600 yd fail

[Keith]

A year or two back I built up a 40 cal target rifle on an old original Rolling Block. I could get some 405 Winchester cases and thought why shorten them so had a custom reamer made to shoot these paper patched. The mold I chose was a BACO Jim 396415E. It was going well for me until I tried 600 yds. I was getting sideways hits on the paper. I shortened the mold a fraction to see if that helped. It didnt. The bullet now weighs 398 grns in 16 to 1 lead.
I get 16 to 1 ingots from a foundry. The twist is 16 to 1 and the MV is around 1450 FPS.I am getting good confetti at the muzzle.
I thought that would be ample to get me to 1000 but not near it yet. I am at a loss what to try next. Softer lead might mean nose slumping and harder might mean not expanding enough to fill the grooves.
Any ideas as my tired old 81 year old brain has run out

IMG_2224 by Keith Cree, on Flickr

[Don McDowell]

What are you doing for fouling control?

[Delkal]

you need to find out the bullets BC to see what the velocity is at 600 yards. Then you need to find a bullet stability calculator to see if it will be stable with a 1:16 twist at that distance. I don't think the problem is the alloy.

A quick Wiki look shows the 405 Winchester has a factory spec with a 400 gr bullet is 1900 fps. Why are you loading it so light with the huge increase in case capacity.

[Keith]

A year or two back I built up a 40 cal target rifle on an old original Rolling Block. I could get some 405 Winchester cases and thought why shorten them so had a custom reamer made to shoot these paper patched. The mold I chose was a BACO Jim 396415E. It was going well for me until I tried 600 yds. I was getting sideways hits on the paper. I shortened the mold a fraction to see if that helped. It didnt. The bullet now weighs 398 grns in 16 to 1 lead.
I get 16 to 1 ingots from a foundry. The twist is 16 to 1 and the MV is around 1450 FPS.I am getting good confetti at the muzzle.
I thought that would be ample to get me to 1000 but not near it yet. I am at a loss what to try next. Softer lead might mean nose slumping and harder might mean not expanding enough to fill the grooves.
Any ideas as my tired old 81 year old brain has run out

IMG_2224 by Keith Cree, on Flickr

Hey Don.
Two wet and one dry. After all these patches going through the bore is smooth as and cleans up well

[Keith]

you need to find out the bullets BC to see what the velocity is at 600 yards. Then you need to find a bullet stability calculator to see if it will be stable with a 1:16 twist at that distance. I don't think the problem is the alloy.

A quick Wiki look shows the 405 Winchester has a factory spec with a 400 gr bullet is 1900 fps. Why are you loading it so light with the huge increase in case capacity.

May be someone knows the BC as I am not the only one using it.
You can see from the photo the case is full and no room for any more powder

[Don McDowell]

Wondering if maybe 3 wets and a dry might help.
Might also try a bit less powder or more compression and a thin felt wad over the card wad.
Chamfer the inside of the case mouth and don’t crimp.size the cases and use an expander that will let the bullet seat in the case with just a touch of thumb pressure. Just a tad bit of neck tension

[Chill Wills]

A quick Wiki look shows the 405 Winchester has a factory spec with a 400 gr bullet is 1900 fps. Why are you loading it so light with the huge increase in case capacity.

I am the wrong one to reply to your question, BUT - I would think that 1450 FPS is about all the speed he is going to get out of it fueled with black powder. He posted here in the BP paperpatching section so I am assuming (I know) he is using Black Powder.

[Keith]

Wondering if maybe 3 wets and a dry might help.
Might also try a bit less powder or more compression and a thin felt wad over the card wad.
Chamfer the inside of the case mouth and don’t crimp.size the cases and use an expander that will let the bullet seat in the case with just a touch of thumb pressure. Just a tad bit of neck tension

I dont crimp or size the cases at all. Just load, shoot, wash, and load again. The wrapped bullets are a slip fit and as you can see from the photo just barely in the case. I compress with a thin card wad, then hand seat a poly wad over that then use the compression plug to just seat it on the card. No more compression.
I have fiddled a bit with less powder and more wads also coffee filter paper under the powder over the primer but did nothing to improve my groups or ES. I have tried to lower my ES but still around 25 FPS and groups at 400 were about 2.5 mins. I was happy with that as is probably me. Dont have a 500 yd range as a gully and road are there so it was straight back to 600. I dont know how DD and KW on the Shiloh Forum get their ES down to single digets. But even so with that velocity spread I thought all the bullets should hit point on just a bigger group.
I should have said they are bore size as in muzzle loading or breech seating but I guess you gathered that from the mold size

[Castaway]

Two issues, likely related, but not necessarily so. You’ve got enough velocity, twist and bullet weight to easily go 600 and still be stable. An ES of 25 f/s could be improved on but won’t cause the instability you‘re getting. Odds are the problem lies with the bullet. I’d try 1:20 just to see if it fills the barrel better and get a better grip on the rifling. If that doesn’t stabilize your bullet, I’d then look into the poly wad slamming into the bottom of the patch on either a tail or wrap and deforming the base

[45-110]

I have shot 2 matches in the last month with a new 1-14" re-barrel in .40-70. My 600 and 700yd target was lack luster and showed vertical stringing. My current ES is around 48 fps. Using 420 gr. DD PP bullets slip fit, 73 gr. Swiss 1 1/2, match large pistol primers, primer wad, 03 veg wad all in trimmed 2.508" Hornady .405 brass. Avg. velocity is 1420fps. So obviously have more work to do to get that ES down.

[Don McDowell]

Keith I use that same bullet cast from 16-1 in the 40-65 and them 40-90 bn. Haven't shot the 40-65 beyond 600 but it worked well enough with a velocity around 1275. In the 40-90 bn it shoots well to 1000 but have never put it over the chronograph. My 40-70 will shoot it to 300 but beyond that it's very dismal.
I believe that using to much/to hard of a wad under a bore diameter bullet can cause problems in the accuracy department. That's why I use a thin card wad and a felt wad in straight sided bore diameter bullets.
One thing you might try and some rifles like it others hate it, after the bullet is seated wipe the exposed patch with jojoba oil and then wipe off the excess with a tea towel. (that was Remingtons directions in their 1876 catalog although they said spermicetti)
Another thing to piddle with is thicker and or thinner paper.
Some times you just run into a bullet that will work well close and fall plumb apart as the distances get longer, and that's how we end up with a cupboard full of mould blocks

[Lead pot]

Keith,
This target is not my .40-70, it was shot using the 14 twist CPA .40-65 but it also shoots just as well in my 16 twist .40-70 Shiloh or the .40-65 Browning.
What I found causing problems in my .40's is the bullet profile where the ogive radius is longer than the shank, I see this also in my .38-50. When you get the ogive longer in the black powder velocity's they seem to show stability problems especially with winds getting above 10/12 mph. They work just fine in the high power velocity ranges but suffer in the BPCR velocity ranges unless you load some duplex loads.
I don't have a range longer than 200 yards but I have corn and bean fields I can get a mile if I want it with out shooting over a road and I do a lot of ladder test loads as well as shooting gong, paper as well as silhouette matches to get some long range test targets.
That load I used for that target has put 10 turkey pins in my collection jars but never a chicken pin.
When you order a mould don't go by weight, go by diameter and length and ogive shape.

Kurt

IMG_3092 2.jpg

[HWooldridge]

Lead Pot brings up a good point, which would be to try a duplex load and see if that makes a difference. It’s a cheap test and might point to a revelation.

[Delkal]

You might want to play around with the Berger bullet stability calculator. You put in the estimated BC, caliber, weight, bullet length and velocity. It will tell you how stable the bullet is. You can also enter the estimated speed at 600 yards to give you an idea what it will do at longer distances. There seems to be a big difference in 1:14 and 1:16 twists.

Another way to see if your bullet is stable at lower velocities try downloading it to ~1000 fps and lower. If the bullet keyholes at short range then you will know the problem.

https://bergerbullets.com/twist-rate-calculator/

[Chill Wills]

A bullet that is going sideways at distance is going to show Yaw in targets closer than that.
Yaw is a bullet nose that, as it rotates, travels in a larger circle than the base. Often, fully stable bullets have some YAW in the first few yards after leaving the muzzle but then recover.
If the bullet starts in the rifle barrel tipped, it may not recover and leaves the muzzle with the nose and base rotating around different centers or the nose having a greater circle than the base.
In other words, at the muzzle and close, you see round holes in paper/cardboard targets, and as the distance stretches out, you will see round holes with an additional lobe cut out where the nose went through first and the base cutting through in a different place - not following the nose through. Then farther out, holes look like two bullets went through next to each other. Then at some point, the rotation can not hold the bullet stable anymore and the bullet goes out of control sideways.

I don't know if this is what is happening in your case but do a hole check from close to far to see what the bullet is doing.

[Keith]

Keith I use that same bullet cast from 16-1 in the 40-65 and them 40-90 bn. Haven't shot the 40-65 beyond 600 but it worked well enough with a velocity around 1275. In the 40-90 bn it shoots well to 1000 but have never put it over the chronograph. My 40-70 will shoot it to 300 but beyond that it's very dismal.
I believe that using to much/to hard of a wad under a bore diameter bullet can cause problems in the accuracy department. That's why I use a thin card wad and a felt wad in straight sided bore diameter bullets.
One thing you might try and some rifles like it others hate it, after the bullet is seated wipe the exposed patch with jojoba oil and then wipe off the excess with a tea towel. (that was Remingtons directions in their 1876 catalog although they said spermicetti)
Another thing to piddle with is thicker and or thinner paper.
Some times you just run into a bullet that will work well close and fall plumb apart as the distances get longer, and that's how we end up with a cupboard full of mould blocks

Thanks Don. Just loading some more now to try later. Will try a felt wad instead of the poly. I guess just change one thing at a time but thanks to all I have some more options.

[Keith]

A bullet that is going sideways at distance is going to show Yaw in targets closer than that.
Yaw is a bullet nose that, as it rotates, travels in a larger circle than the base. Often, fully stable bullets have some YAW in the first few yards after leaving the muzzle but then recover.
If the bullet starts in the rifle barrel tipped, it may not recover and leaves the muzzle with the nose and base rotating around different centers or the nose having a greater circle than the base.
In other words, at the muzzle and close, you see round holes in paper/cardboard targets, and as the distance stretches out, you will see round holes with an additional lobe cut out where the nose went through first and the base cutting through in a different place - not following the nose through. Then farther out, holes look like two bullets went through next to each other. Then at some point, the rotation can not hold the bullet stable anymore and the bullet goes out of control sideways.

I don't know if this is what is happening in your case but do a hole check from close to far to see what the bullet is doing.

Thanks, I will try this too but try Dons felt wad first. I dont remember the holes being oval when I started out closer.

[Keith]

Keith,
This target is not my .40-70, it was shot using the 14 twist CPA .40-65 but it also shoots just as well in my 16 twist .40-70 Shiloh or the .40-65 Browning.
What I found causing problems in my .40's is the bullet profile where the ogive radius is longer than the shank, I see this also in my .38-50. When you get the ogive longer in the black powder velocity's they seem to show stability problems especially with winds getting above 10/12 mph. They work just fine in the high power velocity ranges but suffer in the BPCR velocity ranges unless you load some duplex loads.
I don't have a range longer than 200 yards but I have corn and bean fields I can get a mile if I want it with out shooting over a road and I do a lot of ladder test loads as well as shooting gong, paper as well as silhouette matches to get some long range test targets.
That load I used for that target has put 10 turkey pins in my collection jars but never a chicken pin.
When you order a mould don't go by weight, go by diameter and length and ogive shape.

Kurt

IMG_3092 2.jpg

Thanks Kurt. Nice looking groups. I can only hope. Dont really want to muck about with Duplex yet. Maybe when my Swiss runs out and I have to use Wano. I would really like to see what my fired boolits look like but have no snow banks around here. Any idea how much water it would take to stop one. Last night in bed thinking about a long 6 inch pipe up against the shed and shoot down into it with a net on a string to pull the boolit out. Would 8 ft of water be enough for a boolit trap?

[Keith]

Thanks for all the replies they all give me something to try. Catching a boolit would be good to see what the rifling looks like and if any nose slump. I sometimes wonder if I should buy a Creedmoor style nose instead of this one.
My supply of Swiss is getting low. Way back in 2006 my two shooting mates and myself entered in the World Creedmoor Match held in Brisbane. We bought a heap of Swiss then as easy to get . Not now. Only Wano when this runs out. I have 3 Kilos of 2F and 8 Kilos of 3F Then thats it though it will probably last me out.
We had a team from NZ and one from the US come over. I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Gullo and Ernie Stallman and shooting against them. It is the first and only Match I have been in. I am on my own now as one Mate died and the other is in a Nursing Home. Anyway it was a really windy weekend but I picked up a first place at 600 and second at 800.I was just being a bit different and chose to shoot 8,9, and 1000 in the Creedmoor position. Drew a few comments. I was shooting a Roller in 45-70 then with greasers and put a sight base on the heel of the stock. Went all right at 8 but bombed at the rest
I gave that rifle to a young fellow here to try and get more interest in BP.

swiss powder by Keith Cree, on Flickr

[Lead pot]

When I have a problem with bullets or loads I go to the sawdust trap box or the fresh snow if I have it. I prefer the fresh dry snow over the sawdust, no damage or setback using it. I have to see what is going on , I don't like to guess
Here are things that will cause instability shooting lead bullets, especially the PP bullet not patched to the proper diameter. The first two I was having a problem getting oblong holes through the paper. The bullets were patched .002 under bore diameter and the alloy was 1/16 tin/lead and slip fit in the case. The other side of those three bullets the land cuts ran farther up on the ogive and the bases uncut. They had runout fitting loose in the troth. Not every shot showed this out of 30 rounds fired but it happened with two and that is two too many
The third photo I was getting ready for a lever match with my .30-30 and the alloy was #2 hardness and they were pushed to fast around 2300 fps and they cleared the muzzle longer then unfired. So you can push a lead bullet too hard also.

Kurt

LOL, I understand that brain fog I call it I got 5 years on you


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