Bullet didn’t follow the rifling. Pushed out the barrel too fast. I recovered a few bullets. The marks were straight. Shot at paper with a sand berm. Accuracy was 2 ft at 50 and most hit the paper sideways. Basically the bullet skipped the rifling. Dropped the powder weight and they shot normal but accuracy past 50 still wasn’t good so switched to another powder.
Amen ! This is rule number 1. And once you’ve etched that in your brain, you can use any powder to start experimenting with light loads for light bullets. There are plenty of discussions about “mouse fart” loads (also referred to as “game getters “)… and here’s a brief summary of mine: I started off (years ago) with red dot, and once that was used up I could only find Unique. After that I fell upon 700X. Then Herco. Lastly, I foolishly misread the burn rate charts and bought Zip. No problem. I start pretty much everything with 5 grains and topped with a 53 grain 00 buckshot sized to .309 … and see how that works at 25 yards. (For .338 I use “000” sized to .339. ) From here you can vary the loads and bullets - checking for pressure signs along the way. In a different post (stick-on gas checks) I mentioned chopped up jacketed bullets. So what to do with the 50 grain back end? Well, I ended up making 50 grain jacketed wad cutters over 12 grains of Zip, that’s what. Being jacketed allows them to shoot at a faster speed without stripping through the rifling. And being light I could increase the powder charge to the point where it’s a safe (for me) 100 yard target load. That’s where I stopped. And this brings me to the corollary to Rule 1: know your limits and don’t push it.
