Yes, I promised a video. But I can’t get the damn thing to load.
Home on the Range
What a great day for a KatNap!
Or two!
🖐🏻 8 👫
Yup, been on a 10-day one. And worse, no shooting! Well, I fixed that today:
The Long Range just had its annual clearing and I may have been the first one to shoot. 76 degrees, humid, density altitude of 2473’, and a left to right light breeze.
I used the opportunity to wring out the Hornady 120 grain ELDM load. After doing the paperwork and weather, I loaded up and got going.
I’m very pleased with the round. It shot flatter than my Applied Ballistics program predicted by about 2 MOA at distance. Hits at 525, 829, 867, 875, 975 and 1,106. The wind did not seem to affect it any more than my standard 140 g loads.
And, after I was done, I did a drone tour of the newly cleared range. I just might post it soon!
Thumper Rule
Yup
Geek stuff – Reloading
This is about what a load of rifle powder should look like.
Well, “powder” is a misnomer. They actually are little cylindrical grains. Here’s one:
Now, serious reloaders trickle the last few of these into a case to make them all weigh the same. You measure your success with a chrono that tells you your muzzle velocity average, the standard deviation, and the extreme spread of muzzle velocity – fastest and slowest.
Standard deviation in the single digits and extreme spread in the teens is the Holy Grail – your rounds are very close to being identical.
I’ve loaded thousands of rounds and, as I trickle the last grain or two, I’ve often wondered what the difference a single grain could make. OK, yeah, very geeky.
Warning, simple math coming up.
I set my balance beam on one tenth of a Grain of powder (note weight unit versus description of a “grain” of powder). For Accurate 4350, a tenth of a Grain consists of 4 or 5 grains of powder. My best load for 120 g. 6.5 is 43.8 Grains, or 438 one tenth Grains. Multiplying that by 5 and 6 grains per tenth of a Grain gives 2190 and 2428 grains of powder per load. Dividing muzzle velocity of 2750 fps by the number of grains in a load gives 1.256 and 1.132 fps. So, every grain of powder contributes something over 1 feet per second.
Not much, huh? Ever hear of tolerance stacking? Remember, there are many other variables, such as bullet weight, case capacity, neck tension and primer capability, just as a few examples. When all those other tolerances are stacked up, that’s when you see standard deviation and extreme spread start to build.
Boy, that was geeky.
She’s right, you know.
Is it that time of the month already? Have an Aspirin.
The 150 and 200 yard Know Your Limits steel targets were harder. Who knew that a heavy downpour of rain would drop tiny little .22 bullets enough to miss the smallest target? But 7, 8, 6, and 7 still adds up to 28, for the win.
The best part was I was using my backup rifle, the Ruger Precision Rimfire, and Eley Tenex ammo that I hadn’t touched in at least two years.
And, the 10 year old kid from last month was not there.
Katurday
Back to load ladder test
I think I can say I’ve maxed out the Accurate 4350 powder – I’m not going to get more than 2800 fps with the 120 g. bullet and the 22” barrel. I also think that great load from the other day is the node:
Upper left – first two rounds were touching at a quarter inch, and hitting in the same spot as before, about a half inch right and half inch high. Then, what I think is a clear flyer. Everything else is around an inch. And I think I’m at the point where the slower burning powder has no more time to combust.
But it’s been a nice test. I’ll load up a bunch of the first and take it out to distance. See if the wind affects it significantly more than the 140s.
And I still think DJT is the laser pointer president.
KatNap Fever! 