Originally Posted by
vzerone
Geargnasher, I'm confused. In one sentence you say that you're about in the same place Bjorn is. I also take it that you wouldn't be satisfied with the groups that he got. In another sentence you are giving advice of a couple things to try. Well apparently they don't work because in the first sentence you said you are basically stuck.
I would agree with giving up the super hard alloy, but Bjorn since posted the reason he's using it. I feel that the water quenched 50/50 alloy would be a good one to try especially for hunting also. I believe if it was oven heat treated that it would be too hard for hunting. I also believe the MP Sil even out of the softer alloy as not so good a hunting bullet because it's too pointy. Now, on the other hand the hollow point version is impressive to say the least even with the alloy I just condemned for hunting use.
I don't agree with some things you said to try. One was if you were to oven heat treat to gas check them first. I don't believe in that basically because I do not believe in annealing gas checks and oven heat treating will do that. The other is I believe they won't be as tight grasping on the bullet after oven heat treating. I can't quite go along with a scuff the freebore either. I don't agree with the temperatures you gave for oven heat treat. I believe in a much higher temperature and have done so with good results.
You didn't mention lubes. I think for this kind of thing, that is HV, that your SL lubes and the "other guy's" soap lube are the best in this country.
Bjorn before I signed up didn't I read you wore the throat on your XCB rifle from using Linotype at HV? If that is correct why are you still employing Linotype and even harder Monotype?
Last I don't believe in casting bullet frosty, but I agree you don't have to be adding 2% tin to anything.
Bjorn unless the different years on those cases have a wide spread of different internal volumes I wouldn't be concerned with it. You want to make sure you ammo is loaded with the bullet straight. You want to make sure your cartridge centers the bullet to the center bore line. Truing the neck wall thickness can enhance that. Weight your bullets helps much, unless you are such a good caster that the weights are very consistent. The slow powders are good here as is buffer. Not Dacron. Dacron acts much different then buffer. I'm not a huge fan of COW either. Clean your barrel frequently, but don't over clean it. Depending on type of lube I'm not sold on the bore has to be seasoned with a lot of shots. A good lube, such as mentioned above, doesn't need that much seasoning.