Semisane

I had an interesting shooting session yesterday I thought I'd share with you guys.

One of the guns I plan to use this deer season is my TC Renegade with a .50 caliber Green Mountain Long Range Hunter barrel. I haven't shot this gun in the last few years and thought (but wasn't sure) that it was sighted in for 240 grain/.429 Deep Curls. Also, I'd never shot it beyond 100 yards and wanted to verify trajectory out to 150 yards because that's the distance to the back end of one of my food plots.

The day was beautiful - sunny and low humidity. But the wind was a little more than I would have liked, persistent and squirrely.

My plan was to take two shots at 25 yards to verify that the scope was set for the load I was shooting (it was), then take two shots at each 25 yard interval out to 150 yards. That's what I did.

Here's the gun.



And here's the target.



Now here's the interesting thing. I was shooting a 95 grain load which produces an average velocity of just under 1650 fps with that bullet. Looking through my files I found I had an old ballistic chart for that bullet that I'd printed a few years back using the Ballistic Calculator at Handloaders.com. That chart was for a velocity of 1600 fps (close enough?). Here's the chart. You can compare it to the real world results yourself. As for me - I've always been impressed by how close the results of that calculator are to my shooting results with various loads and guns.



Here's a link to the calculator. http://handloads.com/calc/index.html

arcticap

How do you determine the Ballistic Coefficient?
Is that something that Speer provides on a factory chart or spec. sheet of some sort?

Semisane

Arcticap, the calculator at the link computes a BC when you enter the bullet diameter, weight and shape.

bronko22000

Looks to me like you're good for a dead center hold out to 125 yard Semi. But you better hold top of back at 150. Looks like you're good to go - so good luck.

Semisane

Yeah, I was happy with the results, especially considering the wind conditions during the shoot. I was trying to time my shots between gusts. But when it was somewhat still at the bench the target board would be shaking in the wind. Then when the target board was still, the wind at the bench was strong enough that I couldn't leave any sabots out of the package. If I left them loose on the bench the wind would blow them to the ground.

bronko22000

Well that was pretty windy. Its amazing you shot that well!
I'm in the process of playing with my .45 T/C Hawken/GM LRH deciding what to shoot. My paper patched bullets shoot good (370 grs) and so do Ed's 350 gr bullets.
And in speaking with Ed about his bullets and him telling me what mold it is and that he sizes them down to .452 from .458 I thought well if that's the case and before I invest in another mold, I'm going to resize some of my 405 gr. .458 bullets down to .451 and see how they shoot. I already have the mold and the sizer die. I already size them down to .451 and paper patch them for my Pedersoli 1874 Sharps.

Semisane

Lookin forward to your results with those .458/405's. Are they from the Lee mold? How do they do in the Sharps?

bronko22000

Check out my post on reloading. 3 shots at 55 yards (with all the rain I couldn't set the target at 50 because of a huge puddle) 0.75" C-C. Not too bad with open sights.

edmehlig

bronko22000

Ed you wouldn't want that Renegade the way he ruined it by putting a scope on it! And if I recall he has another one just like it somewhere and calls them the sinful sisters!