mec
March 29, 2008, 06:28 PM
These are fun shooters that you can do pretty well with even when you've been away from them for a while shooting other things. Very pleasant with .44 Special loads at or a bit under most factory level performance.
I like playing with these mild loads as I have little use for hunting loads anymore and they are still vociferous enough that the practice carries over to defensive level loads
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75428&stc=1&d=1206829373The left-most bullet is from these old pre-1920 black powder loads. I was kind of amazed to find that the early bullets had cupro-nickel jackets. Maybe they went a way toward keeping fouling down. The bore doesn't cake up particularly quickly with them.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75429&stc=1&d=1206828640
the 251 bullet is from a single cavity mould that is probably at least 70 years old. Although it weighs about the same as the roundnosed load on the right, it behaves quite a bit differently. I added an extra half grain of powder to get the velocities in the same approximate level.
The 29-2 and the retro mountain gun both have a lot of charm. I was keeping double action strings mostly within the 9 ring with the 29 at 25 yards shooting the 29 at about one second breaks.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75430&stc=1&d=1206828640
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75431&stc=1&d=1206828640
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/949073/mountaingun25slowf.JPG
The mountain gun has marginally lighter action and the sights are more visible. Both are about equally accurate from the bench. Sometime before autopistols took over the world, the gunwriters started complaining that the old Smith Target grips were'nt any good for double action shooting. So far as I can tell, this isn't true.
I like playing with these mild loads as I have little use for hunting loads anymore and they are still vociferous enough that the practice carries over to defensive level loads
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75428&stc=1&d=1206829373The left-most bullet is from these old pre-1920 black powder loads. I was kind of amazed to find that the early bullets had cupro-nickel jackets. Maybe they went a way toward keeping fouling down. The bore doesn't cake up particularly quickly with them.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75429&stc=1&d=1206828640
the 251 bullet is from a single cavity mould that is probably at least 70 years old. Although it weighs about the same as the roundnosed load on the right, it behaves quite a bit differently. I added an extra half grain of powder to get the velocities in the same approximate level.
The 29-2 and the retro mountain gun both have a lot of charm. I was keeping double action strings mostly within the 9 ring with the 29 at 25 yards shooting the 29 at about one second breaks.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75430&stc=1&d=1206828640
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=75431&stc=1&d=1206828640
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/949073/mountaingun25slowf.JPG
The mountain gun has marginally lighter action and the sights are more visible. Both are about equally accurate from the bench. Sometime before autopistols took over the world, the gunwriters started complaining that the old Smith Target grips were'nt any good for double action shooting. So far as I can tell, this isn't true.