Designing the 2-diameter paper patch bullet.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

First, I was pleased to see your name on the list, we have missed you at Lodi. People have asked where you were.

Alma can be a challenge to get a good sight picture on certain banks of animals. I am very pleased with my scope for that and other reasons, my eyes are not getting any younger.

I'm not sure what velocity you are getting out of your .45-90 with that bullet and more velocity can make that length preform better. I run 83.0 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss in my .45-70 with a bullet that weighs 526 to 531 grains depending on alloy and that gives me just under 1300 fps. I would rather be up around 1350 or a bit more, but this where it shoots well. What's a man to do! So at 1290 fps my bullet at 1.440" shoots a bit better, especially is head and tail winds, than it did at 1.460". Again it is a small difference but at this point I'm not going to see big improvements in accuracy like I did in my early days of paper patching. I started with 6" groups at 200 yards and it was easy to see improvements on that. I don't have any idea what size groups I would get today at 200 yards, I haven't shot at that distance in years and to tell the truth it really doesn't matter. What matters is my scores at 800, 900 and 1000 yards.

The sample size with this bullet shortened to 1.440" is small, but the results were very consistent. Time will tell me better if it really matters for sure. If this alloy I'll be using this week holds up and this bullets shoots as well as it did all of last year it's going to hard to convince me that for me in my rifle 1.440" is not the best length for that bullet. I don't really claim to know for sure and I probably shouldn't give anyone the idea that 1.440" is THE magic number, but I can't not tell them what is working well for me. That is all I'm doing and I should be more clear on that. It's all based on my experience. Your results may be different.

I am chasing Mark and I only need about 2 more points per relay to have a chance of getting in front of him. That is probably just fractions of an inch at 1000 yards. It could be as simple as just cutting the 10-ring a couple of times instead of just missing it in the 9-ring! It can be pretty darn tight, I don't need much. Any time I am on Mark's heels I'm pretty happy.