Range report

I went out and shot the 311041 bullets through the Winchester 94 today. Results were fairly disappointing, yet illuminating. The bullets were all treated alike, lubed with Lee Liquid Alox, gas checked, sized to 0.309, then lubed again. The brass was prepped by neck-sizing, trimming, flaring and cleaning primer pockets. I primed the brass with Winchester large rifle primers and loaded them with surplus IMR 4895 powder. I was shooting off the bench, with iron sights at 50 yards. The results are below.

311041 results- Win 94- 05/13/06
Surplus IMR 4895	5 shot	4 shot
25.0 grs	3.7"	n/a
25.5 grs	3.1"	n/a
26.0 grs	4.0"	n/a
26.5 grs	3.4"	2.2"
27.0 grs	2.4"	1.6"
27.5 grs	5.0"	n/a

I included a 4 shot and a 5 shot measurement to take flyers into consideration. The two groups where I gave a 4 shot measurement, the flyer was obviously outside the group. With the other targets, they were uniform in distribution. Flyers will make a good man cuss.

It looks like with my alloy, the 311041 likes 27.0 grains of 4895. This is a load I can count on. The sights on the Winchester subtend about 4 inches at that distance, so it is shooting into the front sight.

I finished the day by shooting my service pistol, a Kimber custom. It still shoots reliable into 3 inches at 25 yards. Not great by any means, but not shabby, either. I burned 150 rounds of ammunition, the last hundred by cranking off seven shots as quickly as I could. I was able to keep all the shots on an 8.5 X 11 piece of paper at 25 yards. That is okay for service accuracy and will help my score when we qualify next month. Now I have to reload all that brass.

Y'all have a great weekend.

Update: Junior is my editor and found some nomenclature problems. They've been resolved. Thanks, Junior!