Got to the range today. Back is sore, but in a good way. Right hand is sore, but my right hand is victorious again, kinda.
I shot 10 yard standard pistol target with a .40 S&W cartridge using 170 grain FBI loads at 25 yards --- when heck, I couldn't even see where the shots were landing on the man sized target.
Yep, my eyes have gotten that bad. Really, really bad.
When I walked up I was pleased to see I had made an 8" group at 25 yards and every hit was inside the fatal FBI zone.
And yes, I am aware that if you pot somebody from 25 yards that is grounds for some enthusiastic liberal DA to charge you with something ranging from manslaughter to 2nd degree murder since you could have let him run away as it is common knowledge that pistols can't hit you or anything else at 25 and 50 yards ...... (wrong)
=============================================
In my Range Diary I noted the 25 yard and 50 yard dispersion pattern of the 000 buckshot triple ball load. 4 inches at 25 yards and 8-10 inches at 50 yards with an overall drop of 6" between the two distances.
HOWEVER, my notes also say that the load is considered FAILED because the ball form will not reliably load the assembled round into the chamber, the OAL of the ball based round is way way way too short and the loaded round tilts and jams on the way into the chamber, and the action pressure & gas volume half way down the barrel is very very low (it won't cycle the bolt carrier back to lock the action) and yet the initial firing pressure even using the slower BLC-2 powder is still too high judging from the severe primer flattening that was seen on the fired rounds. I conclude that the 210 grain weight of the blue bullet train is too too much, simply too too much for an AR type action as it does not leave any free room for the initial powder expansion, lacks gas volume, has low fps and really won't work the AR action very well.
Somebody who has a bolt action Legend could still use the things, I guess.
I think I am upsetting the soft nose of the air dropped soft slugs when stuffing the case full of powder and bullet. My 200 grain blue pills are running too fat on the nose about 20% of the time and all of them need some form of post assembly nose sizing such that they will load better.
On top of this, removed jams show hard hits on the locking lug ramp area that left significant marring on the bullet nose and this stopped the action from rotating and locking properly when the marred area got into the throat. I need to thin up the powder coating some and seat the bullet deeper, or else open the throat up a little more in the barrel. I also sense I am chasing my tail here again as the bullet damage that takes place when the nose hits the ramp area over the splines is a sporadic, random damage item ...... this sounds like a classic tail chase thing to me, really.
BLC-2 speed WC846 powder was simply too slow of a powder for the Legend, it burned incompletely and left lots of ash mummies in the barrel. Varying the bullet weight and charge weight didn't help the mummies much and the ash mummies still remained in the barrel and down inside the carrier --- the WC846 stuff is just plain too slow for the 350 Legend.
Best powder seen out of my powder closet was AA#9 speed WC820, it burned clean and left a minimal ash residue in the barrel. 158 grain pistol bullets and 200 grain rifle bullet loads actually liked the same range of charge weight (a 1.3cc dipper full at ~ approx. 20 grains ~) which is a moderate primer pressure load with 158 grain bullet weights and a mild primer flattening load at 200 grain rifle bullet weights. In both cases, the AR's action was smooth and there were no jam ups.
Best accuracy load seen was 1.3cc (20 grains) of AA#9 speed WC820 behind a 200 grain bullet, multiple 1" to 1.5" 3 shot groups at 50 yards were done during sight in. The wide meplat 158 gain bullet was also fairly good at 2.5" groups using the same 1.3cc (20 grain) loads.
Going hotter with 1.6cc (24 grains) of AA#9 speed WC820 behind a 200 grain bullet yielded a very flattened primer and lower accuracy levels and a harsh abrupt action and some bullet nose deforming jam ups where the slamming action was simply too abrupt and caught the bullet up hard against the feed zone over the locking splines.
Bullet damage in loading the soft powder coated lead bullets from magazine over the splines and into the chamber seems to be a thing with the Legend ..... :roll:
I made a lot of other load powder types and pressure levels that didn't do near as well as the AA#9 speed WC820 loads, all of which experiments will now get pulled down and the components recycled.
Let's repeat the double charge warning ---- use of a low volume fast burning powder that can fit two charges down inside the long deep DARK 350 Legend case is inherently dangerous.