Inherently Accurate
- Thread starter Ben
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oscarflytyer
Well-Known Member
45 ACP/44 SPC/22LR/222 Rem/300 Win Mag - all from my experience, except the 222. I do have a 222, just not wrung it out yet. But I included it, as they built the Savage 340s up, like the one I have, for BR rifles!
fiver
Well-Known Member
IMO the opposite is true.
it's the gun that gives the cartridge the good name.
my 25-06's are accurate, so is my 30-06, and my 7ICL, and my 257's aren't too bad, even the ugly old Arisaka can keep the holes mighty close together with the right loads.
I can guarantee that if you shove a factory 100 gr Remington load in my 243 you'll be mighty disappointed in it's accuracy, same goes for my heavy barreled winchester 22-250 and my Ruger V/T 223.
I have always heard nothing but how accurate those 3 rounds can be.
well they ARE very accurate rifles, you just have to feed them the right stuff to get them there.
unfortunately that stuff doesn't come in green/white/red boxes..
it's the gun that gives the cartridge the good name.
my 25-06's are accurate, so is my 30-06, and my 7ICL, and my 257's aren't too bad, even the ugly old Arisaka can keep the holes mighty close together with the right loads.
I can guarantee that if you shove a factory 100 gr Remington load in my 243 you'll be mighty disappointed in it's accuracy, same goes for my heavy barreled winchester 22-250 and my Ruger V/T 223.
I have always heard nothing but how accurate those 3 rounds can be.
well they ARE very accurate rifles, you just have to feed them the right stuff to get them there.
unfortunately that stuff doesn't come in green/white/red boxes..
Ian
Notorious member
Since this is a cast bullet site I'm responding in that context.
My take on it is that those cartridges, and particularly chambers, which by design specifications (SAAMI) give the dimensions and tolerances which benefit cast bullets the most, will be "inherently" more "accurate".
I spend a lot of time trying to invent ways to optimize a non-optimal cartridge to work better with cast bullets. Take for example rifle chambered in 7.62x51 NATO: Huge throat, extremely large chamber clearance, and loaded clearance approaching five thousandths all the way around the neck. Also, hard brass which needs to be prepared carefully to keep the neck on center and the neck tension uniform. It's doable, but difficult. Another buggar is the Swedish Mauser...as in the military rifles. The challenge is excessive neck clearance, extremely long throat, and very, very wide lands which displace a ton of metal. The .45 Colt is perpetually plagued by the old "do we make it .454" or .452"?" dilemma. The .44 Magnum doesn't have that problem, unless you have a lousy gun.
If you want to get really deep into this, take the cartridge examples everyone raves about and examine the drawings, the popular guns chambered for them, and the historically popular bullet moulds, and note trends between them. Sometimes there's just a golden combination, sometimes there is no combination that ever seems to work out.
My take on it is that those cartridges, and particularly chambers, which by design specifications (SAAMI) give the dimensions and tolerances which benefit cast bullets the most, will be "inherently" more "accurate".
I spend a lot of time trying to invent ways to optimize a non-optimal cartridge to work better with cast bullets. Take for example rifle chambered in 7.62x51 NATO: Huge throat, extremely large chamber clearance, and loaded clearance approaching five thousandths all the way around the neck. Also, hard brass which needs to be prepared carefully to keep the neck on center and the neck tension uniform. It's doable, but difficult. Another buggar is the Swedish Mauser...as in the military rifles. The challenge is excessive neck clearance, extremely long throat, and very, very wide lands which displace a ton of metal. The .45 Colt is perpetually plagued by the old "do we make it .454" or .452"?" dilemma. The .44 Magnum doesn't have that problem, unless you have a lousy gun.
If you want to get really deep into this, take the cartridge examples everyone raves about and examine the drawings, the popular guns chambered for them, and the historically popular bullet moulds, and note trends between them. Sometimes there's just a golden combination, sometimes there is no combination that ever seems to work out.
Man, what a question.
I think some cartridges have an inherent accuracy edge but can't prove it. A 45 ACP over a 9 mm for example.
Is it cartridge design? Bullet availability? Guns they are regularly chambered in?
I don't know.
I think it is a combination of powder capacity and caliber.
I think some cartridges have an inherent accuracy edge but can't prove it. A 45 ACP over a 9 mm for example.
Is it cartridge design? Bullet availability? Guns they are regularly chambered in?
I don't know.
I think it is a combination of powder capacity and caliber.
Ian
Notorious member
I disagree about the .45 ACP. It's short, fat, loose in the chamber, has a primer that's too big for the powder capacity, and so on. Sure, a tight chamber, precision throat, and proper hand-loading can make it pretty good, but that could be said about virtually ALL metallic cartridges. The .38 Super, without any special treatment, is far superior IME to the .45 ACP as a precision autopistol cartridge from the standpoint of going to the store, buying an identical pistol chambered in each, and a box each of premium, factory ammunition.
Rally Hess
Well-Known Member
The rifle range here has a sight-in weekend every year just before deer season. I've been to a couple, and would venture a guess, most cartridges today are more accurate than the people shooting them!
I'm not so sure about Inherently more accurate, unless you include the improvements to the ammo being fired in them. Some cartridges still in use today were originally loaded with black powder. I'd say the improvements to ammo, and the manufactures attention to certain cartridges has more to do with accuracy improvements overall. As bullet casters consider how many more options we have in moulds alone, compared to ten years ago.
I'm not so sure about Inherently more accurate, unless you include the improvements to the ammo being fired in them. Some cartridges still in use today were originally loaded with black powder. I'd say the improvements to ammo, and the manufactures attention to certain cartridges has more to do with accuracy improvements overall. As bullet casters consider how many more options we have in moulds alone, compared to ten years ago.
Chris
Well-Known Member
Well this is a can of worms to be opened. There are inherently accurate cartridges. I think the case/cartridge design is more important to accuracy than the rifle. Consider the known accurate benchrerst cartridges and their commonalities... the various cases based on the 220 Russian (PPC etc.) , the BR's, the new craze of the 6.5's. In general a large case but short powder column and maybe a small primer? I would look to the benchrest world, maybe to the long range precision shooting world, for answers. How does that interface with cast? It may not except in theory. We may consider other characteristics such as neck length, i.e .30/30 or .30/40 as having greater value.
Not a pistol guy so cannot comment on that class of cartridge. Interesting questions though.
Not a pistol guy so cannot comment on that class of cartridge. Interesting questions though.
oscarflytyer
Well-Known Member
Ian - regarding the 45 ACP. I have a bullet that has done very well in every 45 ACP I have put it through so far. It is the H&G 68. Maybe it is the bullet that makes it accurate, but I know I have had great results from a 68 in any 45 so far. And the load has been 4.3-5.0 grns Bullseye...
My response is based upon my bench rest shooting experience: .222 Remington, 6x47, 6 PPC, .30 BR Remington ( 6 BR Remington necked up) and .308 Winchester. These cartridges have about the right powder capacity for caliber/bullet weight, correct turbulence point and very good gyroscopic stability factor. The .308 Winchester is the "odd duck" in my group but back in the day Jim Steckl, and others, shot the .222 at 100 and the .308 at 200 and 300 yards because the .308 did much better in windy conditions at distance and they took home a lot of hardware. I never thought shooting a .308 free recoil from the bench to be much fun but a few did master it. The 6 PPC retired the .308.
Ian
Notorious member
Match cartridges=tight tolerances, neck turning usually required, everything established from the get-go for utmost precision, including the powders. The 6.5mm Creedmor doesn't have a short, fat case and yet is notorious for extremely fine precision at very long ranges and uses bullets that work very well against wind. This is fun, but for everything I could add there's a host of examples which support the opposite idea.
I'll pick a scab and submit the 30 XCB as an inherently accurate cartridge. Brad and I have both consistently crowded MOA for ten shot groups while bumping over 2500 fps using ordinary lubricated, cast bullets. I think he got over 2700 before he quit, that's at the pressure ceiling for the cartridge. Match neck tolerances, and heavy, precision rifles with excellent triggers make it easy. I shot exactly five jacketed bullets through mine and they printed a single hole that measured .392" edge to edge, with no load development and no foulers. Larry was able to hold around 2 MOA using cast bullets with a bench gun and custom, super-slow twist barrel from mid to upper 2K fps.
The 308 can be great or can be mediocre, depending on the rifle, ammo, and chamber. One thing about it, it's rarely poor. Same for the '06.
I'll pick a scab and submit the 30 XCB as an inherently accurate cartridge. Brad and I have both consistently crowded MOA for ten shot groups while bumping over 2500 fps using ordinary lubricated, cast bullets. I think he got over 2700 before he quit, that's at the pressure ceiling for the cartridge. Match neck tolerances, and heavy, precision rifles with excellent triggers make it easy. I shot exactly five jacketed bullets through mine and they printed a single hole that measured .392" edge to edge, with no load development and no foulers. Larry was able to hold around 2 MOA using cast bullets with a bench gun and custom, super-slow twist barrel from mid to upper 2K fps.
The 308 can be great or can be mediocre, depending on the rifle, ammo, and chamber. One thing about it, it's rarely poor. Same for the '06.
Ian
Notorious member
That one is a golden combination like I mentioned earlier, and agree it's great...relatively. If I were to hand you my .38 Super a the range and a magazine full of Lee 158 RN bullets you might change your mind about the good old .45 ACP
.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
My 2 cents worth; guns built in the last 50 years, SAMMI spec's with the least clearance between maximum chamber and minimum cartridge. With cast bullets, you can make anything shoot well if you are willing to work at it and spend the money.
oscarflytyer
Well-Known Member
That one is a golden combination like I mentioned earlier, and agree it's great...relatively. If I were to hand you my .38 Super a the range and a magazine full of Lee 158 RN bullets you might change your mind about the good old .45 ACP
Ian - I have always heard great things about the 38 Super. Would love to have one to play with. But what I find way more interesting is that you mention not only a Lee (mold) bullet, but a RN! I get a kick out of all the gun writers that stick their nose in the air when it comes to Lee molds. And a number won't tout a RN either! I think it probably comes down to a combo - everything has to match. And as also stated above, you can 'fit' cast bullets.
F
freebullet
Guest
I dunno, I like to try to makem all shoot as well as I can.
Ian
Notorious member
Cast from a six-cavity mould no less, and not sorted. The RN gets in the chamber with less damage than any other .358" bullet I have, and for whatever reason just shoots. It's boring, actually, haven't shot it in years because the limiting factor is always me and I don't have the time/energy/want to get as good as the pistol deserves. That and I hate chasing that quarter-a-pop Starline brass.
Another Lee mould that did well for me was the regular 7mm/130 grain one. I just almost would have won Dan's 200,000 rpm/1moa free mould challenge years ago with that one in a 7mm-08 Savage, bumping 2625 fps from a 9.5 twist and if I could subtract one flyer from every group of ten would have been doing it back when he offered that. We won't talk too much about having to use resized, trimmed, reamed, fireformed, neck turned '06 brass to fill the cavernous chamber neck to a half-thousandth total clearance, or the buffer, or the alloy that only had about a 60 fps window of operation. Again....making a silk purse out of a sow's ear by getting everything just exactly right, like Ric pointed out.
A special treat for some of you....how to make a standard .30-'06 chamber in to a match chamber for cast bullets at nearly jacketed velocity (one component, anyway, but a critical one for me, nonetheless). Took me a weekend to perfect five cartridge cases, and I got about six reloadings out of them before two of them fell out of the sweet spot for neck tension. This was the very exercise which drove me to push the XCB concept as I was at that point quite burned out on the limitations of excessive neck clearance and hadn't yet learned the other ways to cope with it effectively.
Another Lee mould that did well for me was the regular 7mm/130 grain one. I just almost would have won Dan's 200,000 rpm/1moa free mould challenge years ago with that one in a 7mm-08 Savage, bumping 2625 fps from a 9.5 twist and if I could subtract one flyer from every group of ten would have been doing it back when he offered that. We won't talk too much about having to use resized, trimmed, reamed, fireformed, neck turned '06 brass to fill the cavernous chamber neck to a half-thousandth total clearance, or the buffer, or the alloy that only had about a 60 fps window of operation
. Again....making a silk purse out of a sow's ear by getting everything just exactly right, like Ric pointed out.A special treat for some of you....how to make a standard .30-'06 chamber in to a match chamber for cast bullets at nearly jacketed velocity (one component, anyway, but a critical one for me, nonetheless). Took me a weekend to perfect five cartridge cases, and I got about six reloadings out of them before two of them fell out of the sweet spot for neck tension. This was the very exercise which drove me to push the XCB concept as I was at that point quite burned out on the limitations of excessive neck clearance and hadn't yet learned the other ways to cope with it effectively.
fiver
Well-Known Member
I still got one of those..
everyone that knows guns that sees it suddenly has a bunch of questions.
I will say that with all the different brass, rifle type, powder, and bullet combinations that got threw at the 30xcb it is a very accurate cartridge.
I really,really wanted to post pictures of the groups I was getting with mine back when we first got them, but I was pretty sure I would have been called a liar so I refused to post them.
everyone that knows guns that sees it suddenly has a bunch of questions.
I will say that with all the different brass, rifle type, powder, and bullet combinations that got threw at the 30xcb it is a very accurate cartridge.
I really,really wanted to post pictures of the groups I was getting with mine back when we first got them, but I was pretty sure I would have been called a liar so I refused to post them.