Today Iconducted a little experiment with my Lyman Mustang with strange and somewhat dissappointing results (gotta' post bad targets as well as good ones, right?).

I prepared four sets of weighed charges of T-7 FFFG:five loads each of 65 grain weight (equal to 74.7 grain volumn),70 GW ( = 80.5 GV ), 75 GW ( = 86.2 GV ), and 80 GW ( = 92.0 GV ).

Thesecharges were loadedwith 300 grain Speer Gold Dot Hollow Points and Harvester Crush Rib sabotsand setoff with CCI small rifle primers in a 25 ACP breech plug. I shotthem at 100 yards from the bench over a chronographwith a Leupold 3X9 scope.

I started each five-shot string with a clean barrel.The barrel was wiped with one dry patch between shots for the first shot string,and swabbed with one very wet patch and two dry patches betweenshots for the other three shot strings. The barrel was cleaned with two very wet patches and two dry patches between each 5-shot string. Both temperature and humidity were in the high 80's.

The strange part of the results was that average velocity for the 70 grain load was less than the 65 grain load. I can only guess that this was because the 65 grainshot string started with a "cold" gun, and all other loads were with steady shooting,only taking time to change the target between shot strings andload each round.

The dissapointing part wasthe best 100 yard group was 2 & 7/8 inches. No adjustments were made to the scope during the shooting because I was only interested in group size - not placement in relation to the aiming point.

Targets follow: