Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Contender Blackout project...

Was stupid quiet too. Quieter than Hollywood quiet. Probably wouldn't even wake a dog.

Pfft..... quiet.

Back to the smelting pot and the bench, have allowed the remodeling of two bathrooms interfere with what is important..................

Back to the range tomorrow morning....

Range Day - I think I have settled(for now) on a usable load........

Reduced powder charge for IMR 4198, RL-7 and Blue Dot, for the purpose of moving away from the trans-sonic realm......... also tried a new powder RL-10x..

RL-7 and Blue Dot results were rather underwhelming, RL-10x mixed....

This is the IMR-4198 - 50 yards.

AVG - 1022fps
ExSprd - 29
StndDev - 12

A twist fast enough (1:9) to fully stabilize the 60 grain SSS bullets will enable the bullet to travel to the target nose on. A standard twist rate (1:16) that is just barely fast enough to stabilize the bullet gets you on ‘thin ice’ as far as stabilizing. At that point an imperfect crown or rough bore can throw a bullet into a yaw or destabilizing trip to the target.
I dragged a bunch of 22 rifles to the 50 yard range to find this out. One with 1:16 twist and a nice bore and crown was accurate to 50 yards. A few 1:16 barrels would keyhole at 50. A 1:14 stabilized well with all shots fired.
I was tempted to buy a barrel or liner with 1:9 twist but tired of playing with the 60 grain bullets before carrying out the idea.
Redman still offers 1/9” twist 22 rimfire liners if your itch needs scratching. I’ve been very satisfied with their 17 caliber liners in 17 M2, and have done two of them.

Refined my annealing technique, ended up with what feels like much more consistent neck tension, seated bullets a little longer = the result.

5 shots, 50yds

the white squares mic at .40"

Is this group a product of the 11.2 gr of IMR 4198? I'd like to see you shoot them at 100. Too bad Florida is over 2000 miles away.

HuntnShoot, yep 11.2/4198....

It's pretty cool that you've "solved" this thing so well. Please, shoot them at 100.

I'll see about that, maybe DD will me set up on the front porch of his house, open windows on both sides and just 'shoot through'......

Or I'll make a trip to the local range and pay to shoot...

LOL! I like option 1. Keeping things interesting is the spice of life!

HnS, I may get to the range before the weekend............

What do you 'expect' will happen???

just curious if you had something in mind..

I'm just wondering if they have any stability issues that don't show up at 50 yds. They SHOULDN'T, but I'm just curious.

👍

I wouldn’t mind shootin’ thru the house but Mrs. Dan might. Do remember her middle name “Annie” and why.

So made it to a 100yd range:



Still seeing evidence of either a little wobble, or nose 'slump' tend to think that it is slumping from an alloy that is too soft....

Did a little hardness testing and have come to the conclusion that the 'labels' on my lead inventory may have been 'OFF'....

Got the inventory sorted out, realized that almost all of my first loads from initial workup to this 100yd target were shot with lead and a little tin, way too soft..
Hardened things up a bit, 9BHN and went back to the 100.....



Still seeing the slump or wobble, but seems to be less.... group size shrunk... 11 shots both targets.

Took the opportunity to perform an 'expansion' test, at 2', so velocity was right at 1020fps, damp sand....

Before: Dia .308


After: Dia .650






Next, will harden things a little more......

Stay tuned

I love splat in the morning.

Great thread! Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Muffin.

I'd say your assumptions are accurate about your alloy being on the soft side. That's some crazy expansion for 1000fps range, 2x+. I could live with 2 inches at 100, were it me, but I'd also try for better.

HnS, I'll work on the 100yd group size for sure, though it isn't really necessary. It is a 'stalking', still hunt rifle, and here in central FL my longest shot on a whitetail is maybe 30 yds, and it'll do that. Not likely that I would try the Texas reverse brain shot or as my MN FIL called it... 'up the vent'.... And I think it will work just fine on pigs as is.............

The things that you think you 'know' about reloading.....

Have had the opportunity to shoot 170, 180, 210 and 230 grain bullets in the Contender 300 Blackout.......... curious thing, to me at least, is that 11.2 grains of IMR 4198 produces 1025 FPS for all of these bullet weights!?!?!? Was not expecting that.

While the 230grainers shot very well, there was the indication of a nose slump or wobble showing up on the target paper, based on the smudge marks, personally I don't think the pigs really care one way or the other. And in the never ending pursuit of perfection took the bore slug to a friends caliper and determined that the bore is closer to .304 than .300, not good for a .300 bore rider............

Ordered up a new mould, sized appropriately, also got them to back off on the cast weight. Bore ride section measures .304, base .311, sized to .309 and weight is right at 210grains. BTW Accuratemolds.com makes really nice molds, I told him how I wanted to modify my existing bullet dimensions and he had the program up and ready to cut a mould in TWO DAYS.......

Anyway, the slump or wobble is gone:

5 shots, 25yds

It also seems that groups are smaller when the bullets are sized base first rather than nose first, 50/100yds will be a better test for that.....