What Did You Shoot Today?

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Rarely, purchase anything but promotional 22LR ammunition. Most is consumed in three Ruger semi automatic pistols for plinking.

As far as, rifles go, always had decent groups from any of the CCI line. Blazers being the preference, as well as, the least expensive. Keep in mind, I don't benchrest test for groups. I shoot sitting, with just a camera tripod, for a front support at 60 yards...................the way I hunt. I don't hunt squirrels. Mostly, use the rifles for dispatching a racoon that been raiding the birdfeeders.

I glanced in my saved target binder and did find a ten shot, one inch group, shot many years ago with my stock Ruger 10/22 and Wildcat 22 LR ammo. Ammunition purchased, back when Target use to sell ammunition, in Detroit area. CCI mini mags did almost as well, in the Ruger. Stingers shot very high.
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The 9422 did best with Federal Match & WW Super X. Promotional shells like Blazers, Wildcats, Federal Lightning & American Eagle were all close seconds.

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BTW, the Boy Scout Commemorative was X-mas gift from Cindy in the 80's.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
You've got me thinking, Mr. Ross, that I need a different 10/22 accuracy approach. Instead of shooting multiple brands and flavors, each session, it might be better to start with a clean barrel, shoot just one brand's flavor, then clean the barrel in preparation for the next session.

I've not shot the rifle much, but my downsizing project brought it more to the shooting order's forefront. Two brands and flavors it's never cared for are Remington's Thunderbolt and CCI's Mini-Mags. The Thunderbolts taught me to not buy a brick without first testing a box. I gave my local friend and occasional shooting pard 200 Mini-Mags, because his 10/22 loves them. However, he's installed a Kidd bull barrel and Magpul stock, though at today's prices I'd be money ahead buying a Ruger American rimfire.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Stingers are tough on a 10/22 that has the factory steel pin bolt buffer.
Since the Stingers shot several inches high, pretty much quit using them, after the initial test firing. Have most of a brick left. They are now dedicated to the tiny Ruger LCP II that Cindy totes around the property.

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Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Today was the VT match at Wilton. Round discs set at 100, 150, 200 and 300 yds and 2 offhand shots at a meerkat at 400. Last night I decided I was going to shoot the entire match offhand with iron sights. Well, the wind was blowing a gale when I got there and I chickened out on shooting offhand.

We were assigned 300 yds to start. I had a aperture in the 17A and that was a mistake. The best parallel I can give is the aperture was a porthole and the target was the head of a pin. And it was my smallest aperture. I ended up hitting 2 out of 10 targets. I did a great job of just missing at 7:00 and 5:00, switching sides with each shot. I would crank up some elevation and the bullets would go into the same spots on the berm. The wind was having a lot of fun with us, today.

Put a short post in and that made a world of difference. It allowed a 6:00 hold and the post was the width of the targets. This let me hold left or right for the wind condition and up or down when the wind was a headwind and we had short berms in front of us causing vertical winds. I hit all 10 at 100, 7 at 150 and all 10 at 200. Everyone was commenting that this was the worst wind they ever seen there. But I remember having days like this back in the BPCR days where the smoke from your rifle was gone before the boom reached your ears.

I made chili for the shooters and it was all gone when the last shooter left. We lost our cook due to health issues. His assistant has also been absent for some time now. Found out he bought a house next door to an old friend so I assume he's been fully embroiled in moving. Might smoke a port butt for next month. Depends on the weather and my ambition.
 

Ian

Notorious member
The temp climbed up to 46 and I'm home from work now (head start on next week, I told 'em I ain't working on Black Friday), so I'm gonna step out to the range with a couple of ugly black rifles that need to be sighted in.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Meh. My "good" AR shot a 4" pattern at 100 yards with my bulk stock of Federal 55-grain boat tails. Got the other upper sighted in with old Winchester 5.56 ball, it actually didn't shoot poorly (just over an inch at 100 with a 3-MOA red dot) but more than half the primers fell out just like in every other chamber I've ever fired them in. I guess those whole two 50-caliber cans full of the stuff is just no good.

Pretty sad when my full-power cast bullet loads shoot better than cheap factory jacketed stuff.
 

BBerguson

Official Pennsyltuckian
Shot my new FX Impact 25 caliber air rifle. It was a little cold outside, 25 degrees, but I was warm inside my wood shop and shooting out the window. Playing around with one of the adjustments on the gun and three different types of pellets. Shot at 50 and 80 yards. So relaxing, shooting without ear protection, 65 degrees. I need to get some lights on the targets so I can shoot after dark…
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Last night I ran 50 of the new-to-me Lee 452-230 truncated cones through the Lyman 4500 and loaded 10 rounds each with
6.0-grains of WSF
5.0-grains of Bullseye
6.2-grains of Herco
5.7-grains of SR 7825
5.5-grains of Unique

The Herco load and the Randall off-hand from 10-yards.
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richhodg66

Well-Known Member
Re-zeroed the Ruger American in 6.5 Creedmoor. I had been playing with it using various cast bullets this year, so pulled out the last nine rounds loaded up from the last two deer seasons. Took two groups to bring her back on, then loaded up 20 more with the same load, cheap PPU 140 grain boat tails with a surpising amount of exposed lead in the nose (terminal performance on last year's doe was very good) and 35 grains of IMR 4320. Gonna miss that powder when the last of it is gone, darn useful stuff.

I bought that Ruger to satisfy my curiosity about both the 6.5 Creedmoor and the bottom rung bolt rifles so poular now. I have to admit to being impressed, it shot very well with no effort at all right from word GO. Lighy, handles well, accurate, easy to shoot, about the only thing I can find fault with it is that it's ugly as a bowling shoe, but I can live with that.
 

BBerguson

Official Pennsyltuckian
Last night I ran 50 of the new-to-me Lee 452-230 truncated cones through the Lyman 4500 and loaded 10 rounds each with
6.0-grains of WSF
5.0-grains of Bullseye
6.2-grains of Herco
5.7-grains of SR 7825
5.5-grains of Unique

The Herco load and the Randall off-hand from 10-yards.
View attachment 30790
I like this bullet in my 45acp’s. Powder coated they still chamber perfectly unlike some round nose molds.

Believe it or not, the bevel base accepts a gas check and they shoot pretty well in my 450 Bushmaster. Actually better than any other cast I’ve tried.
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Nice looking crimp. I shot a lot of Herco in my .45 ACP using the old Lee 228 round nose in IDPA competition. Everyone bitched about the smoke and stink, I thought it was funny. After several years the level in the keg wasn't going down much and I ended up switching to Universal for the 230s. 231 was the best, back before Hodgdon bought Winchester powder and put HP-38 in both jugs.

I just realized we got two Rich H. 1966 models here. Anyway, I have a surplus of good IMR 4320 that works ok in a lot of cartridges but just doesn't shine with any cast bullet load I've tried yet. One day I'll probably find it's the perfect thing for some future endeavor and then be sad I can't get any more of it. The smell is unique and some of the best aromatherapy there is to me.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Nice looking crimp.
Thanks to Bill (Pistolero) writing about it and you experimenting with it. The performance of that Lee taper crimp die is right up there with their collet neck sizing die. I set it for a .467" crimp and that's what it delivered for those 50 rounds.

Herco has given great Randall accuracy with the Lyman 452374 and 452460, as well as the New Vaquero and the Lee 358-158 RF.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
Herco in the 357 Lever rifle under a 158...
under a 240 in the 44 mag too.

i almost cried when i had to cut the top off the big red can [Keg] to get the rest out, my grief was some assuaged by finding a dusty cardboard container at a get it out of my shop and try not to dance on the way to your truck price.
 

richhodg66

Well-Known Member
I had good luck with IMR4320 and cast in my .358 Winchester, 40 grains and the RCBS 200 grain flat nose.
 
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oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
Sighted the new S&W 22Victory with the Dot today. 2 diff ammos shoot <1" groups same POI at 10 yds. Where we shoot most of our matches. The Smith looks like it is much less finicky about ammo than the old Ruger MKII Govt. But damn, I LOVE that Govt Ruger! I do still need to put the TK trigger on the Smith. Hoping that will add improvement.

Also shot (again) the Redhawk 45 Auto/Colt today. Trying to determine if it will shot my 230 ~.452 commercial cast well through the .453.5" throats. Today it did. It def likes the .454" 454190 in 45 Colt! Replaced the spring; think a trigger job will help a bunch too.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Thanks to Bill (Pistolero) writing about it and you experimenting with it. The performance of that Lee taper crimp die is right up there with their collet neck sizing die. I set it for a .467" crimp and that's what it delivered for those 50 rounds.

Herco has given great Randall accuracy with the Lyman 452374 and 452460, as well as the New Vaquero and the Lee 358-158 RF.
Funny you mention that. When we were having that discussion with Bill,he mentioned that there was another suitable early RCBS taper crimp die on ebay. I located it that night by his description and bought it. I was already using early carbide case sizing dies to get better sized bases on auto pistol cases, especially 9mm. The early sizing dies had much less of a bevel at the entrance because they were made before progressive presses came about. The late dies often have huge bevels to allow progressive presses to be run faster.