.38-50 Hepburn

[Kurt]

I'm not sure yet Ian. I hate to make two trips down there right now. I will miss Lodi unless I just shoot it on Sunday.

[ian45662]

More 38-50 testing today. 200 yards. As you can see this is 63 grains of Swiss 2F which is a ton of compression. Without that case extender that much powder wouldn’t fit. This was also with dry wrapped yellow paper which surprised me a little. I will try this load with wet wrapped yellow paper also. I shot this load against the 1.5 load that I used at friendship a few weeks ago which is the same load I used in Georgia and this load beat it by a hood bit. Wind was a little breezy also so that is really encouraging. Wiping was done with baco wipers. 2felts and a dry patch. Next weekend I may try even more compression along with some HDPE wads.

[Kurt]

I just made it home from the range. I fired 75 rounds of different loads. I will get them annualized and get the results posted.
I'm getting good results at 200 again today with a couple loads of 64 gr 1.5 and 3F swiss. But I will say putting a paper wad under the powder covering the flash hole and using a pistol primer I could hardly hold it on printer paper @200 or even just a pistol primer. It would not hold anyware close to rifle primer loads.

Ian I can get 66 grains of 1.5 in my cases shot twice and still have room to get a wad seated flush with the case mouth before compressing .150". My Winchester brass must have thinner walls.

[ian45662]

Yea this is Grafs bras. The Remington brass I have holds about 3 grains more

[Kurt]

It was a nice sunny day this morning and it got up to almost 50º so I took the Hep to the range and shot my last ladder loads to confirm the previous.
All in all they showed very close to the first couple ladder loads and this rifle has a taste for 1.5 Swiss and 3F Swiss and it sure does not like a are disk under the powder covering the flash hole.
All groups are 5 shot shore of a couple I only had 4 rounds. The winds picked up a little later I the afternoon but not bad.
I hope the pictures are good enough so the loads data can be seen.
This will end my work up with this rifle. It6 has been an easy rifle and caliber to get up and running to this point.
I will add, if your recoil sensitive this caliber is a cure for sure. I shot 81 rounds total today some at the swinger for Off hand and I felt no different from start to finish.
I really like this rifle and caliber.
I must say, I was a little apprehensive when I made a chamber cast and found this long .100"+ freebore compiled with a very shallow lead of about 1.5º but my ming is at ease now after working with it.
I just hope I can do it justice being behind the buttplate. I know this rifle can do it.

Kurt

[ian45662]

I put construction paper in the primer pocket. I do it basically to head space the shorter primer.

[Kurt]

This little .38 has been a head scratcher from time to time getting a good group at 200. all in all it has shot several sub MOA groups at 200 and the next time out they walked off a 8x11 printer paper sheet using the same loads.
This happen again yesterday with fine weather in the upper 40's and low wind below 10 mph and shot several targets with over 60 rounds fired and most targets were over 4 MOA, 8" @ 200 yards.
When I got home depriving the cases and cleaning them it hit me, these cases were out of the can that have just been formed with corn meal and fired once with a full load and trimmed for length.
Loading those cases using a DD bullet with the base at groove diameter I noticed seating those bullets some were a hard push getting them in the case mouth and some just snug so I expended the case neck just slightly to be able to seat the bullet with out tearing the paper and I just bumped the case taking the flair out with the neck die I made so it would chamber that put uneven pressure on the bullet. Well it showed it on paper. The Winchester .30-40 Krag cases the neck wall thickness is a very consistent .011" so the cases seated and the neck sized back down should not had uneven tightness when I twisted the seated bullets they had, so with that slight flair at the case mouth got tightened tighter on the bullet causing uneven release when fired.

Today I went back out to the range with some cases that were fired only once after the initial forming with corn meal and a load of unique and one load of black and a bullet. The second load, 4 rounds were loaded with cases that had two full black loads fired in them and the third load was loaded with 4 rounds in cases that were fired with full loads 4 times. All loads I used 64 grains of 1.5 Swiss and bullets cast with the same pot of alloy and the brass I annealed after every cleaning to get them formed. I usually don't anneal the brass after they have a proper fit in the chamber.
It was surprising what the groups looked like.
The bottom group was shot with just one full load. The center was shot with cases fired with two full loads and the top was fired with a full load 4 times.
Proper neck tension makes a difference. Today is was nice in the 60's but the wind is still blowing 30 MPH so I did not shoot the rest of the rounds. It was a good day to see how these little bullets hold the wind.

[beltfed]

Kurt,
That is good info about case neck tension to watch for.
So, far, with my cases that Bill Roumenie had formed from Rem 30-40 new brass apparently thru a 38-50 die, I have indeed seen some variation
in degree of difficulty in seating the patched bullets. One thing that has helped some is I am now running the patched bullets into a Lyman 0.379" bullet size die
to "iron " the patch at the base band.
I did actually neck anneal one 50 rd box of the formed brass from Bill. Shooting it I have not seen a distinct difference in performance. (Perhaps I have not been too studius
in studying the annealled vs the other brass.
Perhaps Bill can chime in here and let me know regarding his forming of the brass he provided with the rifle.
So far, I have not yet "cornmeal formed" more of my new RP Krag brass so I cannot report on that direction .
Arnie

[Kurt]

Arnie,

I don't see any difference between annealed brass and not. The only time I anneal is like I'm doing now forming necked cases to straight wall and I will do it twice after blowing the necks out so they are fully fitting the chamber.
I have to be very careful when I compress the powder so I don't catch the case and curl it down. The annealed case is very soft and it don't take much to roll that sharp edge down.
Once I finish forming I don't anneal again or run the case through a sizing die again unless I drop it or damage the case mouth then I will expand the neck and resize it with a taper crimp die.
I just got a chucking reamer and a taper reamer for this DD bullet to make a bullet push through die and I want to make a couple other dies and a press mounted wad punch that fits the groove diameter a little better than the punch I have now.
This is all your fault with this little .38-50 Arnie and it has been a fun ride I'm really enjoying You should never have let me shoot your rifle.

[ian45662]

I shot mine Sunday and it wasn’t good. Not sure what was going on but I am going to give it another try Friday