240 Grain Deep Curls in the .50 GM/LRH Renegade (REVISITED)
 

Guys, remember that tight three-shot group I got back on April 13th. with my last three 240 grain Deep Curls?



Well thanks to the generosity of RonLaughlin who released part of his bullet stash to me, I got a chance to see if that accuracy could be repeated with five shot groups. Also, I wanted to shoot the loads over a chronograph to see what that 85 grain charge was doing.

Temperature during the shoot started at seventy-eight degrees and was up to eighty-one by the time I finished. There was an intermittent gusty breeze of about 12-15 mph from the South during the shoot, which is about the only wind direction the has much effect on our rifle range.

I started off the shoot with the same charge of 85 grains GOEX FFFg. But I used Harvester crush rib sabots instead of the smooth sabots.

Here's the target with crush ribs.



I was hoping (expecting?) a group of around two inches or less. BUT! We all know five-shot groups are more reflective of a load's potential than are three-shot groups. For example, if the three bottom holes on that target happened to be shots 1, 2 and 3, and I stopped at three, the group would have been 1.5". (I really don't know the order of hits because I can't see the bullet holes with the 4X scope.) Anyway, I was a bit disappointed.

Switching from crush rib sabots to Harvester smooth sabots, I shot another group and got this.



Now that's more like it! Five shots under two inches at 100 yards is perfectly satisfactory in my book.

Seeing the difference the sabots made, I decided to try some MMP sabots. Five shots later I had this.



Clearly, MMPs are not the sabot for this bullet and load.

OK, let's adjust the scope a bit to the left, go back to Harvester smooth greens, and up the charge to 95 grains and see what we get.

We got this.



That's not bad at all. Especially because the wind was getting a bit more vigerous.

Dare we go to 105 grains? Sure we do. Here's the last target.



Well, WE DON'T NEED NO 105 GRAINS. :s2:

That's a fine group with those Harvester smooths and I'm with you completely on 5 shot groups being the key. I had this 4 shot string today using 44/285 Swift A frames in short Knight greens.



Then the bottom one happened! And just to prove it wasn't me, I shot a 6th. It was me :(. Turned 1 1/8" into 3 1/8". Yuk.

Semisane

For hunting this coming season, my plan is to use the 240g Deep Curl, pushed by 90g Blackhorn, a green crush rib sabot, and W209 primer; all stuffed into an X7. It sure seems to be an accurate bullet in more than one rifle. The only powder charge I ever tried was 90g; it was super accurate in two different rifles. Nice that one doesn't need many bullets, to develop a usable load.

Hey friend that 85 gr load with the smooth sabots looks pretty good. And then you went up in charge. Although very acceptable hunting accuracy I would be curious as to how tight the group would be if you dropped down to 80 gr?! I don't think your velocity would suffer too much.