Half a grain, who'da thunk...

[Hopalong]

So, I've been recovering from a hip replacement. Should have been a great time to catch up on things, but I really couldn't sit in a normal chair for six weeks. But I'm up and about and decided it was time to do a bit of reloading for the 450.

Nice day, high 70s early, some mildly gusty wind out of the east, but not bad. 16" barrel FWIW and I hadn't yet found the sort of accuracy some folks have enjoyed... I did just replace a fairly shitty trigger with a nice Geissel though.

I started with a slightly modified Hoot load. 225gr FTX, 39.5gr Li'l Gun (exta powder to make up for the short barrel), Rem 7 1/2, COL 2.175, taper crimp. 2239 fps avg, 195 fps spread, SD 79. Numbers didn't seem great, but for one flyer it shot 1.2". Frankly, the best my gun has shot...

I also shot some of the 225gr COP bullets that look like a Barnes of some sort. Same load specifics, 2345 fps avg, 230 spread, SD 86. Grouped 1.9", which is about the best I've gotten with that bullet as well.

Now for the test, the 300gr JSP blems i got from Midsouth. I hadn't had much luck getting them to shoot. Some of the folks thought I wasn't pushin them fast enough, so I added some powder.

Specs: 40 gr 1680, COL 2.175, Rem 7 1/2, taper and stab crimps. 1890 fps avg, 90 spread, SD 38. Not bad numbers, but it shot a 4.2" group. Crap... I had 10, but didn't have the heart to shoot more than five, figuring I'd use them for fouling rounds or something. And I had five more with the same basic specs but a half grain more powder. Chrono: 1929 fps avg, 67 spread, SD 33.

Wow...

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[Hoot]

That's great Hop! Those 300s take a lot of RPM to tighten up. I'd hazard a guess that our 1:24 barrels are not optimum for that weight, but within the window of reasonable results. More so for the 16" barrel than the 20". I'd say to play with the COL to see if you can focus that beam a little tighter, but be careful with how long a COL you use with some of those 300s. It's possible to load some of them into the lands, when seated to maximum COL. What you achieved is more than adequate for hunting, so if that's where you were going with the experiment, you can just stop also. For me, it's like eating cashews. Hard to stop until I'm dabbing the crumbs out of the bottom of the bowl with a moist index finger.

Hoot

[kottke_35]

Same thing happened to me with the 300 grain deep curls. Not my preferred bullet load combo but it works.

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Half a grain less and the group was like a shotgun pattern with an open choke! It was about 3.5 inches.

Nice job tho. That's a good group!

B.

[Hopalong]

I may play a bit with COL, but I'm not sure at which point I gain accuracy from a longer bullet and lose accuracy with a decreased neck tension and poor powder ignition. I guess I need to figure out if that's a road I want to go down, it would be interesting info. I don't think I have to worry about pushing the bullet into the lands, but I'll check it with my handy Hornady COL tool.

Maybe I'll work some quarter grain powder increments too, just because I can't leave well enough alone. I'll probably load a few of these up, anyway, just so I have a known load. I need to work on my longer range gun some too and it seems like the summer is evaporating...

Hop