Joe,
I have 9 years on you
and my eyes have had some very bad damage. I still can hold my own but it takes a lot longer looking through the sights to get what I think is a good center hold
that dont seem to work for me - the longer I peer through the sights the fuzzier it seems to get - If I look away at some green grass seems to clear it but I get a lot of comments about getting them away quick - just seems like the longer I take the harder it is to see clear. With my offhand ML when I mount it to shoot the sights will be clear and the thing will hang steady right dead centre for just a bit - trouble is I never mastered getting it away smooth while it was steady and centred - if you read stories of Daniel Boone shooting his matches you will get exactly what I mean here
I don't like to work on speculation on what is happening when a bullet goes astray. I jokingly blame Henry that little gremlin playing games down range with me
Yeah Henry has a lot to answer for if we ever can ketch him
Black powder the ES and SD are a lot lower than smokeless powder and I get baffled when I have a load with an ES that might get up to 23 fps and this will throw a shot out of a group several inches that I might not see with an ES three times as bad in my bolt rifles but the holes on paper are a lot closer.
Do you reckon that is just because of our loopy trajectory or ?
I feel your right with the vibratory physics like playing harmonics on a guitar being that little gremlin. Years back I shot some bench rest and played with barrel dampers (what was called barrel donuts) I could change the impact of the groups by just sliding it forward or back that would open the group or close it.
yeah what tuned me up on that issue was a mate and i spot shooting foxes for money back in the '70's, he had a jeep truck that he took the windscreen glasses out (split windscreen) and replaced with perspex hinged at the bottom so we could tool along the track and not freeze, then just push the perspex screen down to shoot - he had rigged a padded bar across to rest his rifle on, (bare barrel about where you would rest off of sticks) we both had 22/250 winchester 70's with good glass and well tuned, mine was a sporter, his 26" bull barrel, I ran the light, he drove and shot his side and the front, if there was a cat (lots of huge feral cats in that country, they wouldnt come to the bait but would set still out a couple hundred yards) I shot the cats and any foxes out the passenger side - most of the foxes were shot 70 to 100 yards on a bait we dragged but you had to be quick or they would bolt into the brush (this is desert country - sparse grass and saltbush/ bluebush shrubbery) anyway old mate would slam the window down, hit the brakes, throw the rifle up and miss a standing shot most times, then he would slam another round home, and flatten that fox about as he hit full stride into the scrub (he was an amazing instinctive shot on running game) - so one night I took a shot at a closer cat off the rest bar - clean miss - couldnt understand that (cats will sit in the light if you not too close - plenty of time for the shot) missed but the wheels started to turn in my brain. Next afternoon I went for a sight in session in the jeep while he was off doing other stuff - and you guessed it my rifle hit 12 inches high at 100 yards off that padded bar - I didnt say anything but watched him shoot that night - that first shot he usually missed he would take almost one handed off the bar then the running shot was always gun in hand and off the bar. I have been really leery of a rested barrel ever since that time - have shot off cross sticks enough times but I will not do it without a practice session at home first - dont seem to matter much with a frontloader - more meat in the barrel and lower stress levels I guess - that bolt gun was a sporter barrel and free floated and it messed up big - I never rested a smokeless barrel since that day - always hold the gun and rest my hand, arm, knuckles -part of me between the wood and the rest.
The barrels on our powder rifles are a lot longer than the smokeless rifles that would make that wave more pronounced but again this is speculation that I don't like using but I can see when I have a cross stick mounted tight to a bench and base behind the buttstock for a good solid rest and the null marked on the barrel so I can hold the same spot on these very narrow stick I use the group will open up by just a slight hold on the front rest holding the same down pressure on the rifle with holding less than 10 fps ES. I have checked this out many times.
These rifles shooting black powder with different compressions find more than one amount of compression where the groups tighten but all in all the least amount of compression I find is more consistent then to much.
I am using my own made powder - unable to get full commercial density in it but it will take more compression before it gets "hard", I use a single stage (non compound) press for my compression die - like to be able to feel whats going on there and I have a luggage scale I use to measure effort applied to the handle - its another number to use in comparisons. (Quite interesting when i reference back to commercial powder)
I will work with case prep just as much as compression tuning a good load. Case prep along with compression wakes a good load.
We differ here too (though maybe not so much) I match my brass at the start, dont do the bench rester stuff like primer pockets and etc, but I will not resize my accurate brass - absolutely detest commercial resizing dies, once I get it fully fireformed if stuff gets a little sticky chambering I will test and identify the sticky spot - go make a die on the lathe to take care of the problem, if theres a bulge at the solid head/ wall juncture all it takes is a touch and it chambers sweet again, same for neck/shoulder areas. Italian barrels = fat boolits - both 45's get .460 resized - dont have much neck clearance in the chamber so no neck sizing - just light crimp and off we go.
One or two grains of bullet weight is not going to change the verticals as much as how much as the friction the bullet has on the case neck or the inside volume of the shell raising the chamber pressure.
Thats interesting - thanks
As far as front stuffers
I lean against a tree and let er fly and drag the meat out. never worried about harmonics