Bass Ackward
Active Member
I used to treat a handgun like a rifle and clean too often. I met a guy that shot competition that really blew my mind. I thought I was bassackward. He had a scoped, RSR, in 44 Mag he used for Sillouette in Ohio. He came to our range with a clean gun and shot it. NEVER hit a 9" pie plate at 50 yards once. Me thinking I would help him, pulled out my white light & said, you're leading. He said, yea, wanna shoot it? I'm thinking all kinds of stuff but, I did with similar results. I had just rebuilt the backboard so it was virgin before he started & there was NO SIGN of grouping. So I asked him what he was loading & he was very open about it. He told me he was shooting a GC, 280 gr, LBT LFN outta linotype, sized .438. (no typo) I asked how big was his bore? He smiled & said .429. Said his throats were 4.34. I asked him why so big & he said cause it goes into the chambers. His line, "If it gozes inta the back, it comes out the front."
Well, all kinds of things are running through my mind, & he said, while I was thinking, shoot it. Cheapest shooting I was gonna do, so I did & wahoo I hit the pie plate twice. I gave it up as a lost cause, returned the gun to him, I smiled, gave him my vision of what he should do, & he listened politely, took the gun with a smile on his face & said thank you. He kept shooting & somewhere he started cutting holes on that pie plate. He moved on out to 200 yards & when he ran out of ammo, he produced a 4" group. I was dumbfounded. Flew in the face of cast bullet "rules". I checked the gun again & leading was cut WAY back. He laughed & said he wouldn't clean again until his season was over now & thanked me for my help.
Still blows my mind. But it taught me a lesson. You develop your loads how you're gonna use your gun(s). I cleaned my FA 357 cause it snowed, I was bored, & it hadn't been cleaned for at least 2500 rounds. (2 years) What a waste of time, cause there was ZERO leading. I cleaned cause, well, your supposed to, ain't ya? That gun will shoot a dogturd accurately if you can load it. But now I am stuck trying to get it back to shooting to the sights. Rick tells me at least 50 rounds. I now have 4, clean guns that shoot like crap. Gonna waste several rounds to get back where I was.
Well, all kinds of things are running through my mind, & he said, while I was thinking, shoot it. Cheapest shooting I was gonna do, so I did & wahoo I hit the pie plate twice. I gave it up as a lost cause, returned the gun to him, I smiled, gave him my vision of what he should do, & he listened politely, took the gun with a smile on his face & said thank you. He kept shooting & somewhere he started cutting holes on that pie plate. He moved on out to 200 yards & when he ran out of ammo, he produced a 4" group. I was dumbfounded. Flew in the face of cast bullet "rules". I checked the gun again & leading was cut WAY back. He laughed & said he wouldn't clean again until his season was over now & thanked me for my help.
Still blows my mind. But it taught me a lesson. You develop your loads how you're gonna use your gun(s). I cleaned my FA 357 cause it snowed, I was bored, & it hadn't been cleaned for at least 2500 rounds. (2 years) What a waste of time, cause there was ZERO leading. I cleaned cause, well, your supposed to, ain't ya? That gun will shoot a dogturd accurately if you can load it. But now I am stuck trying to get it back to shooting to the sights. Rick tells me at least 50 rounds. I now have 4, clean guns that shoot like crap. Gonna waste several rounds to get back where I was.