Another nice day at the range!

[Spindrift]

I woke early this morning; a cold, clear, sunny spring morning. After walking the dog and eating breakfast, I went to the range with a bundle of rifles. And lots of ammunition, of course. Some lubed, PB bullets. Some lubed, GC bullets. And some powder coated, GC bullets. I even brought a few jacketed bullet loads . I had the range to myself this morning.







I wanted to try some jacketed bullets through my CZ527 in .222 rem, as I’ve never tried this before. Nosler Varmageddon 40grs HP, and 22grs H322 produced two 5-shot groups at 17 and 20mm respectively, at 100m (1 MOA is 29mm @100m). I’m happy with this, after absolutely no load development.



My Rem 700 custom rifle (3rd from the left) has 4 barrels in various cartridges. The 30-06 barrel has attracted the least attention, so far. Time to find out what it’s good for! I only loaded a few cartridges for this, using the Arsenal HVTH1- bullet with home-made lube and GC. Loaded with 19grs Vihta N110. After a few conditioning shots, I got a 19mm group (0,65 MOA) with 5 shots @100m. The barrel has my attention now! The HVTH1 is a brilliant bullet, by the way.



The MP sledgehammer shows promise in my Marlin 30/30 micro groove carabine. This group was with .311 PC, 14 grs N110 @100m. 5 shots, 44mm. If it wasn’t for the flier...... If I can get reproducible accuracy at approximately this level, I’ll be a happy man. Come to think of it, I’m quite happy already. Happier, then.




I’ve been shooting a powder from Vectan called A0. This is a single-base flake powder with a listed burning rate similar to Herco. It works very well with cast bullets. I tried it today with the NOE 311-179 PB (#315-clone) using my standard lube regimen. It worked very well, I think. The slight lateral spread might be a result of the wind; these slow, flat-nosed bullets would not be the best wind-buckers.




Now, I have a bunch of brass to size, and refill. But first- time to fire up the grill for some BBQ.
Some days, life is good.
Have a good one, guys!

 

[Wasalmonslayer]

Very nice shooting!
I enjoy spring mornings when’s it’s just a touch crisp and still calm.
Very rare in the PNW spring is always windy in our valley.

 

[fiver]

our wind doesn't usually come until it starts heating up for the day, then the lower elevations start sending their excess heat up through the mountain passes.
when the temps sort of settle in for the summer you can just about set your watch by when it starts blowing.

 

[waco]

Beautiful rifles and great shooting.

 

[Missionary]

Looks like your Marlin likes the "sledgehammer" ! Was the low round the first out the barrel?
Having the range to self makes a nice relaxed morning...

 

[Spindrift]

@Missionary
Yes, the «Sledgehammer» seems to be thriving!
I don’t know the order of impacts. The rifle is equipped with a 2-7x scope, with a slightly weird shotgun reticle, and I can’t see the individual impacts. I had shot one shot with another load before this group.

 

[Ian]

Leverguns have a lot going on with harmonics and the shooter's hold and rest techniques, it doesn't take much to get a little flyer now and then. MicroGroove rifling is as sensitive as any barrel there is to lube purge due to relatively high surface area, so there's that to consider as well. You did fine.

 

[Brad]

I agree with Ian. A leverguns is not intended to shoot better than minute of deer and yours certainly does.

I would be very satisfied with that group.

 

[Spindrift]

I certainly am satisfied with the Marlin group. Actually, I expect a bit of luck to be involved. I’ll see next time.

I had planned to shoot the NOE TLC311- 166 RD- bullet with 25 grs of Norma 200. Powder coated, sized .311. This is about 1 grain less than the listed starting load with 170 grs jacketed. But I got really sticky extraction, clearly to much pressure- stopped after one shot. Surprising. I’ll have to fall back a couple of grains.

 

[fiver]

not really surprising.
the cast bullet is much more efficient at blocking up the gas behind it.
it does get into the barrel a lot easier which helps, but plugged is plugged.

 

[Spindrift]

I understand. I had expected the ease of engravement (relative to jacketed bullets) to be more important than the effect of improved seal. So, now I have a few cartridges to disassemble. But all is not lost; I learned something important.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Quite gealious. Thanks for the vicarious range trip!!
CW

 

[fiver]

this internal ballistics stuff is kind of difficult to understand, and it throws out curve balls all the time.
you can actually exceed jacketed velocities with lead bullets but you can't really get there by using the same data sets.
then once you scoot over to chasing the cast goes faster thing you start killing your bullets shape or your efficiency drops too much and your back to just below those speeds again.

then the opposite happens when your working with those fast rifle powders, your still rearranging the shape of your bullet, but your pushing the pressure points again too.

partly because of the bullet shift, and partly because when it does putty up it spikes the initial pressure of the powder at the engraving point [not because of the engraving itself usually] which then spikes the powder to burn a bit faster which then makes gas faster and you have a pressure spike at the top of the [shortened] burn curve.
basically the powder just took a step towards the faster end of the chart.

everyone then blames it on the alloy.
which could have helped, as would going another 2 steps slower on the burn rate.
which leads back to my when is the bullet during the sequence thing.

 

[Ian]

What was that thread? Was that the one with the newish caster asking about harder alloy? We hashed out alloy and pressure dynamics pretty well there.

The other thing is friction. Even with PC I imagine the bullet wants to wedge in the bore when the back end reaches the putty stage and upsets into a full-blown moving obstruction.

 

[Spindrift]

The RD bullet, this is the one with the stepped nose, seems to fit the throat very closely. If I’m not mistaken, the bullet was designed exactly for this kind of throat. It is quite likely it gives a very tight gas seal. I’ve shot it before, with regular lube and slower powders in «middle of the chart» loads for jacketed, with no pressure spiking. I think slower powders is a good idea- I have plenty to chose from.

 

[Ian]

I had one of those, never could get it to shoot very well, but my rifle has been firelapped and has a less abrupt throat. It also had a terrible propensity to yaw. I think CW wanted it for his Ranch Dog collection and it went his way if memory serves.

 

[fiver]

if you think about it you'll see why I could get that 165-A bullet up to 2400 fps so easily in the 308.

the rcbs silhouette bullet was a lot tougher for sure and I really had to work the whole package for it to get up over 2-K with any accuracy.
I was really working the base of that bullet to tears getting the rifling engraved without blowing the base all to hell, even though I had like 80% of the bullet already in the barrel.
in hindsight I should have sprayed the base portion of the mold with some release agent and sized to 308 or so.

 

[Spindrift]

Just a little follow-up on the Marlin 30-30 microgroove, and the NOE311-166 RD- bullet. Last time, I experienced sticky extraction with starting loads Norma 200 for 170grs jacketed bullets. The Norma data have a narrow span, so I guess the «starting load» is a bit more inspired than what you’ll find with many other powder makers.

Today, I shot 3 5-shot groups with 24grs Vectan tubal-3000. This is an extruded single-base powder with a listed burning speed around «4895». The listed max. load is around 30 grs, a much larger span than the Norma data.

The load worked well. 2 groups at 2 MOA, and one slightly smaller. I’ll try tomoncrease rhe load a bit, to see if it tightens up some. But all things considered, I’m happy with these results from a lever carabine.

 

[popper]

Strange, N200 is close to Rx7, shouldn't have high pressure at that load. GRT shows them to be same (low) pressure wise, 25 gr. N200 may be hard to burn at low pressure, Norma doesn't say much about it. I used 29 gr 4895 in my marlin when I used the 311 RD, no problems.
As far a squishy alloy, this was 185GC RD ~ 1600 fps @ 50 with 1%Cu/Zn alloy,no Sb!

 

[Spindrift]

I’ve burned a fair bit of Norma 200 at reduced levels in the 30-06. For instance, 23-24 grs with a 220grs GC bullet works excellently. I don’t think the sticky extraction (which was surprising to me too) in the 30-30 load is due to erratic burn behaviour. Probably, the bullet is just extremely effective in sealing gas in this particular chamber.