Maven
05-18-2006, 03:10 PM
All, The rain and chilly weather we've had cleared off enough so that I could test my 10.5" bbl.'ed. SBH (aka "Maven's new toy") with a variety of CB's, all seated over 8gr. Unique and Fed. LP primers. (This -> ~1,000fps over my chrono.) @ 25 yd. (open sights; pistol butt resting on sandbag; my butt resting...well, you get the picture!). CB's tested included the Lee TL SWC; Ly. #429421 (single cav.); Ly. #429330 (single cav., a Gordon Boser design/Keith wannabe); and the RCBS Keith that I swapped TXBirdman for. The targets were 2" red dots on standard sheets of paper. All were "sized" to .432" meaning the die that Buckshot opened up for me barely touched the CB's.
Results:
The worst perfoming CB was #429330, probably due to its undersized driving band. Glenn Fryxell* wrote about it's poor accuracy, but I didn't know that when I purchased it (as new). Suffice it to say 25 shots went into a 6" x 8" parallelogram with the best 7 going into 1 1/4" x 2". Care to guess which mold I'm going to be selling?
OTOH, the RCBS Keith was the best performer with 9 going into 1 1/4" x 2" and one stinker 3/4" lower at six o'clock. I was thrilled with its performance. Btw, the .359" version of it (also RCBS) performs as well in my two .357mags.
Lyman's #429421 didn't disappoint me either. However, I sent two shots high trying to determine where to hold on the target. The remaining 8 shots were the equal of the RCBS above.
The Lee TL groups well, but not as tightly as the RCBS or -421. With a little fiddling, e.g., weighing & segregating by cavity and better technique on my part, I think things will improve. Say what you will about Lee products, the innovative TL design is a wonderful time saver when you don't feel like lubing & sizing.
Leading:
My current alloy may be a bit softer than it should be since I'm trying to reduce the amount of Pb I have around. Thus, I'm using #4 WW + #1 Lino + 1 Pb and yes, there was some leading at the forcing cone and ~1"- 2" forward of it. What little there was was easily removed (Ed's Red) and had no effect on accuracy that I could see.
*See "Cast Bullet Reference on Lead Alloys...." at http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm#top
Results:
The worst perfoming CB was #429330, probably due to its undersized driving band. Glenn Fryxell* wrote about it's poor accuracy, but I didn't know that when I purchased it (as new). Suffice it to say 25 shots went into a 6" x 8" parallelogram with the best 7 going into 1 1/4" x 2". Care to guess which mold I'm going to be selling?
OTOH, the RCBS Keith was the best performer with 9 going into 1 1/4" x 2" and one stinker 3/4" lower at six o'clock. I was thrilled with its performance. Btw, the .359" version of it (also RCBS) performs as well in my two .357mags.
Lyman's #429421 didn't disappoint me either. However, I sent two shots high trying to determine where to hold on the target. The remaining 8 shots were the equal of the RCBS above.
The Lee TL groups well, but not as tightly as the RCBS or -421. With a little fiddling, e.g., weighing & segregating by cavity and better technique on my part, I think things will improve. Say what you will about Lee products, the innovative TL design is a wonderful time saver when you don't feel like lubing & sizing.
Leading:
My current alloy may be a bit softer than it should be since I'm trying to reduce the amount of Pb I have around. Thus, I'm using #4 WW + #1 Lino + 1 Pb and yes, there was some leading at the forcing cone and ~1"- 2" forward of it. What little there was was easily removed (Ed's Red) and had no effect on accuracy that I could see.
*See "Cast Bullet Reference on Lead Alloys...." at http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm#top