Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Ruger loads in a handi rifle

Reference loads:

1) "Loads for the 45/70" from the H.P.White laboratory via "American
Rifleman" 1950~1968 via "NRA Handloader's Guide" 1969 says:
405 gr Rem S.P., 17.5 gr Unique, 1286 fps, 25,240 pounds pressure, for 1886 Win

2) "Lyman's 47th" 1992 says:
400 gr cast, 16.5 gr Unique, 1286 fps, 27,000 cup, for 1886 Win

3) "Lyman's 47th" 1992 says:
385 cast gr cast, 17.5 gr Unique, 1411 fps, 38,500 cup, for Ruger #1

4) My Handi rifle test, 32 gr Unique 405 gr QL:87,841 psi, 1911 fps

I got an H&R 16 ga shotgun lower for $50 and built a rifle upper for it. It is now a 50 caliber wildcat and I push the pressure as hard as I can.

Of the SB1 and SB2, this is the soft H&R. I milled out the receiver to fit the $200 barrel. It comes out in crumbs, which means it is cast iron.

I am not taking it easy on the cast iron receiver. What I am doing is way past published Ruger #1 loads for 45/70.

What does it all mean?
The gun culture folklore can fill up with gunk until someone does the math and the experiments, and then a few will understand.

The firing pin strike on the case in your picture tells me it is a SB1 shotgun frame.I think when you wear fragments of that cast iron frame you'll come to an even better understanding. The 40 and 60 kpsi limits are put on those frames for a reason. Others have woefully trod the path you're on. Please don't shoot with bystanders. If you keep hammering at it, it will fail.

Pete

Pete,

Real engineers have calculations and/or data, not speculation based on a hunch and passed off as fact.

Have you got anything?
Anything at all before you make a post?

I don't claim to be an engineer. I am an informed, safe and experienced Handi Rifle owner and shooter.

There's reams of data on SB1 and SB2 frames on GBO. Spend some time over there...."the life you save may be your own"

http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/index.php?board=126.0

I've hung out there for six or eight years. I have 14 Handis and half again as many H&R/NEF shotguns. I know what can and can not be safely done with a SB1 frame. All my rifles are on SB2 frames plus two of the shotguns. Not all of them require SB2s. I have the frames and put them to good use.

What you're doing is the equivalent of beating a concrete block with a sledge hammer. It may not break with the first whack. Keep pounding on it and it will.

Pete

Apparently not, but you think you do.

I was told in no uncertain terms that grey beard does not welcome my handi rifle calculations nor test data.

Not a great center for learning.

"I was told in no uncertain terms that grey beard does not welcome my handi rifle calculations nor test data."

Geeze, I wonder why? You obviously know more than all the engineers that are and have been at NEF, H&R, Marlin and Remington. Do me a favor...when you take yourself out...do it alone. You're barking up the wrong tree.

It doesn't matter how many dogs bark up the wrong tree, it is still the wrong tree. -Fritz Perls


Pete

Do you have calculations from NEF engineers?

Was there ever one?

They say there are two things you never want to see made, sausage and politics.

I would add to that design. When my father was designing all those guns, when things blew up or broke down, the log read "unscheduled disassembly.

Do you have ANY data from ANY engineers?

Got ANYTHING?

Or have you got nothing but an unsubstantiated opinion, rumor, or company political statement?

I built a house on top of a mountain with 4,000 sq ft of concrete tile roof. I pulled my materials up there with a 1979 Honda Civic that was rated by Honda for zero pounds pulling.

But I could see how thick the metal was, so it harder to bs me.

People have different models for what they will believe, and how much credit they give a source.

If you can't do the math, and have not taken the data, or do not trust the data, you can't really believe but what you are told.

The gun culture is full of self perpetuating folk lore that is almost impossible get rid of with calculations and or data.

Between 2000 and 2005 I proved that load books wrong about the strength of CZ52s and they changed.

That only took about 1,000 posts.

I don't have enough years left in me to straighten out the SB1 SB2 folklore.

Look, I'm tired of this crap. Do what you want, just do it alone.

Pete