Got back out this afternoon to do some more conical shooting. I was in Kennewick this weekend and Casecadedad gave me a a box of Bull Shop 460 grain .504 conicals. I really wanted to get out and shoot these + since I changed fron sites I wanted to try that also.

The .504's were more difficult to start than the 460 NE's (.503) that I had shot the week before, but it was only right at the muzzle, once in the muzzle and on the way down they went down real smooth.

I must have shot 25 of them and every so often I would tell myself - I am going to stay with the .503's then I would talk myself out of it and decide I would use the .504's...

I stayed with the T7-3f - 70 grain load - producing about 1400 fps muzzle velocity. I did not set up the chrono today but I might be getting a little more velocity from the tighter bullets, but I think the difference would be minor. Using the .125 - .510 shot card seemed to work well again.

I set the target at 50 yards and started shooting, as I had bore sighted the new sights with a laser bore sighter. I could never reach the elevation @ 50 that I wanted the TC sight is topped out, so I am going to have to remove the front ramp sight supplied with the barrel and install a TC front sight also, which is really to bad because I liked the looks of the front ramp sight. I never did get to the comfort level I wanted for shooting @ 50 yards. I then started shooting killable targets @ the end of the rock pit about 100 yards. But I was continually hitting low...

At the end of the day I had 3 bullets left on the top layer of the box so I decided I would move the target back to 100 and take the last three shots. Well this is where I got lucky... shot one was right about where I would expect it to be. Shot two was my fault but i didn't feel I had that bad of a sight picture... Shot three was right back there with #1. The last thing I did was laser the target - lasered at 92.5 yards. Now! if I could hold a pattern like 1 & 3 with open sights @ 100 I would really be happy.... Just really need to shoot a whole lot more with open sights - scopes just make it to easy....

Well anyway here is the 92 yard target....

I would sure not be upset with a target at 100 yards (92.5) that looked like that. Next time out, just try them without the card and see what happens. It looks like with a little sight adjustment or replacement in your case, you're going to have a nice shooting rifle with the big lead bullets.

Sabotloader try 20grns of cornmeal as a buffer instead of the card the cornmeal has worked better for me than anything else I've tried plus its the cheapest.

Looks great to me. The second shot was more than likely a sight alignment issue or flinch. Is that a 2 or 3" circle? I find i shoot better with a 2" orange sticker. But you're off to a great start so far. Its not so hard is it?! ... You dont need no stinkin scope!

bdeather

I might try the cornmeal later, but I am not sure what good it would do me for hunting. I would have to carry to speed loaders or two containers, so I do not see me going in that direction... I need to shoot with what ever I am going to hunt with.

I understand what your saying but I have found that for a follow up shot the conicals shoot plenty good enough without any kind of buffer. Its that first shot that is the most important in my opinion.

Mike, That looks prettygood to me, especially after 25 shots. Only 70g, that is light, but it appears to be giving you accuracy. How big is the circle. I can't tell from the paper. Chap

gleason, 70 grains of powder behind a 460 grain conical is not "light". Plenty of power to get the job done.

Ditto on the 70/460 combo. Plenty of punch left at 100 for North American big game.

Guessing that's a 6" circle and a 3" group. Nothing shabby about that Conicaloader. I'll be very impressed if you can work that combo onto the target face 6/6 @ 100. That would be a fine hunting-ready base and you can experiment from there. Great start. Want to sell that scope!

With iron sights I would be more than happy with that group. My son went to Alabama this morning for the last dat of deer season. He took his old Hawkins 50 cal percussion. He called about 15 min ago and he had shot a nice meat doeat about 45 yards and he said it was a "hoot" to use the old iron site ML. he did see a couple of small bucks but I have a rule of 4 on one side or u put $100 in the charity box.