In te article that Steve Garbe wrote, he also said that it was a lot of gun for the money. How long is that bullet of yours? Kenny Wasserberger advised me that my 1.51" 540gr patched Money bullet would be stable in my 1:18 twist .45-110 to 1000 yards as long as the powder charge was heavy enough. I don't know how stable it truly is as the only long range I've shot with it was at the Heffley Creek gongs ( 500m, 600m, 700m, and 800m ). It seems to work well there. That's with a 105gr Fg powder charge and the bullet is cast in 16:1. I have a shorter patched Money bullet ( 1.47" IIRC ) and it seems to group well at 500m out of a .45-70 with 82gr of Goex FFg Express. My main problems are that I tend to throw the occasional, and sometimes not so occasional, horizontal flyer.
Chris.
Hi, Chris, I have been frigging around with a variety of bullets. I started out with an adjustable paper patched bullet, with a maximum length of about 1.3", with the option of flat or hollow base. It shot pretty good at that length, with either flat or hollow base. The adjustable mold is a pain in the ass, though, so I had a plain PP mold made, but heavier and longer bullet, 1.45", 540 grains. It shot very erratically, often tumbling. I have been shooting 85-100 grains of 1.5f Swiss. Larger charges kick more, but do not seem to improve accuracy. I finally put the nice custom mold in my lathe, and shortened it to 1.33", 500 grains, and it seems to shoot ok, but I am having fliers as well. I have narrowed the cause down to one of two things...I may not be getting the bore clean enough between shots, or I may have a problem with patches remaining stuck to the bullet after it leaves the muzzle. My last session, I shot 5 shots (after a fouling shot). The first 3 were a nice ragged hole at 50 yards, then 2 fliers. That made me wonder about a cleaning problem, in that a build up of fouling may have caused the 2 fliers, after 3 nice ones. But then, upon examining some patched bullets, I discovered that the patches were stuck fairly tight to the bullets, caused, I think, by having a bit of lube residue from running the bullets through a sizing die. That could certainly cause patches to remain stuck to the bullet after leaving the muzzle, which would in turn cause fliers.
I mentioned that I resize the bullets. That has been the only way I could get a perfect fit. I sent a couple of molds back to Leo because they were not right. In the end, I made my own sizing die, and that has been the solution to that problem. Bullet diameter is perfect, and very consistent.
I forgot to mention that a CGN friend sent me some grease grooved bullets when I first got the rifle, and I tried them, with varying success. One type that he sent were longer, 1.45", 540 grains, and they tumbled. The others were shorter, about 1.25, I think, and they shot pretty good.
Here's a link to the Greenhill formula for calculating twist rate.
http://kwk.us/twist.html It seems to support my observations, that 1.33" is close to the max length for a .44 cal bullet at 1300 fps.
I cannot solve the problems until spring. The Bride and I are in Oceanside, CA, for the winter, and the rifle is at home. My focus has changed from shooting to surfing, for 3 months. Hang loose, Dude!! (I will be following CGN)
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