I'm beginning to feel like King Sysaphus, condemned for his lack of hubris, to an eternity of rolling a large boulder up a hill every day. As he rested each night, the mischievous gods rolled it back down and with daylight, he began his labor again.
There are so many disquieting aspects to this outing, that it makes me weary. Some things from last year, that I had forgotten, revisited me with a vengeance. I had felt extremely lucky to stumble upon a 4lb jug of Lil Gun at a small Ma & Pa reloading store back in 2014. That's a good thing. When I went to use it, it produced pressures and velocities well above my previous works with it, often under cooler temperatures, all else being equal. IE,
41gr Old LG 225gr FTX Taper Crimp 2396fps (May 2010) New LG 2556fps (April 2016)
42gr Old LG 230gr Magtech FMJ RN Taper Crimp 2386fps (July 2010) New LG 2478fps (April 2016)
43gr Old LG 230gr Magtech FMJ RN Stab Crimp 2436fps (May 2013) New LG 2555fps (April) 2016
38gr Old LG 250gr FTX Taper Crimp 2237fps (August 2012) New LG 2413fps (October 2015)
(other examples too numerous to mention = I think you get it)
OK, so the operative word would be use less. Still, I had forgotten how much more potent it had become and it caused me to abort some of my loads Wednesday. Not because I was seeing case stress signs. Quite the contrary in the Bartz upper. No imprinting, no swipes, no high pressure short-stroking, even no excessive CHG in the brass. Just spooked by the velocities leading up to the abort and repulsed by the groups with a few exceptions. The tight tolerances and mid-length gas system in the Bartz left my brass in much better shape than similar excessive encounters would have done with my generously toleranced factory 450b barrel/bolt combo. Love that girl!
After about 5 outings over as many years with 230 FMJ RN's I have not found their affordability to be an offset for their lack of accuracy at 100 yds. Forget about further out! If I were out for a day busting pumpkins, mayber so. Unfortunately I'm afflicted with Townsend Whelen's disease.(think 35 Whelen and classic books like: Telescopic Rifle Sights, The Hunting Rifle, Small Arms and Ballistics, Amateur Gunsmithing, and Why Not Load Your Own). He said and I totally agree that "Only accurate rifles are interesting." Now I'll be the first to admit that being nonplussed after a day shooting recipes in a fine weapon, at a fine range, in fine weather, is pretty much a 1st World Problem. It's not like I'm going to bed hungry. The 230FMJ RN, is a challenge to reload for but the solution to the neck tension issue is also part of the problem. I reproduced one set of 5 loads at a given powder charge and the difference in the resulting group or in the case of the ones that were stab crimped, resulting pattern, once again did not enthrall me with stab crimping as a means to an end. Again, if minute of pumpkin floats your boat, have at it. In defense of the stab crimp. I've had very good accuracy and velocity results using it with the Barnes XPB bullets, but they have an existing groove to stab down into. Not a smooth, flat surface that winds up being distorted to the point of compromising their accuracy. So, before we leave the sermon and go to dinner, You need to pick your solutions carefully. Taper crimped 230gr FMJ RN bullets fly pretty good once you get them up to speed but truth be told, the issue of them wanting to pull out during chambering is not nearly as bad as with heavier bullets. You've been patient enough, here's the meat:
The brass I chose already had been scarred by previous stab crimps. They don't iron out when you shoot them. I wasn't going to scar up more cases, so these got the call:
Here's the depth of stab I wound up using. It was applied after an initial taper crimp, Like I would use if that was all I was using. What's not in the picture is the post-stab light taper crimp applied just enough to remove the small bell the mouths get. Looked like this:
Not an extreme stab like you can apply if its down into a driving band groove or cannelure. I apologize for the image quality of the last two pictures. The battery in my digital camera was a little short on charge and I was a lot short on patience, so I used my Iphone 5S.
Life in the Fast Lane:
41 & 42 LG Stab
42 & 41 LG Taper
43 LG Stab
Synopsis:
My 225 FTX Reference Loads hit the 3rd accuracy node for a 20" barrel. There are two more nodes that are not as potent. They're my affordable and reliable plinking bullets, but they are also a good choice for deer.
The real joy came from the 42gr LG 230 FMJ loads where I just applied a taper crimp. Everything else about them was identical to the 42gr loads that utilized a stab crimp and shot like crap. The taper crimped ones, as you saw, shot pretty fair and with plenty of zip on them. Though I did try my inertial puller on the stab crimped loads and they took 8 whacks on concrete to begin to budge, I did not test the taper crimp loads. Given how close in velocity they flew to the stab crimped ones, I'm guessing the cases had a good hold on them as well.
Teaching Moment: Up until very recently, I dry tumbled my brass in Walnut media. The outsides looked fantastic, but the primer pockets still got a touch-up with my pocket normalizer end mill bit. The insides however always had a coating on them. I always degreased the inside of the mouths down to a depth that the bullets inserted using Q-tips and brake cleaner. Yes, I'm fastidious about my loads. Anyway, I now have one of the Frankford wet pin tumblers. 2 hours in that and they rival new brass both inside, outside and in the primer pockets. So far I've process around 300 of my 450b stash cases and contrary to the old biddies, not one of them had pins stuck in the case or flash hole. Still, I inspected every one for warm fuzzies. There is a point to this, besides bragging. The inside of the case mouths were raw, clean brass. With the raw, clean copper, .451diameter 230 FMJs, I felt more resistance to seating than in the dry tumbled cases that I used to load up 6 foulers with (still shot like crap). I had degreased the inside of those dry tumbled cases as well, but the fine layer of gunge in them lent a degree of lubricity to them. You could feel the lesser resistance as I seated them. The .452 diameter 225 FTX bullets offered even more resistance to seating then the .451 FMJs. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I suspect that really clean cases may in themselves, serve as an enhancer to neck tension that this caliber so dearly craves. BTW, I do not degrease the inside of the mouths of the wet tumbled cases. Tried a few, but the Q-tips came out clean. That case prep step will not be missed! Food for thought...
I will not be revisiting the 230gr FMJ RN, other than to make fouling rounds from the few remaining bullets I have. Cheap is still cheap after all.
Hoot