MacTech
Member
I went to my local range this afternoon, and as luck would have it, the only guns I felt like bringing with me were my revolvers...
Ruger NMBH Convertible .45, shooting my new handloads, previous recipe was a 200Gn LSWC over 9.3 grains of Unique, this recipe was a 250Gn LFN over 9.5 Gn Unique, I also had six of my "Modern Primitive" rounds to burn up, 250 Gn Speer "Deepcurl" GDHP over 8 Gn Unique
S&W Model 64-1 .38 Spl, shooting Federal 130Gn FMJ and Speer Gold Dot 125 Gn +P
Ruger Super Single Six Stainless (SSSS) shooting Winchester Dynapoint bulk .22LR
I decided to start off with my Big Bada Boomer (.45 Colt) and work backwards....
Since I had more of my 250Gn loads, I started off with them, I had loaded 200 grainers over this powder charge before, the 200's are a nice medium-mild shooting round, punches a nice clean hole in the paper, so I was expecting the 250's to be similar....
Boy was I wrong....
Not sure if it was the 50 grain heavier bullet, or the crimp groove (I use the Lee Factory Crimp die on these), but these rounds had a noticeably higher amount of bark *and* bite, they were putting some major thump downrange, neeless to say, I *LOVE* this recipe, it's got enough bark so you know you're tossing some serious lead downrange, yet it doesn't batter the shooter with an unpleasant Magnum shock/pressure wave and muzzleblast, it's a soft, but strong shooting load....
It's bloody accurate as well, at 25 feet, the NMBH was placing shots almost on top of each other, quarter sized groups
However, if you're standing to the left or right of the shooter, well, lets just say the other shooter three stalls down wandered over, wondering what I was shooting....
"What you got there? a .44 Mag?"
nope, .45 Colt, no Magnum here...
"Funny, from the shockwave, I thought it was a .44 Mag..."
Shockwave? I didn't notice any shockwave
"yeah, I could feel it three stalls down, nothing unpleasant, but it got my attention"
Strange, I didn't notice any shockwave at all
"believe me, it's there, those loads have some serious thump for sure, where'd you buy them?"
oh these, I handload for the .45 Colt, these are my latest recipe, do you want to try them?
"sure, I'll just shoot a couple"
(note to the safety-nannies, I advised him of the risk, that these are handloads and they have only been shot in *this* particular revolver, then again, this *IS* the recipe listed for this cartridge on the Alliant Powders website, and I made sure *every* one of them contained *exactly* 9.5 grains of Unique, if I erred at all, it was on the side of a tiny, tiny bit *under*charged, maybe 9.45 or 9.4 grains, safety first)
I loaded up the classic "Cowboy 5" into the cylinder (load one, skip one, load four) mainly because my boxes store the ammo in lines of five, put the empty chamber under the hammer, and set the NMBH on the bench
He picked it up, and as soon as he lit off the first round, I understood what he was saying about the "shockwave", there *was* one.... a mild one, true, more of a gentle push than a hard slap, after that first round, he had a *HUGE* grin on his face, and ended up shooting the remaining four, grinning the whole time
"Boy, that was a fun gun, those loads sure have some punch to them, lets you know you're shooting a real gun, thanks for letting me try them"
Sure, no problem, glad you liked them
We then tried his new toy, a Ruger P95 9mm semi, nice little gun that, soft shooting, well balanced, and without the snappiness that 9mm is known for, all in all not a bad little semi, we then chatted a bit about reloading, as he was thinking of getting into it, when I described how cheaply I could build my ammo, his jaw dropped, I think he may be seriously considering a reloading setup....
....note to self, bring reloading kit to the range one day and show people how easy it is to reload, after all, since my kit is based around the Lee Hand Press, it's very portable
anyway, I then moved down to the S&W 64-1 .38 Spl, new-to-me, I just picked it up yesterday
I was a tad hesitant about it's accuracy, as it has fixed sights, and I'm used to adjustable sights on my wheelguns...
Well, let's just say that if I do my part, at 25 feet, it's pretty much dead-on, POA and POI are identical, nickel to quarter size groups at 25 feet, I do need to get different grips on it, as the Pach. "Grippers" are too wide, too meaty of a palm-swell, gripping it naturally, the front sight sits too high, I have to shift my grip down to bring the muzzle down.
If I remove the Pach. grips and just hold on to the bare grip frame, it points naturally, actually, now that I come to look at the layout of the Pach. grips, it's not the palmswell that's throwing me off, it's the finger grooves at the front of the grip making the thing too wide, I just found the proper "Dymondwood" grips on the S&W website though, so I'll be ordering a set and setting aside the uncomfortably craptacular Pachmayrs
The 64's recoil was very comfortable, a nice slow push, much like my .45 Colt/ACP, and in all honesty, I felt no noticeable recoil difference between the Federal FMJ cartridges and the Speer Gold Dot +P's, actually, the Federals seemed to have a slightly sharper muzzle report
The 64 is a very pleasant gun to shoot, I can see it getting a *LOT* more range time, time to get some reloading dies and some nice wadcutter bullets
The SSSS? it was a nice way to relax after the Big Bada Boomer .45 and the .38 Spl, at 25 feet, I was punching dime to nickel sized groups, with the occasional flyer opening the group to 3/4-1", most of the time I'd punch 3-4 bullet holes close to each other, only to have a flyer open the group up, but it really didn't bother me, the SSSS is a plinker anyway
The one thing that really struck me, and something I really loved, was when I was done, cleanup consisted of putting the fired cases back in the storage boxes, pulling my targets off the target backers and tossing them in the trash, no scrounging around on the floor for fired brass, no sweeping up fired .22 brass, nothing, no brass chasing at all, heck, the only brass scavenging I did was picking out some .45 ACP and .38 Spl cases from the "cases for reloading" bucket
I've always been a revolver guy, and now I'm even moreso, I think I'm going to have to resist the urge to trade in my last bottomfeeder for another wheelgun, but then again, I really can't bring myself to trade away a perfectly good 1911 (Kimber Custom II)
Ruger NMBH Convertible .45, shooting my new handloads, previous recipe was a 200Gn LSWC over 9.3 grains of Unique, this recipe was a 250Gn LFN over 9.5 Gn Unique, I also had six of my "Modern Primitive" rounds to burn up, 250 Gn Speer "Deepcurl" GDHP over 8 Gn Unique
S&W Model 64-1 .38 Spl, shooting Federal 130Gn FMJ and Speer Gold Dot 125 Gn +P
Ruger Super Single Six Stainless (SSSS) shooting Winchester Dynapoint bulk .22LR
I decided to start off with my Big Bada Boomer (.45 Colt) and work backwards....
Since I had more of my 250Gn loads, I started off with them, I had loaded 200 grainers over this powder charge before, the 200's are a nice medium-mild shooting round, punches a nice clean hole in the paper, so I was expecting the 250's to be similar....
Boy was I wrong....
Not sure if it was the 50 grain heavier bullet, or the crimp groove (I use the Lee Factory Crimp die on these), but these rounds had a noticeably higher amount of bark *and* bite, they were putting some major thump downrange, neeless to say, I *LOVE* this recipe, it's got enough bark so you know you're tossing some serious lead downrange, yet it doesn't batter the shooter with an unpleasant Magnum shock/pressure wave and muzzleblast, it's a soft, but strong shooting load....
It's bloody accurate as well, at 25 feet, the NMBH was placing shots almost on top of each other, quarter sized groups
However, if you're standing to the left or right of the shooter, well, lets just say the other shooter three stalls down wandered over, wondering what I was shooting....
"What you got there? a .44 Mag?"
nope, .45 Colt, no Magnum here...
"Funny, from the shockwave, I thought it was a .44 Mag..."
Shockwave? I didn't notice any shockwave
"yeah, I could feel it three stalls down, nothing unpleasant, but it got my attention"
Strange, I didn't notice any shockwave at all
"believe me, it's there, those loads have some serious thump for sure, where'd you buy them?"
oh these, I handload for the .45 Colt, these are my latest recipe, do you want to try them?
"sure, I'll just shoot a couple"
(note to the safety-nannies, I advised him of the risk, that these are handloads and they have only been shot in *this* particular revolver, then again, this *IS* the recipe listed for this cartridge on the Alliant Powders website, and I made sure *every* one of them contained *exactly* 9.5 grains of Unique, if I erred at all, it was on the side of a tiny, tiny bit *under*charged, maybe 9.45 or 9.4 grains, safety first)
I loaded up the classic "Cowboy 5" into the cylinder (load one, skip one, load four) mainly because my boxes store the ammo in lines of five, put the empty chamber under the hammer, and set the NMBH on the bench
He picked it up, and as soon as he lit off the first round, I understood what he was saying about the "shockwave", there *was* one.... a mild one, true, more of a gentle push than a hard slap, after that first round, he had a *HUGE* grin on his face, and ended up shooting the remaining four, grinning the whole time
"Boy, that was a fun gun, those loads sure have some punch to them, lets you know you're shooting a real gun, thanks for letting me try them"
Sure, no problem, glad you liked them
We then tried his new toy, a Ruger P95 9mm semi, nice little gun that, soft shooting, well balanced, and without the snappiness that 9mm is known for, all in all not a bad little semi, we then chatted a bit about reloading, as he was thinking of getting into it, when I described how cheaply I could build my ammo, his jaw dropped, I think he may be seriously considering a reloading setup....
....note to self, bring reloading kit to the range one day and show people how easy it is to reload, after all, since my kit is based around the Lee Hand Press, it's very portable
anyway, I then moved down to the S&W 64-1 .38 Spl, new-to-me, I just picked it up yesterday
I was a tad hesitant about it's accuracy, as it has fixed sights, and I'm used to adjustable sights on my wheelguns...
Well, let's just say that if I do my part, at 25 feet, it's pretty much dead-on, POA and POI are identical, nickel to quarter size groups at 25 feet, I do need to get different grips on it, as the Pach. "Grippers" are too wide, too meaty of a palm-swell, gripping it naturally, the front sight sits too high, I have to shift my grip down to bring the muzzle down.
If I remove the Pach. grips and just hold on to the bare grip frame, it points naturally, actually, now that I come to look at the layout of the Pach. grips, it's not the palmswell that's throwing me off, it's the finger grooves at the front of the grip making the thing too wide, I just found the proper "Dymondwood" grips on the S&W website though, so I'll be ordering a set and setting aside the uncomfortably craptacular Pachmayrs
The 64's recoil was very comfortable, a nice slow push, much like my .45 Colt/ACP, and in all honesty, I felt no noticeable recoil difference between the Federal FMJ cartridges and the Speer Gold Dot +P's, actually, the Federals seemed to have a slightly sharper muzzle report
The 64 is a very pleasant gun to shoot, I can see it getting a *LOT* more range time, time to get some reloading dies and some nice wadcutter bullets
The SSSS? it was a nice way to relax after the Big Bada Boomer .45 and the .38 Spl, at 25 feet, I was punching dime to nickel sized groups, with the occasional flyer opening the group to 3/4-1", most of the time I'd punch 3-4 bullet holes close to each other, only to have a flyer open the group up, but it really didn't bother me, the SSSS is a plinker anyway
The one thing that really struck me, and something I really loved, was when I was done, cleanup consisted of putting the fired cases back in the storage boxes, pulling my targets off the target backers and tossing them in the trash, no scrounging around on the floor for fired brass, no sweeping up fired .22 brass, nothing, no brass chasing at all, heck, the only brass scavenging I did was picking out some .45 ACP and .38 Spl cases from the "cases for reloading" bucket
I've always been a revolver guy, and now I'm even moreso, I think I'm going to have to resist the urge to trade in my last bottomfeeder for another wheelgun, but then again, I really can't bring myself to trade away a perfectly good 1911 (Kimber Custom II)
