Long story - shortened...

A fellow ML shooter in Oregon is quite an artist with his home lathe. Actually he is really accomplished machinist and you really have to see one of his winches to believe it; but he builds scale model winches for radio control Axial Rock Crawlers. His handle on the forums is Olehunter - I call him the winchman.

Here is a U-Tube video of hime testing one of his winches


Anyway back to the point! I sent him some Bloodlines - .500x325 gr. to modify and knurl for me. He sent back five of these modified bullets for a test shoot. When I got the five bullets I found that his knurl was right at the base of the bullet. It was the perfect knurl for my rifle, but I was concerned that there was not also a knurl near the top of the ogive so I ran them between to two file to create a knurl that would hold the bullet stable in the bore the full length of the ogive. The largest part of the modification was the conical base that the 'winchman' cut in the bottom of the bullet eliminating the need of a wad or sub-base.

Here is a picture of the 5 modified bullets weighing 280 gr.



If you look closely at the base of the bullet you can see the knurl that he installed bringing the bullet base to 0.5015/2. Also you will see where I cut in a filing knurl to help hold the bullet in the bore more symmetrically.

This morning plan was to shoot the paper 100 yard target to see how close I could hold a group, but the first bullet loaded to well I decided to go after a bird on the wall instead. I missed and from where I was I could not ell where the actually impact point was. So I loaded another with the thought that was the first shot on a CCB so maybe the first shot was out. With that thought I loaded a second bullet and picked on the same bird - another miss! Three bullets left so I decided I had better go back to the original plan and shoot a group on paper.

Loaded up the 3rd shot and took the first shot on the target - I was a couple of inches high from what I was expecting and would easily explain the first two misses. The rifle is sighted in for same bullet but before modification - so sighted in shooting a 325 grain bullet. The second shot on target was right with the first and I was feeling pretty good about the work that winchman did. Loaded up the last round and took aim on the target - I really wanted it to be in or right next to the first two shots - but trying to be to accurate cost me in the end. Still even with #3 the group ended up being 1.75"group.



Thanks to Olehunter or winchman!!!

why not flare the base of the bullet like a thor?

No need to the base will obturate to the bore as soon as it is shot. The reason I chose to knurl the top of the orgive is because brass is so much harder than copper it will not obturate as copper does.

I'm honestly thinking that maybe you should keep using the buttons there Sabot. Your grouping was tighter. What # files are you using to knurl? I'm ordering some of those bloodlines tomorrow to try out in the TC (if they have them in stock) so more than likely I'll have to knurl them up.

I am using two general purpose Mil files.



Yes, I really agree - the sub-bases work very well even though they were not designed for this project.

Also I really think I just pulled shot #3 a bit myself - do not really think is was the bullets fault at all.

New TC's are normally tighter than Knights so they may work fine for you.

hehe, Mine is FAR from new. I bought these barrels and frame a few months after the Pro Hunter system came out. Well before the S&W takeover. The only newer barrel I have for it is the .338Fed barrel.