OK. So yesterday my rough barrel and 20 MOA high sights got in the way of agood test of the powerbelts at velocities below 1400 fps. Last Night I worked up a new insert for the sight and began to polish out the burrs in my SS Sidekick. I worked the barrel with steel wool for a while, dry swabbed and then tried to run a PB through the bore. The going was incredibly hard and I wound up breaking the Sidekick's rod. Very flimsy rod, I should have known better. Then I did the cayugad thing with the green kitchen pad and Bon Ami. I did 15 strokes, cleaned with hot water, then another 15 strokes. I then cleaned it thoroughly and called it a night.

The next morning, I decided to bring a box of ballets so that I wouldn't have to burn PB's as I sighted in. As I drove to the range I got to thinking, some greasy conicals isjust what the barrel needs.

My first shot on the newly polished barrel chronoed only 1194 fps (ballet even slower than the PB). But from that point on the barrel took off. The next shot chronoed 1652. The average was 1538 and I went 15 straight rounds without swabbing.The ballet averaged almost 10% more energy than the PB's did the day before, which really said something because the ballets are lighter. So the barrel tweaking really helped. By then I was ready to go to 50 yards.

I cleaned the barrel, completely breaking the gun down, removing the breech plug. The next three shots chronoed 1628, 1422, 1662, in that order. They produce a great tight group at 50 yards. The greatest span was 1 1/8" and the mean radius was less than .5".

So I thought lets try some powerbelts. I shot the powerbelts on the fouling of the previous three shots and grouped with the greatest span at 1 5/8" and mean radius of .75". The pattern on the PB's opened a little relative to the ballets. I don't know if that was my fault, the PB's, or the range conditions. It was probably me.

The PB's had extremely good velocities, much better than I hoped. They chronoed 1377, 1450, 1494 in that order. That is almost 15% more energetic than yesterday on the same powder charge.

I was parched, hungry,and tired, so I called it day. I'll get out next weekend and push the range farther.

Happy Hunting.

For what this is worth I break in all new m/l with a box of conicals whether it's the ballets or maxiballs I don't care but they seem to take the machine marks down a notch or two so I just keep doing it.

I would say something about the rod but you must have known it would have been better to use the range rod for this work[X(]

Sounds like the rifle is really coming around. Good shooting. Ball-ets are a favorite projectile of mine...