44-70-380 test

[Denali]

Went to the range this morning to try my tapered gibbs bullet in the
44-2 1/4 business rifle with semibuckhorn. I set the mold to drop about 380 and ended up with 385 gr (50:1). With a clean barrel and 70gr KIK 2F I ended up with a group like this: First shot going high I believe. The second group was about 3". I had difficulty holding the center with the sun in my eyes and the lower contrast green target. I used a .030 wad-3/16 lube cookie sandwich between the bullet and powder.




I tried 75 grains KIK 2F and both groups were about 6". I was able to fire the first 15 without blowtubing or wiping, but decided to clean after the first 75gr load shot so bad. The next 5 shot group was the same 6".

Here is the ammo:



The last 10 round were my own .425 405 gr round nose hunting bullets (Accurate molds). These require thick paper. A close up of the bullet is here:



With the short nose and long parallel shank they are a little tough when fully wrapped to stuff in the chamber when it is fouled (however KIK 2F will allow me to shoot 5 or so without much breathing down the tube - im not blowtubing). Since the bullet is so much "under bore" I just had to give a "partial wrap" a try to make it easier to chamber when fouled. I figured if I wrap the bullet only 2/3 the way to the start of the ogive then maybe the new longer "effective nose" would still not touch the barrel and be easy to chamber.

Sure enough it worked. The five were easy to chamber and did not require any breathing down the barrel: 6 o-cklock hold. Not too bad just over 2".



The last 5 were wrapped full shank and did pretty good with the exception of a flyer.



Guess I have more things to fine tune. No evidence of any leading when I cleaned the rifle. I dont like these green targets as Im having a bad time getting a good sight picture. I'll try black next time.


Mike