Whitespider
05-31-2009, 08:32 PM
Well, let’s just say I’m excited.
Today I finally got around to shootin’ some of my #225438’s in the Hornet and the results were very, very encouraging.
First, the gun is a Handi-Rifle with a pencil-thin sporter barrel on it that will shoot around 1½-inch at 100-yards with my best j-bullet load. Second, the boolits used were not what I would call “perfect, as I was just learning how to get them gas-checked and through the lube-sizer without complete deformation with this first batch and a lot of them were kinda’ “smooched”. Seating them out to touch the lands would leave a lube groove exposed, which will not be acceptable for me; I seated them just deep enough to cover the grooves. Nothing special was done to the brass, I didn’t even check case length for consistency; I just knocked out the primers, resized and used a Lyman M-Die to expand necks.
Starting with 5.0-grains Accurate 1680 at 25-yards produced a dismal 5-shot group from a squeaky-clean barrel, as expected. The next charge of 6.0-grains tighten up so that I was comfortable enough to move the target out to 50-yards for the 7.0-grain charge. At 8.0-grains the case necks quit smoking up and the 50-yard group went just a touch over 1-inch. The 9.0-grain charge also came in at just over an inch. The 10.0-grain charge put the first three into a clover-leaf with the holes touching; I blew the forth shot yanking it right about an inch and then was thinking about that screw-up (instead of concentrating on the shot-at-hand) when I let the hammer drop on the fifth round, which went left about ¾-inch.
I didn’t have enough “good” boolits left to continue with any meaningful testing, and I didn’t set up the chronograph for this initial test firing, but there is definitely some real promise with this combination. No barrel leading, none, barrel bright and shiny. I can’t be sure without the chronograph, but 10.0-grains should be producing velocities over 1700 fps, maybe approaching 2000 fps.
I spent the rest of the afternoon casting a goodly pile of the little devils for the next (more intense) round of testing. Thought about sweeten’ up the alloy a bit with some Lino, then changed my mind and stayed with the 50/1 WW/Tin; I’ll see how far I can push it. Hopefully I can perfect my gas-checking and lube-sizing technique with this lot. I’ll most likely start with 9.0-grains at 100-yards and work it up in ½-grain increments, hoping for a load producing 2200 fps or more, we’ll see.
Heck, worst case, it still shoots cheaper than a .22 rimfire!
Today I finally got around to shootin’ some of my #225438’s in the Hornet and the results were very, very encouraging.
First, the gun is a Handi-Rifle with a pencil-thin sporter barrel on it that will shoot around 1½-inch at 100-yards with my best j-bullet load. Second, the boolits used were not what I would call “perfect, as I was just learning how to get them gas-checked and through the lube-sizer without complete deformation with this first batch and a lot of them were kinda’ “smooched”. Seating them out to touch the lands would leave a lube groove exposed, which will not be acceptable for me; I seated them just deep enough to cover the grooves. Nothing special was done to the brass, I didn’t even check case length for consistency; I just knocked out the primers, resized and used a Lyman M-Die to expand necks.
Starting with 5.0-grains Accurate 1680 at 25-yards produced a dismal 5-shot group from a squeaky-clean barrel, as expected. The next charge of 6.0-grains tighten up so that I was comfortable enough to move the target out to 50-yards for the 7.0-grain charge. At 8.0-grains the case necks quit smoking up and the 50-yard group went just a touch over 1-inch. The 9.0-grain charge also came in at just over an inch. The 10.0-grain charge put the first three into a clover-leaf with the holes touching; I blew the forth shot yanking it right about an inch and then was thinking about that screw-up (instead of concentrating on the shot-at-hand) when I let the hammer drop on the fifth round, which went left about ¾-inch.
I didn’t have enough “good” boolits left to continue with any meaningful testing, and I didn’t set up the chronograph for this initial test firing, but there is definitely some real promise with this combination. No barrel leading, none, barrel bright and shiny. I can’t be sure without the chronograph, but 10.0-grains should be producing velocities over 1700 fps, maybe approaching 2000 fps.
I spent the rest of the afternoon casting a goodly pile of the little devils for the next (more intense) round of testing. Thought about sweeten’ up the alloy a bit with some Lino, then changed my mind and stayed with the 50/1 WW/Tin; I’ll see how far I can push it. Hopefully I can perfect my gas-checking and lube-sizing technique with this lot. I’ll most likely start with 9.0-grains at 100-yards and work it up in ½-grain increments, hoping for a load producing 2200 fps or more, we’ll see.
Heck, worst case, it still shoots cheaper than a .22 rimfire!