Went to visit my parents the last couple of days, only borrowing their pc long enough to post my pissed-off post at the nun-murderers. While I was gone my daughter got back from her trip and I now have my camera back, so here's the shots.
First off, I mentioned the Federal Tactical low-recoil slugs, here's that five-shot group at 30 yards:
The one low left was my fault, I felt things shift just as I squeezed off. That's not a bad group a'tall, for resting the left hand only. I need to hit a range where I can try some of these at 50 and 100.
Second, the M1 Carbine with the scope, first trial, shot at 30 yards. The group on the right was shot with some GI-spec ammo, the left with some handloads using 2400 powder:
A few days later I had a chance to shoot at 100, and was having a lot of trouble, not grouping well at all. I'd bumped the scope loading it into the truck and wondered if I'd damaged it. That mystery was solved when I started to adjust it and realized the thing was moving. Not the reticle, the scope. AND the base. Note to self: it really, really helps if you make sure the screws holding the base on are kind of tight. I'd run out of time at this point, just had time to dismount the scope, tighten things up, remount it and try a couple of groups. Not bad, about 2.5" as I recall. I'll test it again next time I go out, this time with all screws tight since after I got home I took it down and put threadlocker on the screws.
Last, when I was ordering the carbine bullets from GI Brass, they had some 173 grain boattail match bullets for a good price, so I got 100 to try out in the M1 Garand. Loaded up ten, five in some military WRA brass and five in commercial Federal cases with the 'most accurate' load of IMR4895 shown in the Lyman manual to try them out. The WRA-brass loads produced a group about an inch tall and a little less than 2" across,
the Federal-brass load close to an inch larger. Two things here, first that while a single group with each is not a real test, it's very encouraging; second, some of the horizontal spread could very well have been my fault. Which means more testing is in order. Oh, the drudgery.
And the "Dammit!", because when I got home and checked the site to order more of the bullets, they were, of course, out of them. So I'll either have to find more somewhere else, or a commercial bullet that matches up. Good commercial match bullets are out there, just not at nearly as good a price.
I think with a bit of tweaking this loading is capable of very good accuracy. I think I'll tweak it a bit the next day or two.
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