Shooting the .50 GM LRH Renegade
 

I've shot my .50 GM LRH Renegade (the second Sinful Sister) only once before, and even then I only shot two targets. I used 85 grains of GOEX FFFg under 300 grain Gold Dots and got real good results. That was back in January and you saw the targets in my report http://huntingnet.com/forum/black-po...botloader.html

So Sunday morning I decided to shoot her again, and start with a higher charge - 95 grains of GOEX. I put a target out at fifty yards and took five shots. Here's the target.




YEE-HAH!!!!! That's what I'm talking about!! You have to love a five-shot group like that. Man, the first shot from a clean dry cold barrel right in there with the other four that were loaded after wiping the bore with both sides of an alcohol patch.

So I confidently put a target out at 75 yards and took five more shots. Here's that one.



WHAT? How the heck is it even possible for a load that shot that first group at 50 yards to open up like that at 75? Everything felt right when I was shooting. I know I had a good steady sight picture and good trigger squeeze. Checked the scope mount - everything was tight. Checked the barrel in the stock - no wiggle, looks right.

Oh well, let's shoot another group. Except this time we'll use harvester long black sabots instead of the short ones. I've seen reports that the longer sabots sometimes make a difference.

Put another target out at 75 yards, took five more shots, and got this.




A tad better - but nothing to brag about. I won't be trying any 75 yard neck shots with that load.

Let's back the charge down to 85 grains and see if it does better. Another five shots produced this.



Once again, a little bit better - but only a little bit.

Would another ten grain reduction to 75 grains tighten it up more? Let's see.

Five shots later and I was looking at this target.



Well, that TOTALLY STINKS!

It looks like the 300 grain Gold Dot & GOEX FFFg combination is not going to be this gun's hunting load. I need to try Pyrodex and Triple 7 with this bullet, or another bullet entirely.

Let's search the bullet bag and see what's handy. OK, here are some .429 270 grain Gold Dot soft points and Harvester green sabots. We'll stick with 75 yards and the 85 grain charge.

Took the shots / here's the target.



Oh well, sometimes you get lucky - sometimes you don't. It looks like I'll have to play around a little more with this Sinful Sister before I find its 150 yard hunting load. That ain't all bad. :p

Shucks, here comes the rain. Hard too! This range session is hereby cancelled.

Semi - those groups aint too bad. But what I would do is take that same 95 gr load and those 300 grainers and shoot it right off the bat at 75 yds out of a sparkling clean barrel and see what happens.
I suspect that maybe you weren't removing as much fouling as you thought during your between shot swabbing.
Its worth a try.

from 1" to 3 5/8" in 25yds.i been to three state fairs and a pig toss and i've never seen that before!....karl

My stainless LRH .50 caliber likes those 300 grain .430 diameter XTP's in a harvester crushed rib sabot. I push them with 100 grains of Pyrodex RS or Goex 2f. Another thing it likes is 200 grain Shockwaves. I have some of those 270 grain Speer Gold Dots, and the same thing happened to me. They were accurate out to about 50 yards, worse group at 75 yards and terrible at 100 yards. I have no idea why.

I saw that same thing with my 460 gr 500 S&W bullets in my SS 50 cal GMB. I was at 100 yards and had about a 3" group went to 150 yards and I had a 10" group. I backed the powder off to 80 gr and everything tuned perfectly. Ron

X2 on that,shouldn't have opened up like that at just 25 yds..

I agree guys. I sure can't explain it. Shooting errors on my part could account for some of it, but I just don't believe I caused that large an difference. In fact, I felt my shooting was really steady that day.

I thought about it on the hour-plus drive home from the range. This is the only "self inflicted" possibility I can come up with. My first range session over the weekend was with the .45 Renegade and 180 grain bullets. With that light shooting load I gripped the gun very very lightly, and just let it recoil against my shoulder. It shot pretty well. So on Sunday when I shot the .50 I was holding the gun lightly again. But heck, I was holding it lightly for that tight 50 yard group also.

Semisane

Just a thought that I will throw out there... because of the concave base in a Gold Dot - normal light charges usually will not do it for them at the longer ranges - think you get a bit of wobble as they loose velocity and RPM. I really think you need to kick that charge up especially since you are using GOEX.

I really think the minimum charge for 100 yard shooting of a Gold Dot is 100 grains of T7-2f. If you get a chance kick the charge up or try some 3f Goex but you would still need at least 100 grains.

You are stabilizing the bullet out of the bore, but as the range increases and the bullet slows the air force that helps stabilize the bullet by crossing across the concave base lessens and accuracy will be effected.

Next time out I intend to shoot them 180 grain with 110 grains of Triple Seven 3f. I had them string on me last time.

Apparently they are either over stabilized or under-stabilized or the sabot bullet combination is not tight enough to keep them from slipping.
If it were me the first thing I would check is that the combination was nice and tight and being firmly seated.
Then try what sabot loader said if that still does not fix it I would go down to 60 gr and work up. Lee