Shiloh 44-77 Hartford

[Eric Johanen]

Yesterday was a great day to be on the range. My 30 inch heavy barreled Shiloh with Stephan's Hartford front and a Lawrence rear. 200 yard SR and a 600 yard MR-52 target posted at 200 yards. The black is 11.75 inches about the size of a medium/small sized gong. 10 ring is 3 5/8th's. Load I was using is fire formed Jamison brass, CCI Br-2 primer, 77 grains of KIK 2 fg, Thin .450 card, a DGL grease wad at 1/8" followed by another thin card. Bullet is from a Brook's mold @.430 475 grain Sharps style bullet cast at 16/1 wrapped with Southworth 55y paper. This rifle has Orville's pp chamber. Bullets were seated shallow Flipped up the leaf and set the slider at 200 yards and put 3 shots over the MR-52 paper. Slider bottomed out and impact at 12:30 in the 6 ring. Slider up and used the 100 yard notch. With a fine sight it hit just below the black, 6 shots between 6 and 6:30 3 to 4 inches low. Using a bit of the blade above the rear sight I started hitting in the black. 2 at 5 outside 7's, touching, 2 8's 9 and 3:30, 5 9's centered around the 10 ring for a 5 inch group. Last shot was perfect for elevation but I pulled it out to the 6 ring at 3. I must open up the notch a bit as it's pretty tight for my old eyes! Wiped with 1 wet and 1 dry. Fouling was heavier than usual probably do the light compression. I'll try the load again with heavier compression and see if it burns cleaner. I am starting to get this rifle and loads figured out. Great fun!