I'm assuming you are shooting cast lead bullets in the gun??? Are you shooting smokeless powder, black or one of the substitutes??? Have you slugged the barrel??? What hardness is the lead??? That's where I would start, once I figured out bullet size then I would start looking bullet configurations and lastly at powder/primer combinations. I suspect that will get you where you need to be without trying to bed the fore stock. What caliber are you shooting?
I'm using cast lead bullets from the bullet barn 25 BHN 158 grain .358 diameter round nose flat points, and 158 grain .358 diameter round nose from Oma (which I think are a bit softer). Both of them have performed well enough for cowboy action shooting, even for bonus targets which are typically 4" gongs at 20m. My 38 special loads use trail boss and my 357 mag loads use FFFg Goex. My rifle didn't seem to like 130 grain cast bullets. I can't remember what the bore diameter was when I slugged it back when I was developing my 38 special load (7 years ago), but I'm pretty sure it wasn't oversized.
The 38 specials were doing pretty good for the close up silhouettes and gongs, typically 4" rounds and pistol chickens 25 to 50 m, and pistol pigs 50 to 75m, but turkeys starting at 75m required so much hold over that I was having a hell of a time hitting them. And when I did they didn't fall over.
I figured bumping up to a good 357 mag load might do the trick, but 130 grain factory jacketed, 158 grain factory load nosed flat point, and my 158 grain 2400 and H110 loads were terrible. The only load that seemed to tighten up was 15.5 grains of H110 and the bullet barn flat point, which gave me around 1" wide by 5" tall groups at 50 m. Maybe the rifle just doesn't agree with 357 mag velocities?
On another note are you still shooting Cowboy Action? Someday I'll have the resources to get up to your neck of the woods if there's a club. First I need to rebuild my bank account after dealing with stage 4 colon cancer. Granny One Shot and I do get out to the July 1 Palmers Gulch match so maybe I'll see you there one day.
Grey Beard
Yup we are still holding a match over here in PG, but we are't a SASS registered club. We've kept it at a 5 stage main and a few side matches the next day, since we don't have enough dedicated crew to do much more. We have a kind of tri-city arrangement going between Quesnel, Williams Lake, and Prince George, so turn out is pretty good. One of these days when my son gets a little older we plan on heading back to Saskatoon to do your match, we had a lot of fun.
I'm glad to hear you are on the mend!
fold up a piece of paper and wedge it between your barrel and magazine tube so that you have good pressure on your barrel and see if it changes anything
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to go back to my 38 special load an use it as a baseline with my barrel unfettered by the mag tube and forestock, then I'll start adding parts until things start to go haywire. If the fore stock is the problem then I'll do as you suggest with the paper. It could be that when I started using black powder that my moose milk cleaner made the fore stock swell and put pressure where it didn't belong. It was a real b!tch to get the forestock off the mag tube, and the tube had some pitting on the outside, so I'm guessing some moisture got trapped in there.
Potashminer I read some time ago (in relation to Ruger #1) to rest the front of the action on the forward sandbag. Just your leading hand on the forearm. Try to replicate the dynamics of an off-hand shot. Alternatively, which I do with a Winchester 94, is to press the back of my left hand against the front sandbag. My gloved hand is holding the forearm, the back of that hand is against the sandbag. If you are getting 5" of vertical at 50 yards, something is amiss!!
I'm definitely gong to give that a try.
