Winchester 73

[JKR]

After reading everything I could find that John Kort had written, I veered off the path and played with smokeless powder loads. I had bought a Lee mould to start with and in spite of it making a nice little bullet, the lube grooves are tiny. I could see right away that it wouldn’t be a suitable bullet for BP, especially in my less than pristine bore.
I have IMR 4227 and Alliance 2400 on hand and found 14 1/2 grains of either to shoot pretty well at 25 yards. Groups at fifty yards were a little sketchy however.

Today I got to thinking about the bullets that Arnie had sent me about a month ago. I hadn’t tried them because they lack a crimp groove. It finally occurred to me that a crimp groove isn’t really needed if the bullet is setting on top of a compressed load of black powder. I proceeded to load Winchester cases with 34 grains of my Swiss 1 1/2 and Arnie's HP bullet lubed with SPG and gas checked. What a pleasant surprise! 50 yard groups are about two inches, nice and round, and shoot to the sights.

I guess this is a case of the rifle telling me how things should be!

JKR