This little bullet comes from Meister at 0.312" and has to be sized down to fit a .308 barrel. It is originally designed for the .32-20 rifle and is used in Cowboy Action shooting. However, at 1200 fps, it makes a nice little plinking load. Recoil is virtually non-existent, barely more than a .22. This load will shoot. It'll take a little fine-tuning, but it will shoot.After I got through playing with the Meister bullet, I wanted to chrony the 311041 load that I worked up with surplus 4895. The front sight on my Mod 94 covers six inches at 50 yards, so I used the bullseye to completely align with the bead on the front sight. When I had a perfect alignment, I squeezed it off. This target was shot at 50 yards.
My love affair with this bullet continues. My ability to cuss flyers is enhanced. Then I looked at the numbers. Avg 1892 with a standard deviation of 16. My ES is higher than I like it, but the group is wonderful. Four into one ragged hole, that flyer opening the group to 1.2". I'm through playing with this load. This becomes my woods-deer-hunting load for next year. All that is left to do now is load up a bunch of them and keep my eye in at different ranges.I'm looking forward to the practice.
Pawpaw, you done got yo'self a fine combination of a six cavity mold and elcheapo surplus powder. Whadaya reckon it costs per round? 4 cents?
ReplyDeleteNaw, not that cheap. That powder came in the door at $8.00 a pound. With primers at 2.5 cents and gas checks at 1.2 cents we're up to 3.7 cents already. I figure that the powder costs 3.1 cents for that load, so we're up to 6.8 cents per load before we figure in time and energy and lube. I'm still using the LLA that came with other stuff, so it was free. And a Pawpaws time ain't worth nothing, so that is free too.
ReplyDeleteLets say 6.8 cents per load. To make that into something people can appreciate, that comes to $1.36 for a box of 20 cartridges. Ain't recycling grand?
Can't read your notes on the target, so I don't know how heavy the bullet is that you're using, but if you're averaging 1892fps, you must be getting energy in the range of a .357 shot from a carbine barrel of 16" (like my Marlin 1894C).
ReplyDeleteI COULD hunt with that weapon, but prefer my Savage 99E in .308 for a brush-buster.
Practicing with handloads makes good sense, because the more you can shoot, the better you will be, but I wouldn't carry a solid-lead round in the field.
Not when there are so many good hi-expansion softnose rounds for your lever-guns, I wouldn't. SilverTip is hard to beat, as is PowerPoint or the new plastic-tipped levergun rounds.
I don't know the range y'all hunt deer at down in LA, but if it's the usual 100 and under for brush country, the levergun loads built by the factory are more likely to bring down the game AFTER penetrating the brush than a reduced-load will.
It's all about clean kills, and for those, I leave the loading to the pros, even though I used to brew up a .308 load with the power of a 30-30 that was so sweet to shoot....
rvrdog, Pawpaw's lead bullet is the Lyman 311041 at about 175 grs ready to load. That lead bullet with its big meplat has been cleanly killing deer for at least 75 years.
ReplyDeleteUsing your logic, a fellow shouldn't hunt with a 308 if there's a 300 mag in his gun rack.