BP Cartridge - Pleasing results

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Finally shot a few over the chronograph and out of my 22" Henry single shot i get 1240 fps. with a 405 grain boolit over 55 grains of Swiss 2F. Even with that light weight rifle, the recoil is mild. I could up it a fair amount and it would still be comfortable, at least off hand. I begin to understand why people use black in cartridges. And the boom and smoke kind of grows on you too.

[Markopolo]

And it smells Good!!!!!

[GregLaROCHE]

How exactly did you load it? Powder, then a card and anything else before the boolit?
Don’t forget to clean your brass as soon as possible, or at least put them in water, if you want it to last.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

How exactly did you load it? Powder, then a card and anything else before the boolit?
Don’t forget to clean your brass as soon as possible, or at least put them in water, if you want it to last.

I put a tuft of dryer lint over the powder and give a slight crimp. There was some compression but nothing extreme. And yes, i do put my brass in hot soapy water when i get home.

[country gent]

I find BP is more forgiving than smokeless to finding a good load. Did you happen to make note of the extreme spread shot to shot? BP usually turns in some impressive numbers and Im curious to see what the 22" barrel did compared to the longer 30-34" barrels

[Castaway]

How did you compress the powder? I use a compression die, but have used a plug from a Lee 45 Colt Sizing die, place in the seating stem in the die after removing the bullet seating plug. Don’t fall for the temptation to compress powder with your bullet. Also, if no drop tube is available, vibrate the charge case with an electric tooth brush or something similar.

[MC One Shot]

Most dryer lint today contains a high percentage of synthetics (plastic). As such these may stick to your brass and or bore and may be difficult to clean out.

[Castaway]

Why the dryer lint anyway? I’ve never heard of doing that with black. You’d be better off with a cardboard wad under your bullet

[Cosmic_Charlie]

The lint is just an easy and practical way to give BP whirl before buying a wad punch. Sure, there is some synthetic fibers in there, but you can tell it is mostly cotton. I am shooting off hand at 50 yards with the irons in the cold and wind and not carefully recording the results but the 55 grain 2f Swiss loads seemed quite consistent, enougn to tell me bpcr is worth delving into. And i was surprised at the velocity i was getting with that 405 grain boolit and also happy with my home brewed lube 50/50 beeswax/ olive oil and a dollop of lanolin.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Why the dryer lint anyway? I’ve never heard of doing that with black. You’d be better off with a cardboard wad under your bullet

That idea came from a posting somewhere.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I find BP is more forgiving than smokeless to finding a good load. Did you happen to make note of the extreme spread shot to shot? BP usually turns in some impressive numbers and Im curious to see what the 22" barrel did compared to the longer 30-34" barrels

The spread was less than 10 fps.

[country gent]

Thanks, About where my loads are also. But in 45 caliber Im running 500-550 grn bullets.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Thanks, About where my loads are also. But in 45 caliber Im running 500-550 grn bullets.

The long pointy 500 grain Lee won't fit into the lube sizer with the flat top punch. Got a NOE pointy boolit top punch coming.

[indian joe]

The long pointy 500 grain Lee won't fit into the lube sizer with the flat top punch. Got a NOE pointy boolit top punch coming.

Charlie
I love that boolit - (thought I would get in first with this cuz I would expect plenty hate mail on this) nice big lube grooves you can shoot it all day - but (for me) it was disastrerously wind sensitive out around 400 yards .
LEE made several different cuts to that mold design (either by design or accident?) the oldest one I had goes back to last century and by far the best but still ran unstable in the wind at distance.

It would be interesting to see if a faster twist or a bigger case behind it would stabilise this boolit a bit further out - the Ballistic Coefficient and those big lube grooves are excellent. I have shot a couple five shot groups around 1.5" at 100 with it and iron (peep) sights (1876 Uberti lever rifle) pretty much at my "on a good day limit" with anything.