ORIGINAL: frontier gander
I went out and tried a new charge in my X-150 today and wanted to tune the sights and try to get it dead center. New charge of 90 grains pyrodex rs, 385 grain great plains bullet. Once i got the sights dialed in perfectly, and im talking dead center, i went looking for bullets and found 2 out of the 8 that i shot. These bullets expanded big time with the extra 10 grains powder behind it. Yesterday i was shooting 80 grains and they expanded to the size of a quarter, The ones today measure 1 1/8" on one and the other is 1 1/4". They lost a lot of weight so im wondering if maybe 90 grains of RS is to much for them. So far 90 grains RS and this bullet will be my hunting load this year, its a PITA to load, but it shoots to damn good. Heres the pic of the bullets. What do you think?
FG, I believe they overexpanded with that charge. If they lost weight then their are either being shot too fast or the bullet is not jacketed. Since your shooting a lead conical, I would say this is too fast and your 80g is perfect. You want the expanion for largewound channel, but you want no weight loss since that leads to poor penetration. Poor penetration on elk leads to them getting away or goingmiles and miles with poor of no blood trail.Chap