"EsterBee350"..... Residuals
I have learned something over the last several days.
For the last six months or so I have been truly blessed. I have worked with a gun and cartridge extensively that I have wanted to for 60 years now!!
Please let me share the story with you. It indeed has pertinence to our subject at hand and much more so to me. I hope you enjoy both story and information.
ALL of us I believe have things in our life that we wish we could do over again. Most probably can't be done, and the longer the time span between the less likely they become. Let's talk fun things....
It was almost Christmas. It was a longtime ago. How long? Well, the engines in new Ford cars still had their valves in the block.
I loved cowboys! My Dad taught me "cowboy guns" if we went to the show. Only one neighbor kid had a TV set. I used to watch the Lone Ranger at his house once a week on the little bitty screen. Sometimes Gary would call me when a Tom Mix movie was on... I absolutely LOVED Colt Single Action Army revolvers and Winchester Model 92 carbines!
Christmas morning had my father hand me a box last... (almost like the BB gun in Christmas Story) It was heavy; I knew it was a gun! I tore the paper and box open! I saw the stock and action! It was a Winchester Model 92! My heart jumped out! Then I saw the 24" octagon barrel..... It was a .38 WCF the top of the barrel said. It had a pyramid shaped front sight I just hated! Cowboys shoot carbines I thought.
My Dad told me the barrel was shot; and indeed it was a stovepipe. He said we would buy a new barrel from Winchester in .44-40 and put it on. He had done the same thing with my first gun, a Winchester Model 90 a few years earlier. But Winchester was out of almost all the Model 92 parts and ALL new barrels. We eventually had P.O. Ackley re-barrel it to .44-40 and I sold it several years later.
Probably 50 years ago (no..... it was more) I stated wondering how the gun might have been as a .38-40 had the barrel been good. My Dad didn't like the .38-40 but I developed a yearning for the caliber. It never went away.....
Families grow as one ages with Grandkids, Great Grandkids, and additional family from the new inlaws. Six months ago I got a family gun. It was a Winchester Model 92. It was a .38 WCF (.38-40). It was a rifle with a 24" octagon barrel. AND THE RIFLING SHOWED UP! There were some pits as a hundred year old gun will have but pretty good shape all in all! After many, many, years I finally got to shoot my .38-40 with a decent barrel!
I got dies, brass, and ordered a mold. The 'bigboys' writing in Handloader said the RCBS 'Cowboy' boolit mold was better than warm sliced bread....... Wrong.... I had bought some Meister boolits as well to do load development, chronographing and other preliminary work! At 50 yards the Meister boolit (minus the junk lube and mine added) outshot the RCBS everytime! It made me mad! My boolits looked a lot better. I started after both boolits with the micrometer... Humm? I said. I seated the Meister boolit out and kept seating deeper and deeper until the loaded round fully chambered. The ogive just touched the lands with the boolit seated correctly to the crimping groove. Magma makes the mold Meister uses and Magma makes it right. I ordered a mold from Magma for the same boolit. I made up my mind by this time that I was going to shoot a Whitetail with the .38-40 this year to sweeten the nostalgia even more.
I wanted to shoot the equivalent of the old Winchester High Velocity load. They were loaded with "J" words back then. The Meister cast soft from my 8.5 bhn wouldn't tolerate 1800fps as a plain base. I needed a gascheck. Hummm? There's no .40 caliber gaschecks! So I made some!
This old gun thinks it's a target rifle! It shot that Magma boolit with gascheck at 1800fps into 1" at 70 yards!!! And you know that old pyramid shape front sight I hated for well over half a century? It helped the 1" groups happen! By smoking that front sight and putting a big white triangle with a black background for a target I could tuck that sight into that notch with great precision even with my old eyes! It doesn't pay to 'hate' things.... You could end up loving it!
This old Model 92 .38-40 is one of my five guns testing "EsterBee350". I chose it because of the minor pitting. After all "EsterBee350" cleaning ability was just the cat's meow! It was a good choice. The pits showed up way better! Not sure I liked that.... I cut the lube back as "EsterBee350" is efficient... I got minor leading too. It was shooting 1 1/2" groups at 50 yards. "It's the leading." I mumbled
I cleaned the leading up and increased the lube. It shot 1 1/2" at 50 yards. Two more groups were again 1 1/2" and 1 5/8". No leading either... HUH? I want to make a point at this point. Many including me, would probably think these 1 1/2" groups from an old slightly pitted Model 92 is GOOD PERFORMANCE. They would never move from that spot! But I had a secret weapon... I had experience!
I thoroughly cleaned the Model 92 again and loaded the identical rounds up except for my "Gold Standard" BAC lube mix. Two groups has the boolit holes touching at 50 yards! The answer is "residuals".......
We all know we want our bore fouled equally shot to shot. Then we add week to week too. I thought minimal fouling had to be better..... But is it? R5R's story of Felix lube in the AR-15 going from "J" junk back to boolits is a great testimony. It needs to happen with several guns to be repeatable...
I'll end with my analogy of today...... I think barrels and their condition can be like roads... Some are smooth and you can go fast. I liken the old Model 92's barrel to a dirt road (like where I live) The "EsterBee350" boolits reacted like our truck would to the rough surface exposed... My old standard lube.left the bore more like a Cat 14 motor grader had just taken a skim down it. The dirt was smoothed out and filled the holes. The extra "residuals" actually helped in this case giving the boolit a smoother ride and the accuracy improved with a 100% reduction in group size!
Bore condition shot to shot the same.... then for the particular gun we are using factored in is where it is at. Beware! It can be a moving target! It makes my head hurt!
Why 8.5 bhn you say? Why add more 'soft' troubles to the troubles we have?
Take a look at the two Magma .38-40 slugs shot into wet phone books. Don't think that Mr. 'Whitetail' won't really be upset with these!
Eutectic
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