Well here is another one. My guns are starting to look alike. This one is another Green Mountain barrel. They had a small limited run of 1-18 twist, .458 dia, 32" long barrels. I ordered my as soon as I saw the add. I put another TC renegade hunter stock on this one. The stock was a smokin deal on ebay. No one wanted it because it had a big piece of the stock filed out. It was fitted with a GM barrel before I got it. The wood missing was wood I was going to have to file down anyway. I put a Lyman 57 sml peep sight on it, and a 17 aml globe site. I added the usual Lee Shavers inserts. Like I said this one looks just like the rest but it has a blue barrel.
I took it out for the first shooting today. I got it to hit the paper with some Lee REAL 250 gr bullets at 50 yards.
Then I shot some 475 gr whitworth bullets at 100 yards. These were poured from soft lead. They shot ok. I can say that I would use them. I have seen better but I have also seen worse.
I backed off the powder a little bit and tried them again after cleaning.
I also shot some Lee 45-70 bullets. They are 387 gr hollow base. These bullets were sized .459 I had a he11 of a time getting them down muzzle. Once I got them down they shot pretty good. I shot them into one target and covered the holes with tape. I can say that most of those groups were under 2" but nothing super. The big problem was getting them down the barrel.
Then I went to another Whitworth bullet. This time I poured them out of lead shot. These bullets are harder and a little bigger in Dia. The actual weight is wrong on the picture. The weight was 470 gr. I bumped the powder a little because the bullets were hard. I shot three shots and then I cleaned the barrel. and shot two more shots before I ran out. I measured both as individual groups then as a 5 shot group.
My overall opinion of the gun is I hate the trigger. It has to be in the 9 poound range. Next The overall weight of the gun is 13 pounds. That is a big gun! Last is I think this barrel has promise. I like the 45-70 bullet and next time I will size some to .457 and try them. The Hard whitworth bullet has some good stuff going for it. I am sure it would fully penetrate a elk as hard as they are.
I am going to pour some more and next time I will Chronograph some. I used a felt wad under all the loads. I used a 3/8 pipe nipple I sharpened up and cut my own wads. Then I soaked them in Hornady lube. The bullets were lubbed with a lube that is like SPG lube that the BPCR shooters use. This lube was great. It was getting hot but the lube stayed firm and the bullets went down good. I think it will be a shooter. Ron
