Remember my question:
Would you like to see what bumping the charge up to 50 grains would do?
Well, here's the answer.
I arrived at the hunting camp Friday afternoon with overcast skies and temperature down to the mid-eighties. Damn near a cold front for mid July. So I headed straight for the range with the .45 Renegade and loaded up with a PRBs and 50 grains of GOEX FFFg and took five shots at 50 yards.
Here's the target.
No improvement there. It looks like 50-yard "head of squirrel" shooting is not in the cards. I got that great group at 25 yards (target #73 above), but no tiny groups at 50.
Let's see, I've tried 30, 40, and 50 grain charges at 50 yards without success. Maybe dropping all the way down to 20 grains will do something. Five shots later gave me this target.
I could tell right off that the 20 grain load was just too light. It was like shooting a cap gun - didn't feel right or sound right. More "poof" than "bang".
So I got to wondering what the lightest practical charge would be, and adjusted the measure to 25 grains (remember, that's a 25% increase in powder), and took five shots. WELL, LOOKEE HERE!
That's pretty close to head of squirrel at 50 yards. And the shots felt and sounded right. So I would say 25 grains is the lowest practical load for my .45 and PRBs.
Am I going to use that load for hunting?
No sir, I'm not. But you won't find out
why in this post. Keep your eyes peeled for my next post titled "Look Out Squirrel".