OK, grab a drink. This is going to be a long one.

First, you might want to refresh your memory of bronko's post titled 45 Cal GMB LRH Bullet Test.http://www.huntingnet.com//forum/tm.aspx?m=2920565

I shot the same bullets (same lot of lead, same sizing die, sortedby weight to within two grains of each other) out of my LRH barrel on Saturday, 50 yards - same as Bronko. Differences are that (1) I used loads of 70, 80, and 90grains of GOEX FFFg and Bronko used 70 grains of Pyro P, (2) I used my bees wax/Crisco/olive oil lube and Bronko used Dave's recipe of beeswax,castor oil, & murphy's oil soap, and (3) Bronko is a better shot.

Shot my first target with 80 grains GOEX and the 420 grain bullet (Lee 457-504 mold, sized to .451). The bullet felt good loading. Tight enough in the bore to require a little pressure to load, but not cutting lead on the rifling. Here's the target.



The funny thing about this target is that shots #4 & 5 are the ones in the black. What happened is this. The GM barrel has Williams fiber optic sights which don't suit me at all. When I was loading after shot #3 the fiber optic filament fell out of the rear sight in three pieces. It was real brittle. So I shot the last two shots without that green glow on the rear sights. I thought I had struck gold (I had not!). So I went to the truck and grabbed the .50 caliber pitted Renegade barrel, pulled the rear sight off, and put it on the GM barrel. I sure got a better sight picture with that TMC rear sight.

So I loaded up with 80 grains again and shot another group. Here's the target.





I TOLD YOU that I hadn't struck gold! Now it WAS hot, and I was sweating. But I felt I had a pretty good sight picture for those shots and good trigger control.

Need to try something different. So I loaded up with 80 grains again, but added a corn meal buffer (yellow meal / Pioneer brand ). I used an empty .45 ACP case full of corn meal, figuring it would give me about 3/8" of compressed meal under the bullet. Took five shots. Here's the target.



Well, at least that shows some promise. Maybe those three together are what the gun can do, and the other two are what I can do.

I wonder what a lighter powder charge will do. Gave 70 grains a try with the corn meal buffer. Also, up until now I've been wiping with both sides of one damp patch and both sides of one dry patch between shots. May as well try without wiping. Here's the target.





No great success with that. I wonder what jumping the load up to 90 grains will do. You can see from the target below that I quit after three shots. You don't need five shots to know a load is not working. I didn't use the cornmeal. Now I'm wondering what I would have gotten if I had.




By this time I'm pretty hot, sweaty and tired. But I wanted to try the 340 grain bullets that performed so poorly for Bronko. I loaded up with 80 grains and took five shotswithout checking the target between shots. When I walked down range to retrieve the target here's what I found.





[:@] Well, that's pretty much the same thing Bronko got with the 340's. That hole just above thebull might have been twoshots - but I doubt it. I think it was an unstable bullet that went through the target sideways just like the one Bronko got. The bullets were very loose loading and practically dropped down the bore, even though they went through the same sizing die as the 420 grainers.

So, next on the agenda is to cast some more 420's and 340's and try to load them unsized, and sized to .452 instead of .451. I'll do the casting in the next week or two, but the shooting is going to have to wait `til cooler weather.

OK Bronko, you got your report.