New to Me Toy

[fiver]

go with a simple 3" black/green/red dot or square.
if you can get the dot to be @ the same width as your front sight when your looking at it from the bench your aiming errors will be smaller.
bright colors wash out and orange will trick your eye, it will look bigger but can be fuzzy.
your looking for the front sight to come up under the dot and stop so you see a crossed T shape.
if the dot is the same width [or even slightly smaller] as the sight you can keep the sight from wandering under it.
once you get the sight alignment thing under control you can branch out into other targets and stuff.

 

[Cherokee]

I use a 1/2" bright red dot on a buff background, but I'm using a scope, not open sights. I like fiver's square and size suggestion for open sights.

 

[Reed]

Fiver, makes sense. Thanks.
Reed

 

[quicksylver]

Or you can use a "shoot N C" target on a white piece of paper ...excellent deffinition..

Fiver right on with the target being the same size as 6he front sight...

Me..
I use the smaller 3" targets at 100 yds ..makes a nice little dot on top of the post..and will eliminate some if not most of the errors in elevation...

 

[quicksylver]

BTW...you can go on ebay and for a few bucks buy another ladder sight D&T the aperture and install a Merit or some other aperture. .

 

[Reed]

Or you can use a "shoot N C" target on a white piece of paper ...excellent deffinition..

Fiver right on with the target being the same size as 6he front sight...

Me..
I use the smaller 3" targets at 100 yds ..makes a nice little dot on top of the post..and will eliminate some if not most of the errors in elevation...

Dan, you mentioned those in a post about the corrugated plastic your range uses for target backers, so I ordered some to try. I also bought a piece of the corrugated plastic. I've already tried that out, and I agree with you. I think things do stand out slightly better. The Shoot N C arrived yesterday, and I look forward to trying them tomorrow.

I also rediscovered a VERY old Lee C312-185R single cavity mold that I forgot I had. Until the 1917 found its way to my house, I never had a need for it. It makes pretty round bullets! Nose is .302 x .3025 and drive bands are .312 x .3125. I had to seat them a little deeper than I wanted, with the GC just past the neck, but I loaded up 20 and am going to test them tomorrow.

 

[fiver]

I use the cream/tan colored small bore 25 yd targets.
and even the old daisy air gun targets.

my eyes don't do well in super bright or reflective light.

 

[Reed]

An Improvement
Today I tried out the .312 bullet I mentioned above. Here's my best result. Dan, your suggestion for a larger bullet is good, I think, although I also shot a couple groups that were worse than the group I posted earlier with the RCBS 180 FN. No need to show those today. Still working on sight picture, and judging from the two different locations of the groups, I may see the different colored bulls differently. These are slightly wider than the front sight at 50 yd. Next time 100 yd.

 

[quicksylver]

Better. YES....

GET RID OF THE FILLER...PROBABLY RUINING GROUPS...

filler is used for slow powder only....4895 , Varget.4350 etc...

 

[Reed]

Thanks. I was kind of on the fence about 4198. Same advice for 3031?

 

[quicksylver]

Yes...and fore all b the rest of the powders..I followed all the instructions with dacron and only found that it blew all my groups..

I can shoot sub MOA in all my milsurps w/o a filler using 4895. 4064,Varget....

This is not to say others have not been successful using them ..I tried them in everything and just didn't see an inprovement

 

[Reed]

Good to ponder. Do you usually tip your rifle up before shooting, then? I've experienced what I think is position sensitivity when I've tipped up, then forgotten on the next shot. Seems like my groups grow larger and velocity becomes inconsistent when I'm not consistent with the tipping thing, with even 2400.

 

[fiver]

even unique can be position sensitive in some instances.
2400 for sure is in the 0-6.
4227-4198-Rl-7 may or may not be.
I know H-322 will be very ignition sensitive without a filler and will string vertically. [with velocity variations up to 150 fps]

I try to avoid fillers, but in some instances they cannot be ignored.
if your gonna work with them do so from the beginning, or use them to predict your next powder step.
[make a step without and with a filler then bring the powder up and the filler again, at some point you'll see the need for filler goes away and you can move along from there in normal powder steps]

 

[Reed]

At the risk of repeating myself, this forum is awesome. I've gained so much more perspective since I began asking questions. This is the kind of education that money can't buy. Again, thanks for all the responses.

 

[fiver]

oh money can buy it.. trust me.
a box of gas checks and a couple of jugs of powder will learn you lots if you pay attention to the outcome.

it's kind of fun to take a gun and do a bottom up workout with it.
you start with the fastest powder from one company and step up through their powder speeds maintaining a pressure window of about 35-45-K and observe the velocity and groups until you hit a wall.
then you try to figure your way around that wall, and work until you hit the next one and keep on working at it.
pretty soon you have about a dozen different loads but you will have one clear accuracy winner somewhere in the middle.