"Oddly, it was the dud like fires which were printing higher, I don't have the answer for that one."

This is not odd at all, IF indeed the "dud-like fires" were going significantly slower than the others. What happens is that the longer barrel time of the slower bullet permits the muzzle to rise more in recoilthan does when the bullettravels faster. Thismakes the slowerbullet hit higher on the target than the faster one, even though its' drop is greater. I have seen this same effect in my old mannlicher-Schoenauer .270 when shooting the old 170-grain Speer round-nose bullets when the gun was zeroed with 130-grain Noslers. The 170 grainers hit about 4" ABOVE the 130 grain bullets at 100 yards. This despite the fact that the 170's were going about 400 FPS SLOWER than the 130's.

This effect is very pronounced in hand guns!

"Did you see Elquedello's target using 140 grains of Clean Shot? Very good group, but alot more powder than I care to use. Elquedello eats two or three bowls of wheaties , I eat one if I'm lucky."

Phil, that 140-grain charge is a lot more than I care to use, as well! That powder was GOEX "ClearShot FFFg", not Cleanshot,the precursor of APP. I had tried ClearShot FFg, and it was abysmally weak!. It gave velocities a full 20% to 30% under what I was getting with other powders using the same volume. I contacted GOEX about that problem, and they said "use the FFFg size, and more of it". So I got someClearShot FFFg, and worked up to the velocity level I had been getting with 120 grains of Pyrodex RS.

It turned out that it took 140 grains of the ClearShot FFFg to get back up to1700 fps with the Maxiball!

BTW, the reason I was fooling around with ClearShot at all is that I had previously discovered that the stuff is indeed "non-corrosive", as I fired an old clunker rifle (.45 cal. Navy Arms Hawken Hurricane) ten times with a load of it, then stood the riofle in a corner for two weeks uncleaned after shooting. This was here in S. PA in hot, humidAugust. It did not hve any rust or corrosion in the bore after two weeks. I concluded that it was indeed noncorrosive powder. Too bad it was so damned weak!

ClearShot is off the market now, but I still have 5 pounds of it (FFFg)in sealed cans - it will be used exclusiely with Maxiballs in that one .50-cal. rifle, with 140-grain charges!