Lodi results

[Distant Thunder]

When I got to the range Friday afternoon the first thing did was set up my little tent. As I was doing so, I got the poles in it so it would stand up and went to get the stakes from the back of my truck and when I turned around my tent had rolled away and had luckily come to a stop against a picnic table a short distance away. That's not the first time I've had my tent blow away either.

Once I got all my stuff inside it stayed put with no problem. Everything stayed "mostly dry" even with the wind driven rain.

[Kurt]

Jim,

\My loads are about the same except I use 85 gr of 1.5 Swiss and two .04" wads cut from a plastic ice cream bucket and I use a Fed LR GM primer.


I used a 1.456" PP the Sage bullet at Lodi and other matches and it stays stable. I used this bullet at Lodi last time and I asked after pit changes if my holes were round and they were fine.
I think that a lot of instability is from shank ogive unbalance. If the ogive gets to long compared to the shank you need more rotation to keep it stable. I saw this when Dan put the money bullet drawings and they started having moulds cut and it wasn't long that the 18 ROT 45's changed to 16 twists.
Here is an interesting thing I went through with my .38-50 forming the brass. I found a lot of vertical issues on and off and I started paying attention loading the shells. At first I had cases mixed in the coffee can I kept them in after cleaning them. Some cases were fired with full loads once and some 2-3 times and when seating the DD PP bullets some went in the case tighter than others and I marked the shells that had a tight bullet fit and the verticals showed on the paper as much as 4" at 200 yards out of the group.
Now that all cases are fully formed if one walked out it's usually me causing it or when casting the bullets some dross from the ladle spigot got poured into the mould causing unbalance. I don't weigh my bullets, haven't for a long time, but maybe I should it again.
When you start pushing these bullets out of a 17 twist at 1300 plus fps it don't take much to get them wobbling at the RPM they turn and this gets amplified when the winds kick up.
Kurt

[Distant Thunder]

"I have great confidence in the 1.35 long bullet I shoot in the 44 2.4
I would think that at 1.4 a .44 caliber bullet should with stand about anything Mother Nature can throw at it and still make 1000 on a stable flight path."

Don,

I believe you are correct in this. That is in effect what Brent did this past weekend. He shot 16-twist 77 Sharps but he didn't shoot his "long" prolate, he shot his shorter silhouette version of that bullet, the one he had made for his 18-twist high wall. He felt he has been having stability issues with the long bullet (1.520") and decided to go with the shorter bullet to take the stability issue off the table. It sure did work!

I don't think a 1.400" .44 caliber bullet is too short in a 17-twist and it sure isn't too long. It should weight 500 grains +/- 5 grains and that's enough weight.

I will be testing bullets somewhere around that length next.

[Don McDowell]

Jim short bullets are sometimes over looked
In 21 chip Mate made a hell of a run at the Desert international shooting a 450 gr bullet in his 45/90

Things that make you say hmmm