by dantiff3 » Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:35 am
Hi all! New guy here. Name is Dan. I've been lurking for a little over a year but I never had any input until now. This is a great site with great people and a lifetime of knowledge. I'd like to finally chime in on something that may help others.
I fell in love with the BM (Ruger 16" bolt gun) and immediately started off with heavy cast bullets because my whole intention is heavy, subsonic, suppressed hunting. I found a sweet load of Unique (10.8-11gn) under a 405 gn FPLRN (45-70 bullet, powder coated then swagged to .452, 413 gn as cast from wheel weight alloy) works great for plinking and is super fun. It can hold 1" groups at 50yds and it's my boy's favorite thing to shoot. Then the bug hit me, So I had find a bullet that would perform well for subsonic hunting. My first intention was to try some Maker brand 425gn sub rex bullets but then Hornady came out with 395gn projectiles and I HAD to try the 395 sub-x's. While I have not shot these into any ballistic gel or animals (yet), I'm happy to report that I did find two loads that will work. This seems to be a hard recipe to find (even on the vast interweb). I seat the 395's way deep. Past the cannelure (same as factory loaded ammo) to take up as much of the case volume as possible. I found a load of Unique powder @ 11.6 gn shoots right at 1045 fps from my rifle and still holds 1" 50 yard groups. Under 3" at 100 yards but honestly I'm only using a 4x scope so i'm sure it's better than that. I worked with another guy online who tried 16.5 and 16.7 grains of LIl' gun powder and the 16.7gn also shot 1" groups at 50 yds @ 1060 fps from his Ruger bolt gun. I'm not done testing these and still have some playing around to do but thought this would help others in their adventures with getting started with the 395's. I'll also post a few Quick Load charts that the fellows over on accurateshooter.com provided me with. Please load with caution and i'm not responsible for anything that happens if you use my information.
Dan
Last edited by
dantiff3 on Sun Oct 09, 2022 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.