Ultra-Lite Velocity Testing
 

Got time this morning to run to the farm to get another round of shooting in.

When I got there I almost did not think I was going to get to shoot. The dang farmer was there hooking up equipment to go do some farming. Couldn't believe he would want to farm the farm when I wanted to shoot! Marty is a great guy though and he said just to let him get over the hill and up the draw and I could go ahead and shoot.

Got every thing set up while he was hooking up and driving away... My goals for today were to get some velocities on the two of the bullets that I use most often with three different powders. I really do not use BH to hunt with or shoot with that much but I thought someone might want to know the velocities I was getting.

This is the target with information. 18 shots and one ragged hole. I know it could be better but in my defense I am more concerned with not hitting the chronograph than getting the perfect group. But you can see or I can tell you the 120 grain loads elevated the point of impact on the target. I really did want to shoot those 120 grain loads as that is my normal hunting load and I wanted see how this short light weight rifle would handle that load.



Oh.. one other thing that kept creeping into my mind - what a waste of very good bullets - I really wanted to switch to a less expensive bulk bullet but yet I wanted the velocities to reflect that bullet I would be actually using for hunting... so and not much of a pun intended - I bit the bullet and shot the correct ones.

Additional pictures of the morning setup...



One last thing I am really impressed with this rifle and the scope so far both of these are new products to me.

Very nice results Mike. It seems the more I shoot BH the less bad things I can find to say about it. Do you plan on using BH with the 209 set up and switch to 777 when you use the western set up?

No, I will use T7 all the time. I am just to dang cheap to shoot BH. It is just some much cheaper per shot to shoot T7. We get a pound of T7 for $20 out here and get basically the same results grain for grain. Now then if I did not shoot as much as I do - I would certainly shoot BH. BH will produce more velocity with the heavier bullets because of it progressive burning. But again for me 150 fps more is really not that big of a deal.

I should also say that for convenience - it is awful hard to beat BH.

Good information. I am surprised how close the velocities are between T7 2&3. Also some very impressive numbers. And you sure can't complain about the accuracy there. Nice shooting.

To tell you the truth Dave, I was a bit surprised also, but remember I am working with a shorter 24" barrel. Added barrel length would have also aided the velocity of BH since it is progressive burning.

I just ran the ballistic sheets for the shots today.

I did not run separate sheets for the T7-3f loads as they would be very close to the 2f loads. Also did not run the 110 grain BH loads as they too would be very close.

The sheets also have 6" PBR computed into them.

I think your UL really likes the 120gr BH209 and 300gr Bloodline load. You should definitely switch to using it during the rifle seasons. :p

I wish i would have remembered to send you some 325gr FTXs just to compare the fps. I got a bunch but 458s dont fit the way i like in my ULA. Plus i would prefer someone else takes the beating. :D