7mm PRC, 175 gn Berger, RL 26, 0.1 gn intervals from 67.8 to 68.7... This is a second batch after a coarser set identified a sweet spot between 68 and 68.5 gns.
Annealed, FL resized with LE wilson die and 0.310" neck sizing die... may need to go up another 0.001"... no expander ball.
Not yet happy with concentricity... may invest in a Forster FL die with a custom neck hone job.
6.5 prc with RL25 59.3grn 147 eldm 2930 fps new barrel.anyone else use RL 25?
Loaded up some more .44-40 cartridges.
Jacketed XTP bullets with 26 grains 2207 smokeless, gets 1400 fps with a 200 grain XTP bullet. This is mightily progressive using these copper jacketed bullets. All of the deer I have shot with the .44-40 so far have been with blackpowder and pure lead bullets, so I expect this modern technology to make an exceptional difference...
I discovered this week that loading lead bullets with chefade and beeswax as lube, over smokeless loads does not work out so well long term - I fired some rounds I made up over a year ago - they went Fsst! pop - one actually made a LuuuuUUUUp noise, which was literally teh noise a bullet makes as it is pushed through the bore! They went through the chronograph and get results of around 300 fps. I dicided I should stop shooting them or I was going to get a bullet stuck in the barrel!
Turns out the fat/cheafe has melted at some stage and run down and contaminated the 2207 powder. So it was only ignited a bit of powder around the primer and the rest was in the bore and action. The bullet was just popping out of the muzzle.
So, now I only load jacketed with smokeless and lead with black powder ( compressed BP is not a powder will not be contaminated in the same way - it becomes a solid cake and is as hard as wood.)
Bookmarks