Well, my weekend didn't exactly work out as I had originally planned. I spent Friday evening crafting six groups of handloads for my new 221 Fireball Encore barrel with the intention of getting up Saturday morning and shooting it for the first time. However, shortly after waking up Saturday I got a call from a friend of mine who needed help moving. I intended to be back before the late afternoon, but we had so much stuff to move. Between loading up everything in his storage shed, cleaning out his and his wife's old camper, and driving all over three counties, it was almost 8:00 that night by the time we got done. Oh well, there's always tomorrow, or so I thought.
This morning I woke up and did a bit more handloading, fully intending to do quite a bit of shooting later in the day. I had everything ready to go when I learned my grandparents were coming over this afternoon. By the time they left, it was quite late in the afternoon. Still, I got everything set up in the field behind our house, ready to test as many handloads as I could. The weather conditions were less than optimal, but it was either shoot now or wait till next weekend.
I put the Encore and a pillow-filled backpack - my prefered pistol rest - on the table, then set up my chronograph at 10 feet and target stand at 50 yards, careful to align them so that the bullets would be stopped by my hay bale bullet trap. I took out my first group of handloads, loaded one, got into position, and pulled back the hammer.
All loads utilized Lapua brass, Hornady 55 grain soft points seated almost right up to the lands, CCI 400 primers, and IMR 4227. Since Hornady's loads can sometimes be a bit anemic, I decided to look up the loads listed on Hodgdon's website. Sure enough, the Hornady maximum charge was below Hodgdon's starting load.
Group #1:
Powder: 14.5 grains IMR 4227 - the Hodgdon minimum load
Average velocity: 2347 fps
Standard deviation: 38 fps
Group: 1.069"
My first time shooting this configuration was a pleasant surprise for me. Having grown accustomed to the fierce muzzle blast and sharp recoil of my more potent handguns, I found the relatively quiet report and almost nonexistent recoil to be a very welcome change.
After firing all five of my loads, I went to check the target. I was initially dismayed that, even at 50, I had completely missed the target. Upon closer inspection, I saw the group at the bottom edge of the target, roughly 7 inches below the bullseye. I adjusted the scope up and fired again.
Group #2:
Powder: 14.7 grains IMR 4227
Average velocity: 2378 fps
Standard deviation: 51 fps
Group: 1.009" with all five, 0.490" excluding flier.
Apart from the flier, this group was pretty good. I can't remember which of the five shots it was, though. This group's smaller size compared to the previous one was likely helped by the fact that the previous few shots adequately fouled the barrel.
Group #3:
Powder: 14.9 grains IMR 4227
Average velocity: 2448 fps
Standard deviation: 20 fps
Group: 0.974" with all five, 0.477" excluding flier
Once again, I had a great group minus the flier. I had adjusted the crosshairs up another two inches prior to shooting this group. Since it was so close to the bullseye, I felt no other adjustment was necessary.
Group #4:
Powder: 15.1 grains IMR 4227
Group: 0.739"
By this point in my range session, the sun was low over the western horizon. Between that and the thick cloud cover overhead, my chronograph stopped recording the velocities of my shots from group 4 onward. I decided to press on and continue testing my handloads. Even without the velocity data, I could still find the maximum load with this combination of components. These magnum pistol powders like IMR 4227 tend to burn best when loaded hot, so I'll go with the maximum safe load out of this gun.
These loads hit almost exactly on top of my previous group, so it was kind of difficult to tell where exactly each bullet went. With light fading fast and my chronograph now unresponsive, I decided to go for broke and move the target all the way back to 100 yards.
Group #5:
Powder: 15.3 grains IMR 4227
Group: 1.494"
My first 100 yard group went low and to the right. Since the sun was rapidly dipping below the treeline to the west, I just marked the holes and took a picture after I was done shooting.
Group #6:
Powder: 15.5 grains IMR 4227 - the Hodgdon maximum load
Group: 0.995" excluding flier.
After making one final adjustment to the scope, I fired my last handloads. On the second to last round I jerked the trigger, resulting in the flier high and to the left of the main group.
Even accounting for the increased distance, I felt I didn't shoot as well at 100 yards as I had at 50. The wind had picked up and I was getting cold at that point, which no doubt contributed to the slightly larger groups.
Final thoughts: I absolutely love this barrel. It turns my Encore into such a sweet shooting rig. I can't wait to load up some more rounds and shoot it again. Hopefully next weekend I can get it 100% sighted in and determine the velocity. Based on the velocities I got, I'm probably running those bullets about 2500 to 2550 fps with 15.5 grains of IMR 4227. Once I know the velocity for certain, I can run Nikon's Spot On software to match the bullet's trajectory to my scope's BDC reticle and shoot it at longer ranges. I also love how little powder it uses. When handloading, I wondered if my scale was off since the powder barely covered the bottom of my powder pan, at least until I saw that it nearly filled the tiny Fireball cases.
Can't wait for next weekend. Hopefully I won't be as busy.