where they fell. With 40.4gns, now we were talking! With 38gns, lots of carbon on the neck, with 40.4gns, no carbon, and POI. This is at 100yds. More things show up at that range for me.
Light charge might have something to do with it also.
Mine also slugs large. I have to go .314. I tried .312 and it was a definate NO-Go.

[robertbank]

OK will bump velocity and see where it takes me.

Take Care

Bob

[Throwback]

No one here has mentioned anything about the #5 and its famous wandering zero. The issue was ultimately traced to the relieving cuts in the receiver, which took away too much of its rigidity. Just a theory but it is plausible that the military equivalent loads' harmonics are such that they shoot to the POA for which the rifle was originially adjusted while the softer shooting cast loads are thrown to a significantly different spot because the receiver springs less.

This makes perfect sense as long as your rifle has a right hand twist (and I believe it does).

[robertbank]

Took the rifle out again today with 23 gr of 4227 under my Lyman 314299 and 40 gr of 4350 under the same bullet. Same results! I am going to scrub the barrel out again, and try some jacketed out to 100 yards. If it groups the gun goes in the truck as my truck gun, if not....

My #4 shot well with the few extra bults I had left over and I am going to stick with the Longbranch for awhile.

Throwback - the waundering zero is mostly a myth. The British Army just didn't want another bolt gun after WW11 and eventually got their way with the FN FAL.

My JC groups well just way off to the right with my cast bullet loads. Jeez this is frustrating!

Take Care

Bob

[Throwback]

Mostly? Many very credible persons have written about the #5 throwing different loads in different places as yours is quite obviously doing. And your cast and jacketed loads have significantly different energies.

I am quite sure the British army required no subterfuge to obtain an automatic rifle. The future was obvious to everyone and the Brits were even testing the EM2 almost as soon as the war was over. As leadman points out this is not an issue that applies to the #5 alone but I am thinking that you will need to set your sights to the cast bullets by some means or eschew them entirely and just use jacketed.

[robertbank]

Well you are right about setting the sights for one or the other. I intend to try some as cast bullets to see if sizing is the problem along with some different weighted bullets.

I should add my main effort with the .303 Brit is with my #4 Longbranch. I don't intend to spend a lot of time with the JC if a fix to it's throwing groups off to the right doesn't get solved early. It shoots jacketed just fine and the gun's primary purpose is for bear protection and as a truck gun. I would not use cast bullets for either function in the .303B caliber.

Take Care

Bob

[35 Whelen]

Bob, I think your cast bullets impacting right is normal. I've had the same experience as beemer. I shoot 99% cast in my K-31's, but on the rare occassion I decide to shoot jacketed, I have to in a good 4 minutes of left windage...sometimes more. Sarco Inc. sells a windage adjustable micrometer sight for a #4...bet it'd work on your #5.
35W

[robertbank]

I spoke at some length with my gunsmith, an ex Sargeant Major in the Cdn. Army. He tells me it has all to do with the harmonic wave. This is compounded by the fact the #5 has the cone muzzle flash surpressor. He told me flat out I either set the front sight off to the right and shoot cast or set it in the middle and shoot jackets. His example of the harmonic wave involved the the FN FAL. He tells me hanging a bayonet on the end of that rifle changed the POI by as much as a foot at 100 yards. Sort of minute of Bosnian.

Well it was decision time and since I intend to use the #5 as my truck/bush gun I am going to set it up for shooting soft point jacketed ammo and concentrate on my #4 as my rifle for cast. I will either get a decent peep sight set up or spend a few dollars on a scope and my holy grail shall be shoot 2" groups at 100 yards with the old girl using various concoctions of cast bullets and mystery powders. A man has to know his limitations. We shall see.

Shooting the #4 wth the existing micrometer sights beyond 50 yards with my eyes would stand me in good stead if the Germans were still a problem but those terrorist paper targets out to a hundred need a slightly different plan of attack, I am afraid. I will check out the Sarco sight.

Take Care

Bob

[madsenshooter]

Before you put too much work into it. You just have to accept different POI's with different loads. Here's two pics of the same boolit, the Eagan MX3 30AR loaded with two different powders to approximately the same velocity level, close to 2000fps. The scope setting remained unchanged. 1st target was 20gr Blue Dot w/Rem9 1/2M primer, second 34gr of 4895 w/CCI200 primer. Range 85 yards. Neither load was all that great accuracy-wise, can't explain the wide flier with the Blue Dot load. As you can see there's a good 6" of difference between the two loads. The 4895 load was much louder than the Blue Dot load, and there was probably some velocity diff.