Prep for going to BP

[Martini2]

Seems appropriate to show preliminary testing of new rifle with smokeless here. In another thread down at BPCR reloading is saga of preparing to shoot black powder silhouette, same new rifle and such.
First it is important to thank Buddy for donation of his shoulder’s help in this Experiment. In prepping the new Black Rifle for full silhouette match some brass had to be fire formed. The Bat Cave produced 100 pieces containing just one charge but three different projecteels. Info was taken from Lyman manual # 49 page 293. There are three 40-65 load tables shown. Oddly enough we just happened to have samples of each of the three casts. My own 410655 mold and Nick’s 410660 & 410663 molds provided the PB parts. The powder selected was SR4759 from Bat Cave hoard. The amount is from the tables and will not be disclosed? Data: Chrony showed AV. Of 1186 fps for current BP load of 2f GEOX. With 410655. In smokeless batch this same 410655/418gr = 1298 fps, the 410660/395gr. = 1308 fps, the 410663/409 gr. = 1328 fps. We split the hand loads each firing about 10 rounds per shift. Approx. ½ loads were at 200yd chicken silhouette (sized duplicated on paper). We finished up at 300 yds. on fresh but same sized targets. The attached photo is one of the unlucky chicks. In full disclosure there are additional peripheral impacts. However just like the political media today we have selected those important to our purpose. The beauty of the moment was once “Center Center” was tuned in the work produced the Peppered Chicken illustrated. Of course, area residence may know there was storm front brewing and we “enjoyed” gusty winds from 4-6 oclock during experiment. Note at lower left and right there are representative groupings with differ bullets. I wish to assure you there was some luck in that the wind held velocity and direction long enough to fire each of those series. One nice thing about the “breeze” is that while partner and I switched seated this Sharp’s 74 kept on ticking and barrel did not get overly warm. Actually the recoil of this 40-65 is not that bad. But pair firing gave wonderful chance to share the phun and get expert assistance. We applied post front sight for 200 yds. Work and switched to aperture front for 300 yds. Work. The other target not shown has good testament to wind & load conditions. There was a group fired that was only about 1 inch vertical but almost 8 inch horizontal. The fish tail winds were strong enough to remove gear off bench if not held down. It was truly a blast. Thanks again to friend for enduring this contest. While hunkered down while wind sought to tear our hair off we recalled similar conditions at Quigley ’12 match? Now the work will concentrate on replicating the accuracy with all BP. It ought to be more fun as to tell the truth all 100 smokeless rounds went down range sans any fussing or bore cleaning. After 100 rounds the bore was shiny and ready for more. Alas the operators were pooped? Brazos RobertB