I would like to load my Hawken and leave it that way during the season for at least a week or so between hunts. My GM barrel really likes the Harvester Scorpions in 260 grains with the Crushed Rib sabots but only after a fouled barrel. I've posted what happens on the 1st shot and that isn't pretty (or acceptable) for hunting.
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I will not leave the barrel fouled with Pyrodex, so a couple of weeks ago I tried pouring flour down the clean bore, dumped it out, fired a cap, and it helped. Shot #1 was post flour.
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That was better, but still unacceptable. So I tried changing to the sabot which comes with the 300XTP's. It's a long petal sabot. I guess a HPH-12. Anyone know for sure? It made a nice difference on a clean bore shot two weeks ago, but still too low for an optimal hunting round. By clean bore I mean dry patched to remove oil then a cap fired to dry the bolster.
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So this weekend, I used both the long XTP sabot and bumped the grains of Pyrodex to 100 from 90. Now we're talking.
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It is difficult to test for 1st shot results because obviously after the 1st shot you can not test again until you have a clean barrel. This coming weekend, I'll repeat the 100 grains and the long sabot and take the 1st shot at the 100 yd target. If it finds the mark, this will be the hunting round with a follow up shot using the crushed rib sabot. I thought the impact of the sabot change might be of interest to others.
On another note, after 3 weeks of waiting, I canceled my order from Hornady of 300 XTP's in 44 cal. I can find them in the 20 pack locally. More expensive, but the ordering from Hornady experience was not a good one and I didn't think they deserved the business.
I was pleased with the group the 44-300's produced this weekend. It was unique in that I fired 5 shots without checking on the results to avoid the tendency with open sights of correcting for POA vs POI. After the 5th shot, I couldn't go to the target as others were shooting and couldn't tell thru a spotting scope where the 5th hole was. So I shot a 6th and still couldn't tell. When I got a chance to retrieve the target, the upper left hole has 2 bullets sharing the hole. The lower left appears to have taken the other but man it's hard to tell. I've never had this happen before.
Hawken
50 yds. open sights
300 - 44 cal. XTP
short sabot
6 shots
1 5/8"
90 Pyrodex RS
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So this weekend, I'll try the 300's with the long green sabots to hopefully raise the group a couple of inches.
Man this is fun.
Range experiments and other stuff
