Sinful Renegade Range Report (or) "How to Stick a Bullet"
09-14-2008 | 10:50 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Boone & Crockett
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 10,918
Likes: 1
From: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
Sinful Renegade Range Report (or) "How to Stick a Bullet"
Finally got to make smoke - but it wasn't easy.
Arrived at the hunting leaselate Friday night after an hour and a half drive through the fringe effects of Hurricane Ike. Squally weather with winds gusting around 30 mph on the Interstate. There were three other trucks in the campground when I arrived, but all the guys were already in bed. So, I hit the sack in my little shack (Hey, I'm a poet) and set the alarm for 0700.
Got up Saturday morning to breezy overcast skies andlots of salt marsh skeeters blown in from the coast by the winds. We seldom have a mosquito problem in our high dry piny woods. With no sun and a brisk breeze, the guys say we ought to disk the food plots to get them ready for planting at the end of the month. We have nine guys in the club and each one has two or three plots from 1/4 to 1/2 acre each. Besides that, there are seven pines down across the rifle range that need to be cut up and cleared, and another half dozen down across some of our trails. So we make up work parties and get to work. By the time we finished in mid-afternoon I had no gas left in the tank for shooting. A shower, a beer, a bull session, a late dinner (shrimp creolefor the whole gang), and early to bed.
Up early Sunday morning full of piss and vinegar and ready to shoot. My plan was to give the .457 420 grain and 340 grain cast Leesa workout. These were the ones I sized to .452hoping they wouldshoot better than the ones I had sized to .451.
By the time I hauled all of the gear to the shooting bench I was sweating like Barack Obama watchingSarah Palin'sacceptance speech. Temperature was 88 degrees and the dew point was 76. Sweat will NOT evaporate in those conditions, and I sweat a lot.
Now I take the Renegade with the .45 Green Mountain barrel, run an alcohol patch down the bore to clear any oil, drop 90 grains of GOEX FFFg down the barrel, and try to load one of the 420 grain bullets. Yep, just as expected I had to tap it in so that the lands cut into the bullet. Got the nose of the bullet even with the muzzle and could not budge it any more. Used my short starter and a hammer to tap it down another six inches. Surely by now, with the rifling fully cut into the bullet I could ram it down. NO WAY! That sucker was stuck fast. I knew there was no way I could pull it out with the bullet screw. The only hope was to somehow get it seated fully on the powder and shoot it out. I started to have visions of having to unbreech that Green Mountain barrel to hammer it out from the breech. I finally ended up using a solid aluminum rod and, with the rod against the bullet, banging it against a tree and moving the bullet down two or three inches at a time until it was fully seated.
I shot that nightmare out and was glad to see it go. So in a stroke of undeniable brilliance, I figure I just might be able to load the 340 grain bullets because, heck - they have ashorter bearing surface.Drop another 90 grains of powder down thebore, tap in a 340 and, of course, repeat the tree banging process.Well I may be an idiot, but not a TOTAL idiot, so I gave up completely on the .452 bullets. Decided to play around with different loads with the .451's and discovered I had takenthem out of my bullet bag and left them home (maybe I AM a total idiot).
The only thing I had for the .45 was my box of .410 210 grain Gold Dots and some Harvester sabots. So, the rest of this report is about shooting them.
The first round was at 50 yards with 80 grains powder. This was the first target with the Simmons 4x scope mounted on the Renegade. Here's the target.
I thought that was pretty good, so I moved the target out to 100 yards and shot the same load. Here's the results.
Not too good. Now those .410 bullets are pretty tight loading in the Crush Rib sabots designed for .400 bullets. Once they are fully started in the bore I can ram them down with two hands on the rod and a very firm push. But I really think they are too tight.
Figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried another ten grains of powder. No better, no worse. Here's the target.
OK, one more time. Upped the charge to 100 grains. Only shot two bullets `cause after the second shot it looked like a waste of time. Here's the target.
Hot, sweaty, mosquito bitten, disgusted - I gave up, packed up, and went home. The weatherman says we're getting a front next week that will drop the daytime temps to the mid-70's with lower humidity. CAN'T WAIT!
Arrived at the hunting leaselate Friday night after an hour and a half drive through the fringe effects of Hurricane Ike. Squally weather with winds gusting around 30 mph on the Interstate. There were three other trucks in the campground when I arrived, but all the guys were already in bed. So, I hit the sack in my little shack (Hey, I'm a poet) and set the alarm for 0700.
Got up Saturday morning to breezy overcast skies andlots of salt marsh skeeters blown in from the coast by the winds. We seldom have a mosquito problem in our high dry piny woods. With no sun and a brisk breeze, the guys say we ought to disk the food plots to get them ready for planting at the end of the month. We have nine guys in the club and each one has two or three plots from 1/4 to 1/2 acre each. Besides that, there are seven pines down across the rifle range that need to be cut up and cleared, and another half dozen down across some of our trails. So we make up work parties and get to work. By the time we finished in mid-afternoon I had no gas left in the tank for shooting. A shower, a beer, a bull session, a late dinner (shrimp creolefor the whole gang), and early to bed.
Up early Sunday morning full of piss and vinegar and ready to shoot. My plan was to give the .457 420 grain and 340 grain cast Leesa workout. These were the ones I sized to .452hoping they wouldshoot better than the ones I had sized to .451.
By the time I hauled all of the gear to the shooting bench I was sweating like Barack Obama watchingSarah Palin'sacceptance speech. Temperature was 88 degrees and the dew point was 76. Sweat will NOT evaporate in those conditions, and I sweat a lot.
Now I take the Renegade with the .45 Green Mountain barrel, run an alcohol patch down the bore to clear any oil, drop 90 grains of GOEX FFFg down the barrel, and try to load one of the 420 grain bullets. Yep, just as expected I had to tap it in so that the lands cut into the bullet. Got the nose of the bullet even with the muzzle and could not budge it any more. Used my short starter and a hammer to tap it down another six inches. Surely by now, with the rifling fully cut into the bullet I could ram it down. NO WAY! That sucker was stuck fast. I knew there was no way I could pull it out with the bullet screw. The only hope was to somehow get it seated fully on the powder and shoot it out. I started to have visions of having to unbreech that Green Mountain barrel to hammer it out from the breech. I finally ended up using a solid aluminum rod and, with the rod against the bullet, banging it against a tree and moving the bullet down two or three inches at a time until it was fully seated.
I shot that nightmare out and was glad to see it go. So in a stroke of undeniable brilliance, I figure I just might be able to load the 340 grain bullets because, heck - they have ashorter bearing surface.Drop another 90 grains of powder down thebore, tap in a 340 and, of course, repeat the tree banging process.Well I may be an idiot, but not a TOTAL idiot, so I gave up completely on the .452 bullets. Decided to play around with different loads with the .451's and discovered I had takenthem out of my bullet bag and left them home (maybe I AM a total idiot).
The only thing I had for the .45 was my box of .410 210 grain Gold Dots and some Harvester sabots. So, the rest of this report is about shooting them.
The first round was at 50 yards with 80 grains powder. This was the first target with the Simmons 4x scope mounted on the Renegade. Here's the target.
I thought that was pretty good, so I moved the target out to 100 yards and shot the same load. Here's the results.
Not too good. Now those .410 bullets are pretty tight loading in the Crush Rib sabots designed for .400 bullets. Once they are fully started in the bore I can ram them down with two hands on the rod and a very firm push. But I really think they are too tight.
Figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried another ten grains of powder. No better, no worse. Here's the target.
OK, one more time. Upped the charge to 100 grains. Only shot two bullets `cause after the second shot it looked like a waste of time. Here's the target.
Hot, sweaty, mosquito bitten, disgusted - I gave up, packed up, and went home. The weatherman says we're getting a front next week that will drop the daytime temps to the mid-70's with lower humidity. CAN'T WAIT!
09-15-2008 | 07:48 AM
#3
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 2,332
Likes: 0
From: Hayes, Va.
RE: Sinful Renegade Range Report (or) "How to Stick a Bullet"
Your report proves that the difference of a few grains of powder will make on a target. I also found this out a while back. It proves you need to check your gun and powder charges to come up with the ultimate shooting load.
Good work pard and thanks for the research info!!!
Good work pard and thanks for the research info!!!
09-15-2008 | 10:11 AM
#4
Boone & Crockett
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 12,823
Likes: 5
From: Eastern PA
RE: Sinful Renegade Range Report (or) "How to Stick a Bullet"
Semi - Sorry to hear your resized bullets didn't work out for you. You may want to try the 200 gr Hornady 10mm bullets. They are shooting good for me out of my GM 45 using the Harvester 45/40 EZ load Sabots.
09-15-2008 | 10:49 AM
#6
Thread Starter
Boone & Crockett
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 10,918
Likes: 1
From: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
RE: Sinful Renegade Range Report (or) "How to Stick a Bullet"
Semi - Sorry to hear your resized bullets didn't work out for you. You may want to try the 200 gr Hornady 10mm bullets. They are shooting good for me out of my GM 45 using the Harvester 45/40 EZ load Sabots.
I haven't given up yet on the Lees sized to .451. Will be trying them with felt wads and a wider variery of loads with the GOEX, plus Pyrodex and T7. Would sure like to find a load that shoots them well.
