As many of you know, I really enjoy pushing equipment such as a cheap scope. Well I might have actually broke a Simmons 4x32mm Pro Diamond finally. It was mounted on a .45 caliber Green Mountain Barrel. That barrel rested in a T/C Renegade Stock. After braving the deep snow to set up a target, and taking a good spill, I brought out some 300 grain Hornady XTP's in .430 diameter. These shoot great out of this right. I was using 100 grains of Schuetzen 2f black powder.
I need to apologize for the confusing target first and then explain.. You can see some numbers in red, low left under the bulls eye. Well the target was set at 50 yards. The scope is sighted in at 50 yards. And the first three hits you could have covered with a quarter. I was pleased and pumped. I was swabbing between shots with MAP. Then shot #4 came along, way up in the gray tape. And I thought.. what the heck. That shot felt great. So I fired #5. Again, up in the tape and now I was confused. The other week shooting this rifle with powerbelts it was dead on.
So into the house I went. Checked my notes. And grabbed some of the 280 grain Powerbelt Aero Tips I had left and used 80 grains of Schuetzen 2f. Before it was super accurate.
Not wanting to confuse the shots.. I aimed at the bullet top in that orange sabot. And now with a load just two weeks before that was shooting quarter size groups I shot numbers.. 6-9. I mean face it, that is not even a group. So I decided to quit shooting the .45 caliber for the day. I would clean it and try it again and see if I really did break that Simmons Pro Diamond scope. I just can't understand how a rifle can go that far south at 50 yards.
The reason the center of the target is all shot to pieces.. like I said, I walked through that snow to set that target up and I was not about to do 9 shots and call it a day. So I went in the house and got my Traditions Woodsman percussion 50 caliber with the 1-66 twist. I'd found some roundball the other day I had made a long time ago. They were completely oxidized. But that normally does not hurt accuracy. So I was shooting 85 grains of Schuetzen 2f and holding six o'clock just into the bottom of the bulls eye with the open sights of the rifle.
Needless to say that Traditions made me feel a little better about myself that day. I never swabbed. And the last three were REALLY hard to load. I shot them at the BlackHorn 209 powder picture in the top left corner of the target. You can see the group is opening up.
So then I went and took the target down. And fought the snow again. In my back yard the snow is still 10 inches (the front yard is cleared through with the heat wave) deep and its the kind where you take a step and your on top. Another step your on top. And then suddenly you break through. Really hard and for men with bad knees, dangerous to walk in. It resulted in the knee giving out on me, and of course the snow then tripped me and over I went.
But I got the target down and was going to quit when I spotted two paint cans trying to get my attention to mock me for my graceful tumble
out there at 86 yards. So I swabbed the barrel clean, held right on the top of the can and knocked them off their perch into the snow.. made me feel better anyway..
So it will be interesting to see if next time out, that Simmons sprays all over the target.