Wisconsin Rapids mid-range match with my .44-77.

[Distant Thunder]

I started out this morning just hoping verify the two 3-shopt groups I shot the other day with some more shooting at 220 yards before I started loading for the up coming 1000 yard match at Lodi. The plan was to shoot a 5-shot group with 92 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 lot #040313, which is my current lot, and that it would group well. Then I would load and shoot a 10-shot group and all would be good.

That is not the way the morning went for me. The 5-shot group was over 5"!

So I took the 6 cartridges I had leftover after Rapids on the 22nd and shot those which resulted in a 2 11/16" group. Not bad. These had 88 grains of Swiss 1 1/2 lot #18/01/2016, but I only have about 1/2 pound of this lot left. This load did shoot pretty well at 600 yards.

Because I have a good amount of Goex 2F I had also loaded 3 rounds with 87 grains just to see if it showed any promise in my .44-77. That gave me a 2 3/4" group. This is really the only other powder I have at this time that I could load in the .44-77. The group didn't look to bad, it was wider than it was high.

With these results I decided to explore the 2 Goex a bit more before giving up on the .44-77 for the match. In the past Goex 2F has shot very well for me when loaded with 1/4" compression and sparked by Federal 215 LR primers.

I did some math and came up with how much 2F would give me a 1/4" compression. With a little trial and error to supplement my math skills it worked out to be 91 grains. I loaded 3 of my 441505EPP bullets over 91 grains topped with a .060 LDPE wad in BACO brass and Federal 215 primers. At 220 yards those when into 2 1/2" wide and 3/4" high. It looked good enough that I decided to load 7 more and shoot those into the same group and see how it looked with 10 shots.

To my surprise to 7 shots went into the group very well, finishing with 10 shots in 2 3/4" wide and 2 1/4" high. At 220 yards that is just over 1 MOA and that ain't bad. I will probably load and shoot another 10-shot group with this load to verify but 10-shot groups are not usually flukes.

   

Over the years I have shot some incredible 3-shot and even 5-shot groups only to never be able to reproduce them at will, but never have I seen such a thing with 10 shots at 220 yards. Groups will vary plus or minus a little but a load that produces good 10-shot groups at 220 yards will usually repeat reliably. At least that is what I have experienced. This load looks very good to me.

If this load repeats the next step would be to shoot it at 1000 yards and see how it holds up. It's been a long while since I shot Goex in a Creedmoor match. I've shot it for silhouette fairly often, but it's been about 10 years or more since I've used it for Creedmoor.

Another thing I found interesting was that there seems to be less fouling with the 2F compared to the 1 1/2 Swiss. The patches push through much easier and the bore is clean with my normal 2 wet and 1 dry.