Awhile back I checked a couple loads in my old JC Higgins 51-L 308. Didn't have anything working, changed scopes and still not good. Chalked it up to an old rough barrel that I'd smoothed the throat a bit and just worn out. I've even checked on a couple replacement barrels, bought it originally to turn into a 7x57. Well today I was digging around in the stash and found some PC'd 165 Plain Based Ranch Dogs I had loaded over 28.5 H4895 a couple years ago and decided I'd better get them shot up before pulling the barrel. Guess what? It still shoots decent.
100 yards from a clean barrel.
What the heck, shot a couple groups with the Grandson's practice load, 10 gr Universal over the same bullet. Not quite as good, but it gets shot mostly at 50 yards offhand anyway. That got me to thinking, I dug around and found some 150 gr Hornady Interlocks over a healthy charge of Varget. I didn't clean the lead residue or anything, just shot them.
11" vertical difference in POI, but who cares if it's going to shoot like that. Guess I better postpone any barrel work on this one.
100 yards from a clean barrel.
What the heck, shot a couple groups with the Grandson's practice load, 10 gr Universal over the same bullet. Not quite as good, but it gets shot mostly at 50 yards offhand anyway. That got me to thinking, I dug around and found some 150 gr Hornady Interlocks over a healthy charge of Varget. I didn't clean the lead residue or anything, just shot them.
11" vertical difference in POI, but who cares if it's going to shoot like that. Guess I better postpone any barrel work on this one.
