.38-50 Hepburn

[beltfed]

Ian,
So it is a straight sided PP Elliptical nose bullet.
That means that you could have the top face of the mold milled off to shorten the bullet
I believe the 1.47" length is pushing it for 12 twist to stabilize it fully.
Arnie

[ian45662]

It is straight sided and you might be right. I will play with it a little more but I do realize it is on the long side of things. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

[ian45662]

We will try the white paper tomorrow.

[Kurt]

Ian, they sure look good.
I have 60 ladder loads loaded using 2F OE, 3F OE, 3F Swiss and 1.5 Swiss.
We will be getting a warm up Tuesday up to 40º so it will be a good time to get this done. I should get the new mould in a couple weeks maybe so I want to give this 371-345 DD a run before I get the new one.

[ian45662]

It will be in the 40s tomorrow so I figure I’ll give this long bullet another shot.

[ian45662]

Some delicious 200 yard groups. Now I feel good about doing a ladder test

[Kurt]

Well Ian,

your long bullets shot better than my short bullets. I only shot 4 5 shot loads of different weight 3F Swiss and the best and they all were about the same using 62, 63, 64 and 65 grains of 3 F Swiss. The 63 and 64 gr loads were 3" and 3-1/4" @200 yds.
The 63 gr load had 3 that were under an inch but two found a different place to go.
I had three rounds I had to force into the chamber yet. But this is the third time these cases were loaded.
I have these cases cleaning now and when they get dry by morning I will load them again with a 5 round ladder load of 1.5 Swiss.
And also I'm loading some ladder loads with 2F OE.
I should have waited till noon to head to the range it got up to 38º, it was 29 when I started

[ian45662]

I am sure temps play into it.

[ian45662]

Here is another one I tried. This was 67 grains of Swiss 3F. I didn’t think it would work since it required the most compression but it was the best out of 3F loads. Although the other groups had 10 shots each they did get tighter as the compression increased.

[ian45662]

I am going to try these 3 loads at some sillywets next weekend. Sunday probably.