JohnH
06-18-2006, 09:30 PM
Well the saga continues, with some success at long last. Last I posted on my Encore 375 JDJ I had once again taken a tight patch slathered real good with 600 grit lapping compound and scrubbed the bejesus out the bore, again. This first time was about 700 rounds ago. Leading that has stopped altogether. I have shot 5 stings of 40 rounds without any deterioration of groups, on cleaning a mild scrubing with a brush,a dn two patches through and she's clean. No muss, no fuss. Better yet is that now the barrel is taking well to the squib loads I am so fond of. I again rearranged my shooting range and am no plunking away at 75 yards, for the shooten and huntin' I do this is a really good compromise and today I was rewarded with 6 groups of 10 shots each that all stayed inside 1 1/2" and nice rounded groups that weren't blown out by weird assed flyers. OK, success, but at what cost?????
On reporting my last lapping escapade, Felix replied that I had prolly scrubbed away about 2000 rounds. Bass Ackward made a post recently about losing some throut to some antimony rich alloy. I replied that I'd seen no difference in my barrel, but today I must confess there is a difference. Part of my success is throuh going to a 377 size boolit rather than a 375 size. When I first got the barrel, 377 seemed like the size the barrel wanted, but I couldn't get the thing to close on 'em easily, and I was concerned about forcing the action closed constantly. Well, that prollem is gone, cartridges now drop in right freely. Interestingly, another 001 larger and the boolit is snug in the throat and requires a tad of effort to close, and it still takes gorrilla effort ot shut it on a 379 boolit in a case, and I get spray effect from such sizing. In contrast to all this, a bullet sized to 375 on all but the first driving band, and that band left at 379 creates enough choke to get a 40 grain charge of 7383 burning right to give me consistant 2 1/4" groups. But over 30 grians of 4895, sizing a boolit the same way makes shotgun patterns form what is normally a 2 1/2" group with a boolits sized at 375 on all the driving bands.
So........ I'll take the loss of 2000 rounds of shooten for what I've gained, prolly saved me 20,000 hairs on my head. At the same time, I may have been losing some throat length/diameter all along, but not taking time to try 377 size boolits as time and boolits passed down the bore, I'll never know the true cause. As well, I've yet to try a rifle powder with a 377 size boolit, so while I gained some accuracy at 1300 fps, I may not have any improvement at 1800-2000.
The upshot of all this? Size does matter, and where the size is at matters too. And while thats plainly obvious, and the first place a cast shooter should start, I'm not sure it's given the full credit it deserves, and I'm not sure that many otherwise good cast shooten guns are given up on as such, cause gettin' all the peices in the right place at the right time takes some exploring. Makes me happy for my Savage 340, it has shoot well and I didn't do anything but load it and shoot it.
Gonna make a batch of beer tomorrow night and forget about this for a while, Thanks for listenin', John
On reporting my last lapping escapade, Felix replied that I had prolly scrubbed away about 2000 rounds. Bass Ackward made a post recently about losing some throut to some antimony rich alloy. I replied that I'd seen no difference in my barrel, but today I must confess there is a difference. Part of my success is throuh going to a 377 size boolit rather than a 375 size. When I first got the barrel, 377 seemed like the size the barrel wanted, but I couldn't get the thing to close on 'em easily, and I was concerned about forcing the action closed constantly. Well, that prollem is gone, cartridges now drop in right freely. Interestingly, another 001 larger and the boolit is snug in the throat and requires a tad of effort to close, and it still takes gorrilla effort ot shut it on a 379 boolit in a case, and I get spray effect from such sizing. In contrast to all this, a bullet sized to 375 on all but the first driving band, and that band left at 379 creates enough choke to get a 40 grain charge of 7383 burning right to give me consistant 2 1/4" groups. But over 30 grians of 4895, sizing a boolit the same way makes shotgun patterns form what is normally a 2 1/2" group with a boolits sized at 375 on all the driving bands.
So........ I'll take the loss of 2000 rounds of shooten for what I've gained, prolly saved me 20,000 hairs on my head. At the same time, I may have been losing some throat length/diameter all along, but not taking time to try 377 size boolits as time and boolits passed down the bore, I'll never know the true cause. As well, I've yet to try a rifle powder with a 377 size boolit, so while I gained some accuracy at 1300 fps, I may not have any improvement at 1800-2000.
The upshot of all this? Size does matter, and where the size is at matters too. And while thats plainly obvious, and the first place a cast shooter should start, I'm not sure it's given the full credit it deserves, and I'm not sure that many otherwise good cast shooten guns are given up on as such, cause gettin' all the peices in the right place at the right time takes some exploring. Makes me happy for my Savage 340, it has shoot well and I didn't do anything but load it and shoot it.
Gonna make a batch of beer tomorrow night and forget about this for a while, Thanks for listenin', John