1'st of the Spring

[Eric Johanen]

Yesterday was the first time out for the 2019 season. I have not shot since the end of November as our winter was really rough. Not a single day where it was nice enough to teach me something, My C. Sharps 74, 34 inch standard octagon barrel, 45-70. target is the 300 yard reduced to 200 off cross sticks, benched. 3 bullets, 3 loads. BACO #459530M1 Money Bullet, Un-sized, pan lubed. Money bullets were seated with the 1'st lube groove exposed, 73.0 grains Swiss 1.5 and 73.0 grains of OE 1.5. CCI BR2's in neck sized Winchester brass. BACO #444540M and #444530E patched with .002 100% rag paper and 85.0 grains of Swiss 1.5 ( This is an old lot that is of light density). Sighter #1 using the greaser Money Bullet was in the white at 9:30 middle 7 ring. 2"nd the middle 8 at 9. One more sight correction and shot for group. I did not make anymore adjustments for the rest of the string. 4 mistakes due to poor sight alignment. The rest in the 9 or better. Pleased with the results after a very long layoff.    

[Randy Bohannon]

I just had a similar day with my 30” Shiloh 45-70 at the 200 yd line. I had 85 rounds of 540 gr. PJ 45-001 Creedmoor .60 LDPE wads I had loaded nearly 10 yrs ago. They shot as good as ever with the same fouling control using a blow tube which I had not used in about as long. We’ve been cold for a long time now ground is barely thawed with a little green up. Any day to shoot is a good day.

[Eric Johanen]

The pp loads were fresh and the greaser's were probably 2 years old as I have not done much with that style of bullet in quite awhile. Nice to see that they still land in the middle. It was interesting that all loads shot to the same POI. I was a little surprised at that. Of course my last shot was in the white @ 12.30 with a paper patch bullet. Oh well, next time!

[desert deuce]

The pp loads were fresh and the greaser's were probably 2 years old as I have not done much with that style of bullet in quite awhile. Nice to see that they still land in the middle. It was interesting that all loads shot to the same POI. I was a little surprised at that. Of course my last shot was in the white @ 12.30 with a paper patch bullet. Oh well, next time!

Funny you should mention vintage ammunition. When the Triple Crown Match was announced I figured it would take at least 400 rounds of 45-90 to shoot through. Since I had a pretty good residue of left over ammunition and not near that many (400) empty cases I had to figure out something. The match of course was the end of February to March 8th so I looked through left over lots of loaded ammunition from previous matches going back to 2014 and took inventory. Fortunately, living in Southern Arizona I was able to wait for cooler days in December and January to shoot some of the left overs in practice and reload those cases before going to Phoenix. All vintage lots shot just fine at 1,000 yards in practice and in the match. Combining left over lots with reloaded empty brass I had enough to shoot the match if I used three different rifles. So that's what I did. One rifle in Creedmoor, another in Mid-range/Long Range and still another in the 1,000 yard world championship. All ammunition used grease groove bullets. All long range rounds were money bullets cast 1-16 alloy, Mid-range cast 1-20 Saeco #745. The plan worked just fine.