cold weather shooting

[TommyD]

One of my favorite loads for 45 Colt is the 260 LFN bevel base bullet with 8.5 grains of Universal and a CCI 300 primer. This gives me about 950 fps and good revolver accuracy.

I recently bought a Marlin 1894 rifle in 45 Colt and wanted to try it out, even thought it was about 10 deg F outside.

The groups I shot at 100 yards were about an inch side to side, but had a lot of vertical fliers that spread the group 4-5 inches high. 3/5 were usually close together with a couple of vertical fliers.

Could this be due to inconsistent ignition with standard primers in cold weather?

I would like to try some magnum primers to see if it remedies the situation, but I am not sure if they are OK to use with Universal powder. I know they are recommended with slower powders like H110, but realize that faster powders like Universal powder may be a whole different game.

Is it safe to use magnum primers with Universal?

Tom

[bilmac]

I would think that the weather would be about the last reason for stringing with the rig you are shooting. I would suspect the gun first, or maybe even the way you are shooting it. Light carbines that shoot big slow bullets are pretty sensitive to the way they are held. When I shoot my 357s from a rest I hold the forearm with a consistent grip, and place my hand on the bag. Try shooting like that once and see if it helps.