Nothing out of the ordinary, just “stuff!”

Had not received any stuff from Fury so only some various loads with the 300 gr. XTP.

BTW, I got Herman shooting these XTP’s today and he is hooked!

So, sunny, hot and humid this morning but wind of little consequence. In the past I had shot and gotten some good results with 84 gr. of H-322 so I figured lets try a duplex and see what happens? I dropped the 322 back to 76 gr. and then boosted it with 5 gr. of 4759 (5/76) to see what velocity I would get, the accuracy and the ES. It did not disappoint and I am looking forward to substituting N-110 next week to see how that works out. Should be a little faster. My scope setting was from last week with a 300 AeroMax so impact was on the low side but group wise it did pretty good and ES was fairly low @17 fps.



I made a 7 click scope adjustment and moved on to a 11/60 duplex of N-110 and H-4198. Last week I got super results with 10/60 but was looking to boost the velocity a bit more. Today’s results actually showed about the same velocity? Next week I think I will boost the main charge by two or three gr. and drop the N-110 back to 10 and see what happens.. Outside of the first (what I call a switch over shot –changing powders or bullets) shot, the next four went just over ½” with an “ok” ES of 22 fps.



Two weeks ago I shot 71 gr. of N-120 and got around 2825 fps. This week I pushed it to 72 gr. and got an additional 25 fps more velocity with a marginal ES of 33 fps. Group wise it put five in ¾” so not too bad?



Trying to draw a comparison with N-120 I next shot 73 gr. of H-4198 but it was about 50 fps or so shy at 2998 with a 36 fps ES. The first four shots went just over ½” with the fifth (for whatever reason) dropping a tad low to make it one inch. (Dadgum muzzle loaders!) That is not exactly the way I worded it………..but you get the point! So next week I will probably up that charge to around 75 or 76 gr..



For the fifth 100 yard group I went to a charge I had previously worked with and that was 84 gr. of H-322. Now mind you, when I poured the first charge down the barrel I had neglected (yes, forgot) to screw in a new “screw/primer”. That let most of the charge go on the floor and also into the “locking lug recess” which really sucks! So after some more Dadgummits and other choice words and some canned air, I got back to shooting and so am blaming the first shot out of the group on that situation………plus, the chrono did not pick up the velocity, for whatever reason? The next three shots, while somewhat vertical, measured .682” @2860 fps with a decent 18 fps ES.



In preparation for a 300 yard group I fired one Accumax sighter at 100 with the 84 gr. H-322 load.



At 300 I used the AeroMax with 3 ¾” of elevation over that 100 yard sighter and hit around 2”+. The first two were pretty good but shot #3 moved out to the left a bit. I then took 2 clicks of elevation out and went over to another “spot” to verify the adjustment. The two clicks should have amounted to about 1 ½”…….which it did. So I sort of figured where these two shots went……..added 1 ½” and it would have put them right in the first 3 shot group for a 3.4” five shot group. Not great but then I shot 3” last spring in Ky.? Seriously, I believe loads and bullets are capable of ½ MOA on a fairly regular basis? But, like with any other shooting discipline, they don’t always go in the same hole? Don’t matter if its Center Fire or Rim Fire rifle or Pistol, these irregularities in group will occur? We scratch our heads trying to figure out if it was US?, The charge?, The bullet?, The wind? And generally come to the conclusion it could be any or all of them? That is what makes us come back to try and improve and what makes our sport interesting……………as is any sport