daizee

Today I shot another batch, identical to the last one, but with Lee Alox in addition to the standard lube. They shot the same, and were also leady. Maybe a little less so, but not enough to warrant the trouble next time. Looks like I'll have to bump up the powder again for these bullets. It's too bad because 1025fps is my sweet spot. If I had a 3" revolver I'd aim for 1000fps from that length tube and anything on top from my 4-5/8" would be just gravy.

-Daizee

daizee

Finally, after many distractions, I got to test another batch.

APatriot kindly provided some bullets for testing.
The ones I loaded for today were LEE 158gr Flat Nose bullets, with no shoulders at all. They mic'd around .359-.3595 on my instrument. They are the first bullets that are too big to fall through my Blackhawk cylinder. They looked VERY nice and clean. A first rate casting job by AP.

The loading went smoothly. I avoided the FCD.
Powder was 5.5gr of Universal - a smidge higher than the previous load since these bullets have a shorter base to the crimp groove. Cases were the same R-P .357, and primer was Winchester standard small pistol.

I did NOT chrony these rounds, unfortunately. Time was short so I didn't pack the chronograph. Estimated velocity is 1050fps. A very nice-shooting load.

In short, they shot VERY well, but were a bit leady forward of the forcing cone. The chambers were rather clean.

I'll walk you through my range session so the pictures make sense.

There were 30 rounds total, two paper targets, and some steel poppers.
Paper targets were at 20yds. Poppers varied in distance.

First I stood up and shot two-handed at the first target just as a warm-up.
The group was about 8" in size, quite high, and one even missed the paper. About as bad as I've ever shot. However, that was just the warm-up.

Then I settled down to the bench to test accuracy on target #2.
WOAH! These shot WELL!
Not to jinx it, I stood up and unloaded the next cylinder at the poppers, connecting with every shot. Mmmm, confidence. :-)

Then back to the bench target to see if things were still happening.... yep! another 6 rounds, nice cluster!

Feeling better about things, I took the last six rounds and fired at my original offhand target, standing two-handed. 5 of 6 in the black, one a little bit high, but not much. WOO!

Cleaning revealed fairly clean chambers - likely due to the snug bullet fit. The brass was reasonably uniform in dirtiness. Primers indicated comfortable pressures.

The leading in the rear of the barrel was probably about the same as the previous bullets. More pressure may be required for this exact bullet alloy. Or perhaps there's an unavoidable leading problem when the chambers are nearly .003 larger than the grooves.

Here are the pix. All shooting was done with a 6-o'clock hold. The gun is sighted to hit at POA at 25yds from the bench, so bottom of the bull is exactly correct. As is typical, shooting offhand my POI rises about 2". This is just about as intended:

1: Target 1. The stuff up in the air is my casual warm-up set plus 1 round from my last cylinder. All standing, two-handed. The first messy group put two in the black and one off the paper. The final group put 5 in the black and one high.



2. Two cylinders from the bench. The widest spread, subracting the one high flyer, is 2.5". I think that's about as well as I can shoot with this sight radius, trigger, and these eyes.




3. Two bullets recovered from the steel targets. I *think* these are the ones I shot today. There were other similar ones, but flatter as if they were from the nice nickled magnum cases I scavanged from the brass bucket.



-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,
Thank you for the kind words.

Your groups are much tighter. Leading has lessened. You have made substantial progress!

daizee

AP, your help has been invaluable!
One great result of this last batch of testing was recovering a great deal of confidence with this pistol. I was very rigorous with my grip and trigger technique too, which now that I think about it may have benefit from a couple hours of vigorous exercise the that and the previous morning. After months cooped up, a couple bike rides settled me down a bit.

-Daizee