lead_her_fly
11-16-2009, 08:14 PM
I have been having a dickens of a time getting this rifle to shoot right. It is in the 44Mag caliber and I want it to shoot something less than 5" groups at 100 yards with cast boolits.
My H&G #503 throws a .430" boolit with the hardest alloy I have, Linotype, and it just won't shoot accurate at all. Of course, I am trying to eek out all the velocity I can with it, 1800fps or so.
Well, I gave up on that mold from this rifle, thinking I need a smaller bore and faster twist to get the EK to shoot well from a Marlin, and got a Lee 6 cavity mold in the "Cowboy" boolit configuration, RNFP.
It is only a 200gr but it comes out of the mold @ .432" from 18lbs of wheel weights and 2lbs of Linotype. They were sized to .431" and I used WLL BAC for a lube. This is a little harder than I normally use but I thought it would work in the shallow Ballard grooves of this Cowboy gun. I forgot to mention that it has a 22" Octagon barrel with Ballard rifling.
At any rate, I got the thing to shoot pretty good for the first time out with this boolit.
I loaded up some over H110 with Wolf Large Magnum Pistol primers and headed to the range. I took along the M629 Classic with a 5" barrel.
From the handgun I got right at 1360fps and the rifle gave an astounding 1905fps! There was no leading and accuracy was getting there. I had about 1 1/2" group at 50 yards but it was 40F and I wasn't using a rest.
I am going to up the charge just a tad to see if I can get the ES and SD numbers to drop out of the "20" range, high teens will be OK for me.
Well, I think the combination of bigger and lighter and harder may have helped this situation. Maybe even powder type had something to do with it. I was using Lil' Gun before.
Any input you have is welcomed.
My H&G #503 throws a .430" boolit with the hardest alloy I have, Linotype, and it just won't shoot accurate at all. Of course, I am trying to eek out all the velocity I can with it, 1800fps or so.
Well, I gave up on that mold from this rifle, thinking I need a smaller bore and faster twist to get the EK to shoot well from a Marlin, and got a Lee 6 cavity mold in the "Cowboy" boolit configuration, RNFP.
It is only a 200gr but it comes out of the mold @ .432" from 18lbs of wheel weights and 2lbs of Linotype. They were sized to .431" and I used WLL BAC for a lube. This is a little harder than I normally use but I thought it would work in the shallow Ballard grooves of this Cowboy gun. I forgot to mention that it has a 22" Octagon barrel with Ballard rifling.
At any rate, I got the thing to shoot pretty good for the first time out with this boolit.
I loaded up some over H110 with Wolf Large Magnum Pistol primers and headed to the range. I took along the M629 Classic with a 5" barrel.
From the handgun I got right at 1360fps and the rifle gave an astounding 1905fps! There was no leading and accuracy was getting there. I had about 1 1/2" group at 50 yards but it was 40F and I wasn't using a rest.
I am going to up the charge just a tad to see if I can get the ES and SD numbers to drop out of the "20" range, high teens will be OK for me.
Well, I think the combination of bigger and lighter and harder may have helped this situation. Maybe even powder type had something to do with it. I was using Lil' Gun before.
Any input you have is welcomed.