First time shooting cast, first (long) post, and it all makes sense!
Well, I should say my first time shooting cast out of a rifle as I've been reloading .45ACP for a little while.
Anyway...first a little history. I've always been interested in firearms since first learning to shoot a .22LR when I was 11 back in the late 70's, but not until the past few years did I actually start buying and shooting my own guns. Just about the time I bought my first, a Springfield Range Officer .45ACP, I was helping my better half organize a moving sale for her uncle and aunt who were moving into a retirement community. I hadn't realized he was an active shooter most of his life until boxes and boxes of reloading supplies were being pulled out of cabinets and shelves. I ended up with a Spar-T press, 450 lubesizer, Redding, Bair and Lyman powder measures, Lyman scale and case trimmer, RCBS Auto Prime, Forster case trimmer and outside next turner, plus a good assortment of pistol and rifle reloading dies, along with Lyman 45th ed. and Speer 9th and 10th. The only things missing were the lubesizer dies and bullet molds which likely were in a batch of stuff he gave away some time ago. Also included were over a dozen various powders in 1/2 or 1lb. mostly full containers, lots of primers and other misc. tools, gages, and related items. It was a one stop instant reloading shop setup!
I put the .45ACP dies to work first, reloading Penn's 230gr. RN boolit while searching for an RCBS 230gr. RNL mold I finally found. 4.5 gr. of Bullseye does a classic job making Old Loudmouth bark like a proper big dog.
More recently, I was going through the inventory and looking at the boolits I had left from his casts long ago. Most of the inventory I received, especially the .45ACP, were covered in a powdery residue and pretty scuzzy looking. I didn't feel that they were worth loading, so I ended up melting them down into ingots again along with some other scrap. But, I did save ~350 130gr. 311410 and ~90 173gr. 311041 GC that were sized to .309, lubed, and still nice and shiny. Since I also had a Bonanza .30-06 benchrest die set with Lyman M-die and related pilots for neck turning, I decided I needed something to shoot these in.
A trip to my LGS led me to find an older tang-safety Ruger M77 in very nice condition with original Redfield 4x scope. After researching it and finding out it was a mid-'71 "hollow-bolt" and would likely have a Douglas barrel, I jumped on it. I can't say if it's had any trigger work and I have no way to measure the pull, but I'd guess between 2 and 3 lbs. No creep, just a clean break and little, if any overtravel. After spending an afternoon last weekend cleaning the copper out of the barrel, I finally took it to the range today. First was 10 shots at 25 yds. with the 173gr. in front of 15.5gr. 2400 into a 1" circle with just a sandbag under the front stock. I then put 10 with 16gr. 2400 and 10 with 17gr. 2400 into 1.25" at 50 yds. The barrel was pretty warm at this point, but I saw no evidence of shot stringing at all.
Next up was 10 shots with the 130gr. and 9.0gr. of PB and then 10 with 7.0gr. of Red Dot. At 50 yds. all went into two 1.25" groups, offset about .5" from each other. These rounds were fun to shoot almost to the point of being illegal, although I was surprised that the Red Dot rounds still gave a nice little bump to the shoulder. 7 grains is one SMALL pile of powder!
To finish up the session, I fired 3 rounds of factory 150gr. Remington down range, first pulling the bolt and inspecting the bore for any significant leading and finding none. This is the second time in my life I've fired a centerfire rifle. The first was back when I was learning to shoot with my buddy and his .22 and one day we got to shoot a few rounds out of his father's .30-30 Win. lever. I've shot a bit of 20, 16 and 12 ga. so I knew what to expect. All I can say is that the fun rapidly diminished! After those 3 rounds, my flinch was back in full force and I was done. For deer at 200 yds., no problem. One shot and you're busy dressing it out. For poking holes in paper at 50 yds. - masochism, especially indoors where it feels your head is about to cave in from the blast.
Never in my life would I have thought to load "mouse-farts" or even "moose-farts" before I started reading the posts here. I would have said "just go buy a .22 rimfire for plinking". Well, yeah, I probably would have done that since I'm really not a hunter, but what's the point of buying a .22 if I CAN'T GET AMMO FOR IT!But now I have something far more versatile as well as more involving than simply buying a box of .22 and shooting it up, and THAT is why we are all here!
Chris
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