Lucrezia and the greaser's

[Eric Johanen]

    Mid-day on the range with my 50-90 "Lucrezia". MR-42 300 reduced posted at 200 yards and shooting off the bench. She is a C. Sharps #2 heavy 30 inch barrel with open sights. Semi-buckhorn and one of Stephen's Hartford front sights. The 1'st load I shot used Accurate 50-660P with 100 grains of Swiss 1 fg and a 1/4" lube wad. The bullet is just a little to large in the nose to seat without using the pusher. I could not see any real consistency. Several shots in the middle and then one out in the weeds. I believe the bullet is not sable in the 1/26 twist. I will not test this bullet further. Then I ran the Accurate 51-550S. Shots A was fired with the leaf down using a 6'Oclock hold and then I flipped up the leaf and used the 6 O'clock hold again . B,C and D (C and D printed just below the front sight blade.). Held 1/2 the black and the following 15 shots printed as shown in the bottom of the black. I lost 2 shots left in the 8 ring by not centering the blade. The inside 9 and the low 6 I did not get the front blade elevation correct. That nice little cluster occurred when I got thing right. These were shot in two ten shot strings with no fouling control. The 51-590S are not sized and pan lubed. The bullet carries plenty of lube and the nose is just the right size to seat out the first driving band exposing one grease groove. Cartridges chamber over the fouling with no real resistance using just light thumb pressure. They chambered just as easily on the 10th round as the first. I do have to clean up the leaf sight notch a bit to improve definition and clean up the U for appearance. I believe this load will work in the field and on steel. Very nice not to have to use the blow tube or cleaning rod and patches. A couple of breaths up the breach or down the muzzle and I think this load could shoot all day long. Pretty good fun today!!