Further range stuff (link added)

Past trials showed some good groups with this Lyman bullet(which comes out of my mold at 340 grains).  And, oddly, it groups better when used as paper-patched instead of just sized & lubed(this is with a bullet cast of mongrel alloy).

That's over 29.5 grains A5744 powder, and it's been consistent.  So I tried 30 grains; not as good with the paper-patched.

But, when you use the plain lubed bullet cast of 30-1 alloy(lead to tin),

Quite a change.  And causes me to think that working up accurate loads with this may involve a certain amount of magic to figure it all out.

Back to trials: tried 31.0 and 31.5 of A5744, and the results were of the "Drop this" variety(which is what the trials are about).


Back to yesterday, tried some of The Load in 7.62x54r in a M28 Mosin Nagant with this result at 100 yards

and yes, the two high ones are on me.  In this case, that's with a 6 o'clock hold on the orange bullseye and the rear sight set for 800 arshins, or 500 meters if you're not into archaic Russian measures.


Now I need to decide what combination to try next in the .45-70 with black, and load some groups of the 340 bullets to double-check results.

As an aside, we'd tried using the Lee 405-grain bullet in the past; with smokeless not bad, but the lube grooves are not wide and deep enough to work with black, though I might try it with the bullet paper-patched and see how it works.

Added: when I was first helping friend get started with this, found this very good piece on getting started with black-powder cartridge loading(pdf file); worth reading, if nothing else, for the number of high-scoring shooters with loads in which the bullet will fall out of the case if you turn it over.