might be some hope yet
08-10-2011, 12:10 PM
#1
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 21,193
might be some hope yet
As I had mentioned in earlier posts, I had purchased a damaged .50 caliber Lyman Trade Rifle barrel. I knew it was damaged, but for what I paid, it was worth it I guess.
Inside the barrel was a nasty gouge about four inches down. When I first inspected it I really had my doubts whether it would shoot or not. And I still do, to be totally honest.
But after working so hard this morning I deserved to shoot today. And I saw that damaged barrel sitting there and figured.. what the heck. So I loaded that on a Lyman Trade Rifle, grabbed some powder, and then figured.. shoot some conicals and maybe it will knock ruff spots out before I have to lapp it. So I grabbed twenty of the 385 grain Hornady conicals I have around here.
I figured I don't know where it hits, or how bad that damage will effect it. So I set the target at 25 yards. And again guessed at the powder charge.. 60 grain of Goex 3f powder.
This is the first five shots
while I would have liked to see a little tighter group I really was not all that unhappy with that group. So I moved the target back to 50 yards.
At 50 yards I could hardly judge the bulls square and circle so I threw a dot up on it to give me an aiming point.
I fired two rounds and know where one of them hit, but am not too sure about the second one. I wanted to say it was that nice round hole next to the one outside the group, but if you look at the first picture, that could be camera angle making that difference.
So before I have a friend chop that barrel off past the gouge, I have not written the barrel off. We will keep trying it and see what happens next time out, with some roundball.
Inside the barrel was a nasty gouge about four inches down. When I first inspected it I really had my doubts whether it would shoot or not. And I still do, to be totally honest.
But after working so hard this morning I deserved to shoot today. And I saw that damaged barrel sitting there and figured.. what the heck. So I loaded that on a Lyman Trade Rifle, grabbed some powder, and then figured.. shoot some conicals and maybe it will knock ruff spots out before I have to lapp it. So I grabbed twenty of the 385 grain Hornady conicals I have around here.
I figured I don't know where it hits, or how bad that damage will effect it. So I set the target at 25 yards. And again guessed at the powder charge.. 60 grain of Goex 3f powder.
This is the first five shots
while I would have liked to see a little tighter group I really was not all that unhappy with that group. So I moved the target back to 50 yards.
At 50 yards I could hardly judge the bulls square and circle so I threw a dot up on it to give me an aiming point.
I fired two rounds and know where one of them hit, but am not too sure about the second one. I wanted to say it was that nice round hole next to the one outside the group, but if you look at the first picture, that could be camera angle making that difference.
So before I have a friend chop that barrel off past the gouge, I have not written the barrel off. We will keep trying it and see what happens next time out, with some roundball.
08-10-2011, 03:16 PM
#8
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 21,193
I had a devil of a time getting it clean today for some reason. I'd hate to think how many patches of Windex I put through that. I finally broke out the Butch's Bore Shine. Yet on the range there was basically no fouling. I swabbed when I moved back to 50 yards and other then a filthy patch, there was no crud ring of any kind.
08-10-2011, 03:36 PM
#9
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Eastern PA
Posts: 12,746
Dave. IMO it shoots. and not too awful bad. And you were only shooting 60 gr. Boost it up to 80 and see what happens. I would hang on to it and if you don't want it, you might just befriend a kid some day and you can give it to him to start. And it will make his day.
08-10-2011, 03:46 PM
#10
Typical Buck
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Central Connecticut
Posts: 766
It's refreshing to see that you chose to fire a modest target load to test it out rather than automatically loading the larger powder charges. That's a shining of example of target load development by a seasoned shooter. I'm sure that you'll be increasing the powder charges but it's nice to see that you started out on the low side to see how it would do.
Last edited by arcticap; 08-10-2011 at 03:55 PM.