Post by Richard on Jul 26, 2017 11:52:21 GMT -5
After some discussions on the phone, I got Dennis to make some bullets with a thinner jacket (thinner than the .025” star tips he sent me. The result was a 300 gr. bullet with a profile like a SST………..just a little lead tip and a .013” jacket. Also got some unbonded 308 gr. bullets with the .025” jacket that also have a lead tip. Mind you, I shot three different configuration, 5 shots each and all with one duplex load of 6 gr. N-110 under 76 gr. of H-322 with no wad and direct ignition. This is hardly a true test of these bullets considering using only one load………….and one that I bumped up from last week but never the less, a comparison
First was the .013” non bonded 300 grainers which gave a decent ES (20 fps) but did not group well. Maybe the first shots thru a clean barrel??? Maybe not?
Group #2 was the star tip bonded version with the .025” jacket. They produced a nice ES (8fps) and grouped somewhat better at 1.3”…………..Two weeks ago this same bullet shot a .172” one holer with 10/60—N110/4198 and a 7 fps ES? Just posting what happened on this outing!
The third group was with the 308 gr. non bonded .025” jacket. The ES was 29 fps with the first four shots going in .577” and the fifth opening it up to 1.050” That last shot loaded somewhat tighter and was 20 fps faster than the average of the first four?
Part of the problem seems to be in the bonding/annealing process which Dennis is addressing (not occurring evenly)
I would normally be playing around with different loads but need to work on loads for Kentucky and the Pittman bullets.
The next four groups are all different powders or combinations thereof. The powder showing a lot of promise is N-120 along with the n-110/H-4198 duplex. One thing I did note was when I switched from the N-110/H-4198 duplex to the first shot with N-120? The Pittman bullet wanted to chatter and get very tight down about 4” off the powder charge. After that first bullet, the seven subsequent bullets all went down completely to the powder as smooth as could be.
After firing two sighter shots at 100 and having the hit together 2” + of my POA, I dialed my crosshairs down and fired a third to confirm zero. At this point I adjusted my elevation turret to zero and then added 1 ¾ MOA and shot the 300 Accumax at 200 where I found this load combination only needed ¾ MOA. I then moved out to 300 yards where I put a total of 3 ¾ MOA (on top of my 100 yard zero) and went to the 300 AeroMax. After hitting somewhat high, I took out3/4 (three clicks) MOA and fired shot #2. (3 MOA) Then another click and shot 3 and 4. It appears that 2 ¾ MOA should be about right but will save further testing for another day.
What I found pretty neat was that even after two different adjustments, I still had a sub MOA group with 4 shots at 300 yards. A long, long way from when I first got into smokeless muzzle loading with the .50 Savage!
Note: I am disappointed the N-120 is shooting so well as I might have to buy more of that expensive powder!!!!!!
