Match - LoadData.com BPCR.pdf · a drop tube. Mine is copper and 24 inches long, but the exact...

11
40 Handloader 238 www.handloadermagazine.com Facing page, taken at the 2005 Montana State BPCR Silhouette Championship, this photo illustrates why a BPCR must deliver a maximum group of two min- utes of angle to be considered coompetitive. Those black specks are the targets. Above, these were Mike’s match .40-65 and .45-70 loads. From left: Brooks pointed bullet and loaded round and Mos Creedmoor bullet and loaded round. N Mike Venturino Photos by Yvonne Venturino N o shooting game should be more attractive to an avid handloader than NRA Black Powder Cartridge Rifle (BPCR) Silhouette. To do well in that sport, a competitor not only must have a finely accurate rifle and shoot it well, but he must also be an extremely knowledgeable hand- loader and bullet caster. The sort of precision required to hit those metallic targets all the way to 500 meters can only be achieved by ex- pertly assembled handloads. Mostly I think my rifles will usually group around 1 1 / 2 MOA. Gullo said he felt his rifles mostly grouped just above one MOA. In many conversations with Steve Brooks, custom bullet mould maker and 1998 and 2001 BPCR Silhouette national champion, he has told me he seldom gets groups on paper as tight as those I have taped to the walls of my reloading room. (They’re mostly 1 to 1 1 / 2 MOA.) That didn’t stop him from also winning both Idaho’s and Mon- tana’s 2005 State Championships. Now, if you don’t think such accuracy is very im- pressive, think again. We’re talking here about ex- posed-hammer, single-shot rifles introduced prior Just what level of precision is needed? Strictly speaking a rifle delivering two minute-of-angle (MOA) groups should be competitive. BPCR Sil- houette uses the same targets at the same ranges as High Power Silhouette. They are cutouts of chick- ens, pigs, turkeys and rams placed at 200, 300, 385 and 500 meters, respectively. Theoretically two MOA accuracy should suffice. The chicken body is 5 1 / 2 inches tall, and the pig spans 14 inches from top of hump to belly-line. An 11-inch circle will fit in- side a turkey body, and the rams are 13 inches deep from backbone to belly. Two MOA will do it if everything happens perfectly: if every shot breaks dead center, if the sunlight is just right on the tar- gets and there is no wind to deal with. And it would certainly help if the rifle is rested over a dead solid benchrest instead of being supported by a set of cross-sticks in front and one’s hands at the rear. Here’s what two former BPCR Silhouette national champions have said to me. Dave Gullo, president of Buffalo Arms Company and 1996 BPCR Silhou- ette national champion, and I discussed rifle accu- racy at dinner one evening recently. He asked if any of my rifles would truly group one MOA consis- tently, like the “Internet experts” are always brag- ging about. I said no. Sometimes a group will hit the one MOA mark, but I consider that more a fluke. Match Match In scoped BPCR Silhouette, scoring and course of fire are the same as with iron sights.

Transcript of Match - LoadData.com BPCR.pdf · a drop tube. Mine is copper and 24 inches long, but the exact...

Page 1: Match - LoadData.com BPCR.pdf · a drop tube. Mine is copper and 24 inches long, but the exact length is not critical. My method is to trickle the powder in taking about five seconds

40 Handloader 238www.handloadermagazine.com

Facing page, taken at the 2005 Montana State BPCRSilhouette Championship, this photo illustrates whya BPCR must deliver a maximum group of two min-utes of angle to be considered coompetitive. Thoseblack specks are the targets. Above, these wereMike’s match .40-65 and .45-70 loads. From left:Brooks pointed bullet and loaded round and MosCreedmoor bullet and loaded round.

NMike VenturinoPhotos by Yvonne Venturino

No shooting game shouldbe more attractive to anavid handloader than NRABlack Powder Cartridge

Rifle (BPCR) Silhouette. To do wellin that sport, a competitor not onlymust have a finely accurate rifle andshoot it well, but he must also bean extremely knowledgeable hand-loader and bullet caster. The sort ofprecision required to hit thosemetallic targets all the way to 500meters can only be achieved by ex-pertly assembled handloads.

Mostly I think my rifles will usually group around11⁄2 MOA. Gullo said he felt his rifles mostly groupedjust above one MOA. In many conversations withSteve Brooks, custom bullet mould maker and 1998and 2001 BPCR Silhouette national champion, hehas told me he seldom gets groups on paper as tightas those I have taped to the walls of my reloadingroom. (They’re mostly 1 to 11⁄2 MOA.) That didn’tstop him from also winning both Idaho’s and Mon-tana’s 2005 State Championships.

Now, if you don’t think such accuracy is very im-pressive, think again. We’re talking here about ex-posed-hammer, single-shot rifles introduced prior

Just what level of precision is needed? Strictlyspeaking a rifle delivering two minute-of-angle(MOA) groups should be competitive. BPCR Sil-houette uses the same targets at the same ranges asHigh Power Silhouette. They are cutouts of chick-ens, pigs, turkeys and rams placed at 200, 300, 385and 500 meters, respectively. Theoretically twoMOA accuracy should suffice. The chicken body is51⁄2 inches tall, and the pig spans 14 inches from topof hump to belly-line. An 11-inch circle will fit in-side a turkey body, and the rams are 13 inches deepfrom backbone to belly. Two MOA will do it ifeverything happens perfectly: if every shot breaksdead center, if the sunlight is just right on the tar-gets and there is no wind to deal with. And it wouldcertainly help if the rifle is rested over a dead solidbenchrest instead of being supported by a set ofcross-sticks in front and one’s hands at the rear.

Here’s what two former BPCR Silhouette nationalchampions have said to me. Dave Gullo, presidentof Buffalo Arms Company and 1996 BPCR Silhou-ette national champion, and I discussed rifle accu-racy at dinner one evening recently. He asked if anyof my rifles would truly group one MOA consis-tently, like the “Internet experts” are always brag-ging about. I said no. Sometimes a group will hit theone MOA mark, but I consider that more a fluke.

MatchMatchIn scoped BPCR

Silhouette, scoring and course of fireare the same as with iron sights.

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December-January 2006 41www.handloadermagazine.com

LoadingBPCR

LoadingBPCRthe

Venturino SharesTips and Techniques

Venturino SharesTips and Techniques

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Handloader 238

a good shooter to boot, how doesone go about handloading black-powder loads that would becompetitive in this sport? In anutshell, it must be done care-fully and with considerableshooting on paper in the develop-mental process. Paper targetshooting should be focused ontesting and eliminating variables,such as exactly which bullet orprimer to use. What is detailed inthe following is merely how Ipersonally assembled match

to 1896 (or replicas thereof) fir-ing loads containing black pow-der and lead alloy bullets sansany sort of gas check. The riflesmust be chambered for Americancartridges also introduced priorto 1896, and they cannot weighmore than 12 pounds, 2 ounces,including sights. Few of theserifles or loads push a bullet out at

quality .40-65 and .45-70 loads forthe 2005 NRA BPCR NationalChampionships.

What are my credentials? At thebeginning of 2005, the NRAraised the minimum Master Classscore to 31 hits in a 40-shotmatch, and competitors neededat least two such scores in 2004to stay in that class. I had thebare minimum, and at this writ-ing in August 2005 have managedone score of 32.

more than 1,250 fps muzzle ve-locity. Then couple that with theidea that all bullets must stay in-side an 11-inch circle at 385 me-ters (422 yards). That is just 12yards short of a quarter-mile. Orall bullets must stay on a ram at500 meters (547 yards), which isabout 40 yards shy of one-thirdmile.

Given a finely accurate rifle and

42 www.handloadermagazine.com

MatchLoads

MatchLoads

The most importantfactors to getting fine

BPCR accuracy isplacing the powder

into the case by meansof a drop tube.

Mike’s match loads used these components.

Mike used these two Shiloh Model 1874 Sharpsrifles (.45-70, top, and .40-65, bottom) in the ironsight and scoped sight 2005 national championships.

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December-January 2006

Starting last year the NRAbegan another BPCR NationalChampionship – this one allow-ing scoped sights. (See my articlein Rifle No. 220.) In scoped BPCRSilhouette, scoring and course offire are the same as with ironsights. Be that as it may, myscores thus far have kept me inAAA Class (26 to 30 hits in a 40-shot match).

Keep in mind that the followingtechniques and components arenot carved in stone. Other verygood shooters do some thingssimilarly and some differently.

all. Many other shooters relyingon one rifle neck-size their brasswhile some don’t size it at all.

Brass is a good place to start. Ibought a large quantity of Win-chester .45-70 brass and weighedeach one. Cases that stayed withina plus/minus factor of 1.5 grainswere kept. Five hundred wereleft as .45-70 and 400 were formedto .40-65. Then primer pocketsand flash holes were uniformed.One of my .40-65s has a slightlyshort chamber, so the .40s werecut to 2.09 inches; and while theelectric trimmer was set at thatlength, the .45-70s were cut like-wise. My feeling is that casesdon’t need to be exactly 2.10inches (their nominal maximumlength) as long as all are thesame. Is Winchester brand brass

For instance, since I have threeeach .45-70 and .40-65 matchrifles, my brass is full-lengthsized so as to chamber freely in

43www.handloadermagazine.com

Left, this is Shiloh’s in-line bulletseating system. Note that itmounts in a single-station press.Below, Mike feels that a droptube is necessary for good qual-ity BPCR ammunition, shownhere with the new MontanaVintage Arms black-powdermeasure. Right, Mike trickles hisblack powder into the drop tubeslowly, taking about five secondsfor the entire amount to fall.

Mike anneals cases between loadings.For 2005 Mike began trimming each case beforeevery reloading.

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MatchLoads

MatchLoads

Handloader 238

magic? No, I got a great deal on1,000 rounds. Other shooters useStarline or Remington cases withcomplete satisfaction.

Before the 2005 season, mymatch brass was only trimmedabout once a year and had neverbeen annealed. However, I didbegin noticing “dirty” streaksdown the sides of some cases.That is caused by gas leakingaround the case mouth on firing,which in turn is the result of thebrass becoming hard or stiff. Myfriend Butch Ulsher of Butte,Montana, is always one of thecontenders at any BPCR Silhou-ette match he attends and hasstressed to me many times thathe anneals and trims his cases

44 www.handloadermagazine.com

Loads for the BPCRextreme 100-yard 300-yard

bullet powder charge velocity spread groups groups(grains) (grains) (fps) (fps) (inches) (inches)

.40-65 Shiloh Model 1874 Sharps 30-inch barrel and Montana Vintage Arms 6x scope

Mike’s match loads:

425 Pt Brooks custom mould Swiss 11⁄2 Fg 57.0 1,177 9 15⁄8 21⁄257.0 1,181 7 15⁄8 5.0

experimental loads:

408 FN RCBS 40-400CSA Swiss 11⁄2 Fg 55.0 1,193 10 21⁄8 71⁄255.0 1,195 8 21⁄2 8.0

.45-70 Shiloh Model 1874 Sharps 30-inch barrel and Montana Vintage Arms peep sight

Mike’s match loads:

530 RN Mos custom mould Swiss 11⁄2 Fg 67.0 1,174 10 15⁄8 23⁄467.0 1,179 4 7⁄8 43⁄4

experimental loads:

511 RN Pioneer Productscustom double cavity mould Swiss 1 Fg 70.0 1,205 14 2.0 71⁄2

70.0 1,207 15 23⁄8 8.0

Notes: Mike’s match loads for .45-70 used Federal 215 Large Rifle Magnum primers, and for the .40-65 CCI BenchRest primers were used. The experimental loads used Winchester Large Rifle for .45-70 and Remington 21⁄2 LargePistol primers for the .40-65.All bullets used SPG lube, and all brass was Winchester brand. The particulars of bullet alloys, sizing diameters andbullet nose diameters can be found in the text.Chronograph notes are for both five-shot groups fired at 100 yards as taken with a PACT Professional Modelchronograph with start screen at approximately 6 feet. The rounds fired for group at 300 yards were not chrono-graphed.

Be Alert – Publisher cannot accept responsibility for errors in published load data.

Above, Redding Competition seat-ing dies were used for the .40-65match loads. Above right, samplesfrom each box of match loads aretested with a Sinclair concentric-ity gauge. They don’t have morethan .001 inch runout. Right,Mike uses these Paul Jones cus-tom chamfering tools in preparinghis match loads.

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MatchLoads

MatchLoads

Handloader 238

State Championship I managed athird place in Master Class and atthe Montana State Championshiptook first place in Master Class.Therefore, I bow to Butch’s wis-dom on the annealing and trim-ming matter.

My .40- and .45-caliber cases arefull-length sized in ordinaryLyman dies. Case mouths are ex-panded and belled also with stan-dard Lyman M-dies, with the.40-caliber plug measuring .406inch and the .45-caliber plug mik-ing .455 inch. Case mouths areopened just enough to accept abullet’s base. As for chamferingcases after trimming, the specialtools made by Paul Jones (4901

Telegraph Road, Los Angeles CA90022), also of bullet mould mak-ing fame, are used. They have afinely ground pilot so the cham-fering job is perfectly square withthe case mouth.

In my opinion one of the mostimportant factors to getting fineBPCR accuracy is placing thepowder into the case by means ofa drop tube. Mine is copper and24 inches long, but the exactlength is not critical. My methodis to trickle the powder in takingabout five seconds to drop theentire charge. That compacts thepowder as it enters the caseand for some reason not fullyunderstood helps black powderburn with less fouling. Also, thecharges are weighed to within±0.10 grain.

Something that seems to be ex-tremely difficult for handloaderssteeped in smokeless powder

for each loading. I thought thatwas nonsense, but with him usu-ally whipping me, it was hard topress the point. Early in 2005 Ibought one of the Light Manufac-turing Company’s (PO Box 2745,Lake Havasu City AZ 86405) an-nealing machines and startedboth lightly annealing and trim-ming cases for each loading.Thus far this year at the Idaho

46 www.handloadermagazine.com

(1) Mike’s match .45-70 loads fired this 7⁄8-inchgroup at 100 yards. (2) This group was fired at 300yards with the match loads in the .40-65 and is anillustration of why some shooters might think theyhave a minute-of-angle rifle. (3) This excellent groupat 300 yards was the first one fired with Mike’s match loads in the.45-70. (4) The 5-inch group was the second .40-65 match load firedat 300 yards and shows why the first group might mislead someoneinto thinking they had an MOA rifle. Note the wide dispersion of the“experimental” load just above it.

1 2

3 4

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Schuetzen powder from Ger-many. The usual Fg, FFg andFFFg granulations apply with theaddition that GOEX has its Car-tridge Grade and Swiss has 11⁄2Fg. Who knows which is best?Again the rifle will tell you by the

techniques to understand is thatit matters not exactly how muchblack powder is loaded. The cor-rect charge is however much willfit in the case considering thebullet seating depth desired andwhat thickness of wad is be-tween the bullet and powdercharge. Also one should fac-tor in powder compressionif that is desired. Some ofthe Internet gurus love totell newcomers exactly howmuch compression they willneed for good shooting. That’snonsense. Their rifle will tellthem how much it likes by howwidely it places the bullet holesin the paper. For instance, withmy .40-65 loads there is no com-pression of powder at all. Con-versely, my .45-70 loads haveabout .12-inch compression.

That brings us to powders.Right now we have GOEX pow-der as made in Louisiana, Swisspowder made in Switzerland and

other component. The groupsproduced by one or the other willstand out. My .45-70 loads useFederal 215 Large Rifle MagnumMatch primers, and the .40-65loads use CCI Large Rifle Bench-rest primers. Substitute some-

thing different in thoseloads and groups enlarge.This factor was also testedseveral times.

Picking a bullet for match load-ng perhaps is the most difficultpart because there are so manyto choose from. My shelves ofbullet moulds are extensive andcontain more variations of bulletdesigns than anyone with goodsense would have. Truthfully, noone style, weight or shape domi-nates. At this writing I’m usingtwo designs for match shooting.The .45-caliber bullets come froma Mos mould as sold by the Bal-lard Rifle Company (113 WestYellowstone, Cody WY 82414). It

bullet holes in the paper. My 2005match loads use Swiss 11⁄2 Fg witha charge of 57.0 grains in the .40-65 and 67.0 grains in the .45-70.Those specific charge weightswere arrived at by trying a rangeof charges in one-grain incre-ments. The chosen charges gavethe best groups – time after time– with the specific bullets de-tailed farther along.

Primers should also be chosenthrough a process of elimination.This is simple: try four or fivedifferent brands, changing no

Primers should also be chosenthrough a process of elimination.

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In bullet seating there are twopaths. Until recently I’ve reliedsolely on the Competition Seat-ing Dies as sold by Redding Re-loading Equipment. In fact its.40-65 and .45-70 comp-dies arekept permanently mounted in aRedding T-7 press. However,about a year ago Shiloh RifleManufacturing (PO Box 279, BigTimber MT 59011) started mar-keting an in-line seating die sys-tem that mounts in the top ofmost standard single-stationpresses. The die bodies are cutwith the same reamers as Shilohuses to cut rifle chambers, and aprecise fitting nose punch is sup-plied. These punches can beadapted to any shape bullet noseby the use of JB Weld or epoxy.As checked by a Sinclair concen-tricity gauge, my match loads donot give more than .001 inchrunout. The Shiloh in-line seaterfor .40-65 arrived recently, andthere wasn’t time to experimentwith it before the 2005 nationals.

The last factor that needs com-ment is exact bullet seatingdepth. Many of us misguidedsouls in the early years of theBPCR Silhouette sport felt thatfor best accuracy the bulletshould be seated far enough outof the case so that it engagedthe rifling upon chambering. Intruth that setting can sometimesgive very good accuracy, but awooden “prod” was often nec-essary to force recalcitrant car-tridges into fouled chambers.Nowadays it seems most winningshooters use loads that easily slipinto their rifles’ chambers. My

Handloader 238

cerning wads: Once at a matchwhile setting targets on theturkey line, I found a bullet lyingon the ground with the wad stillstuck to its base. Since then I’veused lighter fluid on a cleaningpatch to wipe the excess lube offbullet bases before loading.

is of Creedmoor style with threegrease grooves. Weight is 530grains of 1-20 (tin-to-lead) alloy;nose diameter is .447 inch, andbody diameter is .459 inch. The.40-caliber bullet has a pointednose and comes from a SteveBrooks mould (1610 Dunn Ave.,Walkerville MT 59701). It hasfour grease grooves, weighs 425grains of the same alloy with anose diameter of .397 inch andbody diameter of .408 inch. The.45-caliber bullets are run througha .459-inch sizing die, whichbarely touches them. The .40-cal-iber bullets are passed through a.410-inch die that only puts lubeon without touching anywhere.

There are many details to con-sider in preparing bullets, but wewon’t go into them here becausethey were covered in my “CastingGood Bullets” article in Hand-

loader No. 237. Suffice to say thatmost top shooters I know usealloys of 1-20 to 1-30.

Bullet lubricants are anothervariable. There are now manytypes of black powder specificlubes on the market, but I’vestuck with SPG (PO Box 1625,Cody WY 82414) after trying sev-eral others.

After the chosen powder chargesare put into the cartridge casesby the above described drop tubemethod, then a .060-inch Walter’s(500 N. Avery, Moore OK 73160)vegetable fiber wad is handpressed on top with a short rod.These wads are .410 inch in di-ameter for .40 caliber and .460inch for .45 caliber. Also avail-able from various sources arewads of polyurethane or simplecard stock, and thicknessesrange from .030 to .060 inch.Those in my match ammunitionwere picked because the loadsassembled with them shot best.That is except for the poly-wads.I have a brace in me about usingsuch a material in a wood andsteel rifle designed during theblack-powder era. Some topshooters do use them, so each tohis own. One other thing con-

48 www.handloadermagazine.com

Most top shootersI know use alloys of

1-20 to 1-30.

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December-January 2006

.45-70 loads have an overalllength of 2.95 inches, and my .40-65 rounds measure 3.01 inches.That means the .45-70s have allthe bullet’s grease grooves cov-ered, but the .40-65s have onegroove exposed.

Learning to prepare matchgrade BPCR ammunition as de-scribed above didn’t dawn onanyone overnight. For me it isbased on experience gained infiring many thousands of roundsat paper targets and more thou-sands of rounds in literally hun-dreds of BPCR Silhouette eventsduring the past 20 years.

As this is being written, I’mpreparing to attend the 2005BPCR Silhouette National Cham-pionships at Raton, New Mexico.For the scoped event I’m taking aShiloh .40-65 with an MVA 6xscope mounted. For the standardiron sight event, I’m taking aShiloh .45-70 carrying an MVASoule-type sight and its spiritlevel front. Before leaving I firedboth rifles on paper at 100 and300 yards with the freshly pre-pared match loads.

However, in order to completethis article, some other loadswere prepared. These were as-sembled as hard experience hastaught me not to prepare matchgrade ammunition. However, anovice to the sport might assem-ble his/hers in this manner.

A new batch of 100 Winchester.45-70 cases was divided in half.One batch stayed as is, and theother was sized down to .40-65.Afterwards the .40-65s had to betrimmed. The case trimmer wasalready set to 2.09 inches, so itwas left alone. The .45-70s werenot trimmed at all. None of thecases were annealed, nor wereprimer pockets or flash holesuniformed. Case mouths werechamfered but with an ordinarychamfering tool.

Two bullets moulds were takenout of my assortment, deliber-ately picking two that had never

49www.handloadermagazine.com

(Continued on page 107)

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December-January 2006

powder funnel atop the droptube in one motion. Wads wereagain Walter’s vegetable fiberones but only of .030 inch, just tobe different. In keeping with ad-vice from some Internet sources,the powder charges were com-pressed a full .25 inch before bul-lets were seated.

Remington 21⁄2 Large Pistolprimers were used with the .40-65s simply because I’ve also seenthem recommended on Internetchat rooms, and the .45-70s wereprimed with Winchester LargeRifle. Seating depth was adjustedso these bullets engaged therifling when the rifles’ breech-blocks were closed. In fact the.40-65s were so tight because ofthe bullet’s large nose diameterthat I had to find my old wooden“cartridge prod” and use it to“help” almost every round intothe rifle’s chamber. Excess bulletlube was not cleaned from thebullets’ bases. Bullets were seatedwith standard Lyman seatingdies.

The first two, five-shot groupswere fired from each rifle withmatch loads. Since it was in thehigh 80s and low 90s for tempera-ture with only about 15 to 20 per-cent humidity, the rifle barrelwas wiped with a wet and thendry patch after each five-shotgroup. A single fouling shot wasfired before each group, and thesights tweaked afterwards tomove the group slightly awayfrom it. After a rifle was cleaned,it was allowed to sit in the cornerand cool, while the second riflewas fired. Then the second batchthat I call “experiment” loadswas tried in the same manner.Group shooting was done at both100 and 300 yards.

The results with match gradeloads at 100 yards were actually alittle larger than I expected.Three of the four groups wereexactly 15⁄8 inches, with one .45-70group going only 7⁄8 inch. Beforeshooting I would have bet that allthe groups would be under 11⁄2inches.

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been fired in either of these par-ticular Shiloh rifles. The .40 cal-iber was RCBS 40-400CSA. Itsbullets are capable of good accu-racy, but their grease grooves aremuch too small for continualblack-powder shooting, as bulletlube is also an aid in keepingfouling soft. The RCBS designcarries little. The .45 mould usedwas recently purchased from Pio-neer Products (254 Brookville-Johnsville Road, Brookville OH45309) and throws a Postell-stylebullet with four large greasegrooves. However, it is a double-cavity mould, so bullets fromeach hole were not kept sepa-rate. Using a double-cavity mouldisn’t necessarily a bad thing – I’vejust never tested the idea byshooting on paper.

Furthermore, bullets from bothmoulds were cast from wheel-weight alloy with some hard castcommercial bullets thrown in toprovide a little tin. And, as op-posed to my usual practice, thesebullets were poured by means ofa bottom pour lead furnace. (Seemy comments in Handloader No.237.) They were then sized in.408- and .458-inch dies, respec-tively, with SPG applied to both.None were weighed for consis-tency. The .40-caliber bullets fellfrom the mould measuring .400inch on the nose and .410 for thebody, and the .45s were .455 inchand .459 inch in the same order.Bullet weights were 408 and 511grains.

In assembling these loads,Swiss Fg powder was used forthe .45-70 and 11⁄2 Fg for the .40-65. Those two were chosenmainly because they happened tobe on the bench when it cametime to pick powders. Chargeweights were a full 70 grains for.45-70 and 55 grains for .40-65.Powder charges were not weighedbut thrown straight from a meas-ure; nor were they slowly trick-led into the drop tube. The entirecharge was just dumped into the

Match Loading the BPCR(Continued from page 49)

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“The GageThat Works!”This is a gage to measure con-sistency of rim thickness on .22rimfire ammunition (a .22 rim-fire rifle’s headspace is deter-mined by case rim thickness).The more consistent the rimthickness, the more consistentthe ignition of the primer and thepowder charge in the case. Inother words, the firing pin will fall thesame distance every time if the same rimthickness is used on every case beingfired for a particular group. By sorting theshells into various groups by rim thick-ness, a reduction in group size of up to25% can be realized in some IF NOTMOST rimfire rifles. This informationabout group reduction comes from the.22 rimfire benchrest participants whocompete in the extremely difficult BR-50matches. All of the top shooters sort theirshells into groups by checking rims andweighing the unfired cartridges.

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Page 11: Match - LoadData.com BPCR.pdf · a drop tube. Mine is copper and 24 inches long, but the exact length is not critical. My method is to trickle the powder in taking about five seconds

Handloader 238

Conversely a couple of groupsfired at 300 yards illustrate ex-actly why some people talk abouttheir “minute-of-angle” rifles.With the .40-65 the first groupwas a mere 21⁄2 inches. Then withthe .45-70 it was 23⁄4 inches. Thoseare great! Now get this: The sec-ond .40-65 group was 5 inches.Also I had been watching thereadings given by the wind metermounted atop my shooting house,and to that point the wind hadbeen going from zero to about 7mph. That’s considered “deadcalm” around here. However, bythe time the last .45-70 groupswere fired, the wind meter wasreading from 7 to 14 mph. That.45-70 group was only about 11⁄2inches tall but spread to 43⁄4inches wide. Personally, I thinkthe very small 300-yard groupswere flukes. They are nice to getand tape to your reloading roomwalls but obviously can’t becounted on every time.

The “experiment” loads werejust about 50 percent larger fromboth rifles. At 100 yards they ranfrom 2.0 to 21⁄2 inches, and at 300yards they were all in the 71⁄2- to8-inch range. That’s not horrible,especially perhaps from a begin-ner’s perspective, but still not ac-tually competitive. Also it shouldbe mentioned that in the end,after firing the “experiment”loads, the .45-70 barrel gave uponly a few slivers of lead fouling,but the .40-65’s barrel was badlyleaded – again probably becauseof the RCBS bullet’s oversizenose. Two tight fitting patches oflead removal cloth were requiredto clean the .40-65, and thepieces of lead they pulled outwere huge by my standards. Onlytiny specs of leading came fromthe barrels after firing the matchloads.

So, in the end, is it worth all thetime-consuming shenanigans I gothrough to prepare “match-grade” BPCR ammunition? In myopinion it is if you want to becompetitive instead of just com-

Postscript: The above articlewas written as I prepared to at-tend the 2005 NRA NationalChampionships for both ironsight and scoped BPCR Silhou-ette. I’m now back from theevent, and a natural question thatmight arise in readers’ minds is:“Well, did he win?” No, I didn’twin anything but did manage toplace a couple of times. Formatch one of the iron sight eventmy score of 46 in a 60-shot match(7-C, 15-P, 11-T, 13-R) gave mefourth in Master Class. However,in match two the poultry ham-mered me, and my score was aweak 36 (2-C, 14-P, 7-T and 13-R).

In the scoped match, my com-bined scores of 40 (2-C, 15-P, 11-T, 12-R) and 44 (5-C, 15-P, 11-T,13-R) for the two days gave me atrophy for ninth place overall inAAA class. Considering bothevents, that was my best showingever at the nationals.

However, it should be pointedout that Brian Chilson of Penn-sylvania took top honors in bothscoped and iron sight nationalchampionships. His scores of97 for the two iron sight matchesand 101 for the two scopedmatches were extremely impres-sive. Brian shot immediately tomy left in the iron sight matchand immediately to my right inthe scoped match, so I know forsure he didn’t get dealt the bestof conditions every day. Inciden-tally, his rifle was a Shiloh Model1874 Sharps .45-90, but time did-n’t allow me to gain all the partic-ulars of his ammunition.

peting. And will I always shootthe loads described above?Maybe. Maybe not. Knowing my-self, I’ll continue to experiment,and I’ll follow where the bulletholes in the targets lead me.

108 www.handloadermagazine.com

The “experiment”loads were just about

50 percent largerfrom both rifles.

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