Guy Miner
Master Loader
- Apr 6, 2006
- 17,747
- 5,829
Quick trip to the range with my son and a few hunting rifles. Good and bad to report - kind of a mixed bag of results instead of glorious tiny groups at awesome velocity or whatever... Sorry, no new photos, we were busy shooting & such.
Big Disappointment was Great Grandpa's Mauser/Weatherby.
We'd just got it back from the gunsmith, with quite a bit of work done to update it. The smith got the length-of-pull right and did a fine job installing the cushy new recoil pad. But... He also put in a new trigger & safety, and a new firing pin spring and a decent looking bolt shroud. When we tried to fire it over the chronograph - we got a reading of zero, which went right along with the "click" instead of Ka-Boom. Hmmm. Tried again. Same result. Very light firing pin strike. Phooey. I don't think we're going to have time to get Great-Grandpa's Mauser/Weatherby in action before our bear hunt in two weeks. Dang it. The rifle was shooting before the trip to the smith, so he gets it back later today, because it sure doesn't shoot now.
Young M700 Jr's little 6mm predictably shot very, very well. Good note there. That rifle has been a joy to shoot for 36 years now... He likes it, and I sure as heck do.
He also shot a dozen rounds through the .25-06 700 CDL - and shot it very well. Interestingly, there's precious little difference between the muzzle velocity of my .25-06/115 gr ammo, and the .257 Wby/115 gr ammo I loaded up. Likely because I've got the .25-06 cooking along at top level loads, and had stopped a couple of grains short of max with the Weatherby... Either rifle is sending those 115 Nosler Partitions out at about 3200 fps, give or take. So, the old .257 proved a failure at this point, but the .25-06 is doing great. I think the young man may well hunt with the .25-06 this year.
Then there was "Boom the Thunder Rifle." The .375 got the name from a book I used to read the kids when they were little;"Boom the Thunder Dragon." I'd loaded up some 260 Nosler Accubonds with Reloader 15, and was hoping for about 2700 fps - instead the loads only showed 2620 fps avg - but with very, very good accuracy. Like bullet holes touching type accuracy. And I have to admit that the gentle (hah!) recoil from the mild 260gr/2620 fps load was quite nice to shoot from prone. So, maybe instead of bumping it up, maybe I'll just hunt with it as is.
For comparison we sent a couple of 270 gr Hornady spire-point bullets loaded over H4350 downrange - they were almost exactly 110 fps faster, and I know they're an accurate load too, since I was smacking the 300 yard gong with them easily a few months ago... I'll toss a coin and take a box of ammo with me. One way or the other it should work.
A slow but accurate .375 load. A favorite old rifle that won't go bang. A .25-06 that continues to shoot well. Sort of a mixed bag, all in a two hour trip to the range.
Guy
Big Disappointment was Great Grandpa's Mauser/Weatherby.
We'd just got it back from the gunsmith, with quite a bit of work done to update it. The smith got the length-of-pull right and did a fine job installing the cushy new recoil pad. But... He also put in a new trigger & safety, and a new firing pin spring and a decent looking bolt shroud. When we tried to fire it over the chronograph - we got a reading of zero, which went right along with the "click" instead of Ka-Boom. Hmmm. Tried again. Same result. Very light firing pin strike. Phooey. I don't think we're going to have time to get Great-Grandpa's Mauser/Weatherby in action before our bear hunt in two weeks. Dang it. The rifle was shooting before the trip to the smith, so he gets it back later today, because it sure doesn't shoot now.
Young M700 Jr's little 6mm predictably shot very, very well. Good note there. That rifle has been a joy to shoot for 36 years now... He likes it, and I sure as heck do.
He also shot a dozen rounds through the .25-06 700 CDL - and shot it very well. Interestingly, there's precious little difference between the muzzle velocity of my .25-06/115 gr ammo, and the .257 Wby/115 gr ammo I loaded up. Likely because I've got the .25-06 cooking along at top level loads, and had stopped a couple of grains short of max with the Weatherby... Either rifle is sending those 115 Nosler Partitions out at about 3200 fps, give or take. So, the old .257 proved a failure at this point, but the .25-06 is doing great. I think the young man may well hunt with the .25-06 this year.
Then there was "Boom the Thunder Rifle." The .375 got the name from a book I used to read the kids when they were little;"Boom the Thunder Dragon." I'd loaded up some 260 Nosler Accubonds with Reloader 15, and was hoping for about 2700 fps - instead the loads only showed 2620 fps avg - but with very, very good accuracy. Like bullet holes touching type accuracy. And I have to admit that the gentle (hah!) recoil from the mild 260gr/2620 fps load was quite nice to shoot from prone. So, maybe instead of bumping it up, maybe I'll just hunt with it as is.
For comparison we sent a couple of 270 gr Hornady spire-point bullets loaded over H4350 downrange - they were almost exactly 110 fps faster, and I know they're an accurate load too, since I was smacking the 300 yard gong with them easily a few months ago... I'll toss a coin and take a box of ammo with me. One way or the other it should work.
A slow but accurate .375 load. A favorite old rifle that won't go bang. A .25-06 that continues to shoot well. Sort of a mixed bag, all in a two hour trip to the range.
Guy
