Henry BB 45 Colt

[Ian]

Loaded up some of the MP hollow points with 6.5 grains of Universal and had a go between blustery rain squalls (hurricane is only about 120 miles from here at the moment). Turns out I can barely hold a sheet of typing paper at 75 yards with the load. Tried it in my Ruger and got about 4" at 15 yards off-hand, I can shoot better than that. Not sure what's wrong but that goes down as the worst shooting load I've ever tried in anything, bizarre. I'm going to switch back to AM 45-255C bullets and give it another go when the weather clears again.

 

[Ian]

I found a small batch of the MP 45-270 SAA bullets that Rick sent me a few years ago, loaded some of them up along with ten more of the ones I cast a few days ago and went back at it again. My bullets shot a 13" group not counting the high flyer that made it 18", then I shot ten of the ones Rick cast and made a 12" shotgun pattern with nine and no idea where the other one went. Yeah, I had to get a bigger target, going with an 18x22 calendar page this time, at 75 yards. I guess it's safe to say this rifle doesn't like this bullet. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Will]

Ian have you found anything that it likes so far? Did the lee 300gr shoot good?

 

[freebullet]

Anyone had the cojones to do a pound cast on 1 of these?

I'm wondering if they'll chamber @.454. Made a big improvement even for colt loads from the srh454.

 

[Ian]

Mine seemed to like the 45-255C just fine. I haven't done a pound cast yet but mine will swallow a lot more bullet than it will feed.

 

[Ian]

Round three. This time with the Lee 300 plain based WFN whopper, cast from some foundry 94-4-2 and lubed with Felix lube from before the quest, these are pretty old. Same 6.5 grain Universal load. Put five into about 16" again @75 from the bench, hit the bull once. My 50-yard berm location is just a ricochet ramp right now so no putting targets there, so being a little frustrated I walked up 25 yards in front of the bench to make 50 yard shots on the target. Offhand, in gusty wind, I managed 9 shots into 4-1/2" and pulled one way off to the left about 6" out of the group (got my weave and trigger creep out of sync, broke the trigger too soon). All holes nice and round for all groups shot. Apparently the stability is going to hell somewhere around 50 yards.

I had 11 cartridges left from yesterday loaded with the MP hollow points, so I gave them the same treatment at my 6" x8" pipe gong and succeeded in hitting it or winging it with all but two shots, but I was not impressed with the patterning.

Either I'm going to try gas checks on these 300-grainers or go back to the 255-grain Accurate bullet again that shot so well for me before, probably both. Very disappointing results with these heavier bullets so far at longer ranges after the almost laser-like consistency of my first shooting tests with the rifle. I fully expect 2 MOA or better capability out to at least 100 yards based on what I've seen already, it's only a matter of getting the dispersion to remain linear.

 

[waco]

Same day I took my 722 in 300 Savage out my brother brought his Henry BB in 45 Colt. Lee 200 RNFP PC'ed and sized to .452"
5.6gr Redot and we busted tiny bits of clays from 60-70 yards offhand.

I need one of these levers. What a sweet little rifle.....

 

[waco]

 

[Brad]

Is Waco using lipstick? Looks like a bin full of it on his loading bench?

 

[waco]

You caught me.....

 

[Ian]

Lipstick......maybe that's what I'm missing.....

 

[Brad]

Hey, you can put lipstick on a pig.......

 

[waco]

Silk purse sows ear... yada yada yada.....

 

[Ian]

Hey, whatever shoots. Sounds like you and your brother had a good time, and you're going to be spending some money in the future! Deputy Al gave a good report on the steel .357 Mag, if you're more inclined that direction.

 

[Ian]

So Lipstick is the secret. Following Gman and Waco, I took some 45-270 SAA penta HP bullets from the last batch that was shooting a foot and a half group at 75 yards, pushed them through a .451" sizer, and powder coated them. For good measure, after coating I sized and lubed them .452" exactly as before, and loaded them in the same Winchester brass, with the same 6.5 grains of Universal, with the same die settings. Only difference was age of bullets (BHN about the same) and the addition of powder coating.

Shot a 4" 15-shot group with two flyers which I called (just shooting across my range bag with both hands on the rifle). Would have been 2.5" without the flyers. Since I was shooting at a 3" square Post-it note and can barely see the front bead, I thought that was pretty dang good and the limiting factor is now ME. I'm starting to wish there was a way to mount a scope on this rifle so I could continue this investigation with the sighting variable reduced.

Now the question is WHY????

All I did differently was PC the bullets, and with them being soft alloy the bases got pretty rounded and dinged up. As a further disadvantage, since I didn't really think this was going to work, I pulled 30 bullets from my cull pile that had some slightly frosted bands, some voids in the HP cavity, and some other minor defects.

Another observation shooting the PC'd and lubed bullets is the lube star. It's not a star, it's a bell, sticking about 1/16" out past the crown. This is an SL-68 blend lube with several very similar experiments melted together, so it's soft, doesn't smoke, and normally leaves nothing but a little dark grey coloration on the crown, no grease, no thick accumulation. The lube on these powder coated bullets is behaving like there's a heavy card wad behind the bullet, making 100% obturation of the bore.

 

[Brad]

Lube AND PC?
I think the PC, being a bit flexible, has just enough give to maitain a good seal with the bore. It flows easier than lead so it holds the trailing edge better. Adding a good lube means the bore is very well sealed.

 

[Ian]

I changed exactly ONE thing, figured if I left the lube off it would be changing TWO things. I was curious how lube and PC would do together, and so far I'm impressed. The lube is really pretty much superfluous in this instance, but like I said the whole point was one variable at a time. What a difference!

What I think this test did was eliminate some of the other theories I had about base irregularities from engraving, brass quality, the bullet fit, over-sizing the brass in a Carbide die, wrong powder, bullet alloy, bullet quality, etc. etc..

What it also does is leave me more confused than when I started. What does a little .0015" layer of polyester paint do to make an 18" group become a 4" group (actually probably way smaller if I could see and shoot)???? People argue that replacing traditional lube with PC doesn't really shrink groups, and much of the time they have a point when talking fine accuracy or supersonic loads, but holy cow this was like night and day.

 

[Brad]

I have lubed some bullets coated with Hi-tek and they did as well or better than those with just one or the other.
Is the coating providing some protection from gas cutting that lube alone can't?

Would be interesting to compare recovered bullets. PC alone, lube alone, and both.

 

[Ian]

I can go dig some out of the berm, but there wasn't anything wrong with the uncoated ones I recovered. The bases were perfect aside from the little nibs of metal trailing off the base from the engraves. The minor diameter of the lube and crimp grooves was concentric with the OD as far as I could tell, the bullets had entered the rifling straight, the rifling engraves were clean and showed no evidence of washout or gas cutting, even on the base band.

 

[fiver]

the coating is slicker so lowered your velocity about 4-5%.
you also now have a larger nose diameter....

maybe a suggestion.
I shoot the 454424 which is a keith type swc right down to the square lube grooves. [it even pours at 454]
I seat them to the front drive band and taper crimp just like I do with the lyman 200gr swc for the 45 acp.
now I know the jump is about 2"s to the rifling, but the nose diameter is just a light engraving into the lands.