Ready for my January goat hunt......almost!

[kombi1976]

I love how things really come together in a comfortable time frame before you leave for a trip........
If the sarcasm is lost on anyone my firearms prep for my goat hunt which starts this Monday January 4th is NOT going well.
I have a number of guns in my armoury and I'd intended to take my K98-actioned 8x57 sporter that was so effective in October and my recently acquired Ruger No1H 450/400 NE 3".
So I headed to the range last Tuesday morning to try out some 210gr FP cast bullet loads for the Ruger and confirm that the Mauser was shooting straight.
Suffice to say I could barely hit paper at 50yds with the 450/400 cast loads.
Maybe they need to be hotter?
Maybe the special coating, a copper wash that rates them at 2200+fps without residue, isn't working?
Maybe the powder isn't right?
So I shrugged my shoulders (the right one now considerably sore) and punched a few targets with the 8mm.
It was fine.
The last 3 shots were especially good.
Shots 1 and 2 went through the same hole and shot 3 was only an inch higher.
I was pleasantly surprised by that.....until I opened the action and the case head rolled out by itself!! 
Fortunately only the turning action of the bolt had pulled it off.
Upon examination another case had seperated but only when dropped in the ammo box.
So now my default rifle had half a case stuck in the chamber.
It's not like I don't own anything else but I'm short on projectiles for my 9.3x62 and no one seems to stock the Speer 270gr SMPs I like.
Try and special order between Chrissie and New Year in Oz!
So, with no other options I decided to ring a gunsmith friend in Sydney and since I was going to be there for New Years I took the 8x57 down with me along with the seperated head, the 2nd seperated case, some fired cases from the same lot and some loaded rounds from the same lot.
I also chucked in my Lee Enfield 303/25 rifle and some sized brass and loaded rounds as it has had problems chambering ammo for a while now.
Well, so far the other part of the 8mm case came out easily.
And at first examination my mate prenounced the 8mm brass well past its used by date.
The expression on his face was lection enough for me.
I need to be more careful about keeping record of the number of reloadings.
Next time it could seperate under pressure and it might be in a rifle like my Lee Enfield which would be less keen on keeping the gas away from my face.
Fortunately I hit a gunstore on the way up and bought 100 Remington 8x57 brass so I should be able to load some when I return on Saturday and may even make it to the range on Saturday or Sunday arvo to check their accuracy.
Examination of the 303/25 is still to come.
Like the 8x57 it seems time to buy and form new brass.
Who knows, maybe, for the first time in a year or 2, it might actually make it to a hunt?
I've used it on goats before with some success and the old girl deserves an outing.

[Jacko]

Drama's mate whats the lead up to a hunt without them . Got me with the Hawksberry River projectiles, I would have thought they would do fine in your Ruger.

The rounds that hit paper, were they keyholing? Did you slug your bore, if so Groove and bore diameter? Perhaps as simple as flinching? Does seem a light projectile for a 450/400, what load are you using Kombi. I was just wondering with 210 gr cast bullets whether Trailboss would be worth considering as I can't imagine a reduced load of any other smokeless powder coming close to filling the case

Things could be worse! With all the rain we've had since the cyclone broke up on its trip across from the west coast to the New England ranges my mates have been caught out a bit. They left last thursday morning for a 4 day hunt down at Mingoola and as of this moment the poor bastards are stranded down there for at least 2 or 3 more days, no way in or out other than skirting around flood waters that are surrounding camp [ old station house ] through a neighboors property, a 10 k cross country walk from camp to the property owners house to make help phone calls or perhaps climbing a couple of thousand feet over a 7 k walk to another neighboors. Flood waters are still raging through the gully's and creeks, across roads and concrete causeways have been washed away. Just took one of the boy's wife grocery shopping as she does not drive and they have a todler.

So Kombi, hows the rain down your way

regards Jacko

[kombi1976]

The rain down here has been considerable too.
They've had 100mm of rain in the general area we're hunting next week so we'll have to be careful where we camp and make sure we aren't stuck at the bottom of a bad track.
I don't fancy hiking out and then back in!
The cast pills are 411 cal pistol bullets designed for 41 AE or 41 Magnum but they have a special coating and the bullet maker has pushed 357 bullets with the same coating as fast as 2900fps without residue.
Who knows what the problem is.
They were supposed to be moving along at between 2400fps and 2450fps and I was using around 91gr of AR2209 powder with Rem Magnum primers.
Maybe it's too fast?
Maybe it's too slow?
Maybe the the bullets can't cope with the velocity?
Maybe the coating isn't working?
Only one of the bullets printed sideways and that was the last one.
I guess I need to mess about and find out.
But I think I will find myself with plenty of dacron running reduced loads.

[Bigeasy]

If I were to guess, I'd say the twist of your 450/400 is not right to stabilize those light weight 210 grain slugs.  Are you getting bore leading?  2200fps is pretty fast for a cast lead slug, especially if it is not a perfect bore fit.  Good luck on your goat hunt.  Sounds like you guys shoot goats down there like we shoot woodchucks here in PA

Larry

[kombi1976]

See, you'd think so about the twist, Larry, but I checked the twist and both of the 41 cal pistol rounds use the same twist as 450/400, which is also a .410 cal.
Maybe it's over twisting them.
I don't know about shooting woodchucks but feral goats are a pest.
The meat on the young ones is good, some have a nice skin and the billys have a good spread of horns but aside of that they're tough and smelly and strip foliage from the trees and shrubs.
Even when everything else is dying in the drought goats live well.
So they need to be culled as much as possible.
Mind you, it's not like shooting fish in a barrel.
They aren't bright and when you stalk close to a mob some quick shooting can knock over several fast, but they can hike hills like.....well....goats and the terrain they cover with ease is impressive.
So it's a good challenge for an unfit slob like me, especially when the closest shots are often between 150yds and 200yds.

[Jacko]

  91 grains of AR2209 under a 210 gr pill, thats gotta hurt .

I was thinking that if your not using a case filler you may have the powder shifting about in the case laying up against the primer one shot then down near the projectile the next but 91 gr's - Crikey which is why I thought about Trailboss as it would fill the case with no need for case filler and still give a fearfull punch to the projectile in that big case. Either that or a poor bullet fit in the bore. Interesting that you had at least one pill keyholing? had a gander at some load data and all I could see was loads for 400 gr pills, perhaps the210 gr pills are to short for your twist rate and the velocity they are currently being thumped at

If you could push a suitably sized bean shaped sinker through your bore and post your bore and groove diameter I'm sure one of the big bore fella's would be along

Another couple of days and the roads may be repaired for my mates to get home. I'd bet the game will have been scattered far and wide, hope you see good numbers.

I've been left looking awefully stupid by dumb Goats and other occasions the buggers make you look good. Good luck on your hunt Kombi, keep us posted.

regards Jacko

[kombi1976]

Thankfully there's been no flooding where I'm off to, just heavy rain.
Bit of luck the goats will think the lovely new green grass is perfect for snacking on and we'll see lots of them.
As for the 450/400, it MAY be bullet length.
They're very short but you generally find the bullets are too long if the rifling is unsuitable.
From memory both the rifle 41 cal pistols and the .410 cal rifles have the same rifling rate.
But it's early days and I still have 384 cast bullets left to experiment with.
And I will be using a case filler if I have small loads.

[Skunk]

Hope you get it all figured out Kombi. Best of Luck to you on the hunt.

[kombi1976]

I'm fairly optimisitc and I still have a couple of days to get my stuff together.
Having a key to the local rifle range is a bit of a help. 

[kombi1976]

Nothing like doing it at the last minute!
Here are the result from todays testing with the new Remington 8x57 brass.
This is the standard load I was using before....49gr of ADI AR2206H powder with CCI BR Large Rifle Primers behind a Sierra ProHunter 150gr SP.
The first 2 groups were tolerable and certainly ok as a hunting load on medium to big game.



As you can see Group 1 was just over 2" but it was wide rather than stringing up and just required windage adjustment to be an ok load.
I moved the scope 1 full click to the right and Group 2 began to tighten to just under 1.5" but its "centre" was an inch to the right so I reversed it back 2 quarter clicks.
This centred the shots for the next to groups.



Group 3 was just over 1.5", still respectable enough for a hunting load, but Group 4 was the winner.
The centre of the bull is PoA but the green dot represents PoI at 100m in order to have Max PBR of 275yds....exactly 2.8" high.
Shot 1 of Group 4 is the one on the left of the "5" so I gave the scope another 1/4 click up and shot the next 2 rounds.
Even with the scope adjustment it shot a sub-MOA group.
And since the goal of that group was to have as many shots on the green dot as possible it obtained its goal.
Why the 4th group was the winner....who knows?
Maybe it likes a warm bbl, maybe the bore, which has only had about 20 rounds through it since the last clean, likes to be a bit dirty.
Whatever the case all I need to do is load some rounds now for the trip tomorrow morning.
And I'm not TOUCHING the rifle!
Unfortunately my 303/25, which showed potential, just didn't get up in time so my Tikka T3 Lite Stainless 9.3x62 will accompany me as a follow up.
Perhaps overkill on goats but it does knock them down.
Plus I move the scope forward on it so it's less likely to try and give me a "Weatherby Smile" now!