Getting ready for the 1st rodent shoot of 2019.
Lots of H414 on hand, about 500 Hornady .224 75gr ELDM and 200 Sierra .224 60gr Tipped MK bullets. Rodent targets will be rockchucks, prairie dogs and gophers (ground squirrels). CCI 200 primers and 200 pieces of PPU .22-.250 brass. Other rifles involved will be two .204 R's and a .20 Practical.
Weather has been terrible, yesterday mid 80's today high 50's. Snow at 6000. Gusty SE winds at 15-17 MPH. Rivers are just below flood stage and coffee colored.
Previous viewed messages expressed interest in .22-.250 loads with these subject bullets. My usual shooting routine to check stuff out is to shoot a 3 round group at 200 with 225 zero, make adjust for 300 & shoot another 3, then reset zero to 225 & shoot 3 at 100. Max expected ranges will be about 600 yards.
What I do seems to work well, like casual, cheap, and easy.
The rifle is a mid 1990 vintage push feed Ruger M77 MKII (yes, the first issued were push feed), this is its 3rd barrel, a 7.7 twist McGowen 5 L&G , #5 contour, 26 inch, stainless. The barrel cleans up easily using Gun Slick foam, tight fitting nylon brushes, and 0-20W synthetic motor oil (been doing this for 10 years - I can almost feel the high detergent oil flowing into fissures in the plastered black gunk inside my barrel). The rifle has a Timney trigger at about 2.5 pounds. Stock design is Jim Cloward (Seattle) and I did the inletting. It has a slightly wider than 1/16 gap between barrel and stock allowing a doubled up wet paper towel to be run between barrel and stock for cooling. The American walnut stock has 10 coats of clear satin Minwax Wipe-On Poly finish outside and about 1/2 that inside. Brownell nylon mix epoxy bedding for barrel shank and action. Ruger bottom metal, magazine, spring, and follower tossed and single Rem 700 type 1/4 inch screw threaded into hole drilled and tapped behind funny Ruger recoil lug - single shot. Mrs. Fyrewall has a smaller twin but stocked in fiddle back maple.
The primary load that I have been using for 4 years was the 75 Amax and now the 75 ELDM. I have used H4350 but now am using H414 - real cheap and easy to measure. The brass is PPU, I prefer PPU over Winchester and Remington - toss up with Hornady. Lapua is too pricy. Dies used are a Redding body die, Lee collet die, and Hornady seat die having an Amax seat plug. I throw charges directly into each case keeping powder level no lower than 1/3. Upon getting at the 1/3 level I dump in more powder, throw 3 charges weighing each to check, then keep on throwing powder. Primers are CCI 200's. Necks are turned enough to just clean up. The ELDM bullet has a slightly different profile than the AMAX, not as pointy, so it requires slightly deeper seating. Bullets are seated within 10 thou of rifling. The powder charge is 35.5 grains - this is considerably less than that shown in my Hornady manual - max charges as shown in the manual would be impossible to reach with any brass in my rifle.
Playing around with the Hornady 4DOF calculator provides gyro or Sg values of 1.45 @ 0 and 2.65 @ 600, MV is approximately 3150, 7.7 twist. The Hornady calculator pumped out aerodynamic jump values also - varying with wind direction and strength. 10 mph @ 90 degrees would give 1.5 inches up at 600. Playing around with the Miller Sg approximator modified for plastic tipped bullets gave a Sg of 1.81 at 3150 with a 7.7 twist at same range temp of 57 degrees.
The 60 grain tipped MK Sierra bullet also shows promise. 37 grains of H414 at probably 3350-3400 shot into .5 inches at 100 but surprisingly did slightly better at 300 than the 75 Hornady. The Miller Sg for this plastic tipped bullet is over 3.0 using a 7.7 twist. The Sierra bullet would probably blow up rodents better.
Shooting conditions were bad, I loaded rounds into the rifle and fired real fast to hit between wind gust periods. I use motel plastic body lotion bottles for the 0-20W.
Lots of H414 on hand, about 500 Hornady .224 75gr ELDM and 200 Sierra .224 60gr Tipped MK bullets. Rodent targets will be rockchucks, prairie dogs and gophers (ground squirrels). CCI 200 primers and 200 pieces of PPU .22-.250 brass. Other rifles involved will be two .204 R's and a .20 Practical.
Weather has been terrible, yesterday mid 80's today high 50's. Snow at 6000. Gusty SE winds at 15-17 MPH. Rivers are just below flood stage and coffee colored.
Previous viewed messages expressed interest in .22-.250 loads with these subject bullets. My usual shooting routine to check stuff out is to shoot a 3 round group at 200 with 225 zero, make adjust for 300 & shoot another 3, then reset zero to 225 & shoot 3 at 100. Max expected ranges will be about 600 yards.
What I do seems to work well, like casual, cheap, and easy.
The rifle is a mid 1990 vintage push feed Ruger M77 MKII (yes, the first issued were push feed), this is its 3rd barrel, a 7.7 twist McGowen 5 L&G , #5 contour, 26 inch, stainless. The barrel cleans up easily using Gun Slick foam, tight fitting nylon brushes, and 0-20W synthetic motor oil (been doing this for 10 years - I can almost feel the high detergent oil flowing into fissures in the plastered black gunk inside my barrel). The rifle has a Timney trigger at about 2.5 pounds. Stock design is Jim Cloward (Seattle) and I did the inletting. It has a slightly wider than 1/16 gap between barrel and stock allowing a doubled up wet paper towel to be run between barrel and stock for cooling. The American walnut stock has 10 coats of clear satin Minwax Wipe-On Poly finish outside and about 1/2 that inside. Brownell nylon mix epoxy bedding for barrel shank and action. Ruger bottom metal, magazine, spring, and follower tossed and single Rem 700 type 1/4 inch screw threaded into hole drilled and tapped behind funny Ruger recoil lug - single shot. Mrs. Fyrewall has a smaller twin but stocked in fiddle back maple.
The primary load that I have been using for 4 years was the 75 Amax and now the 75 ELDM. I have used H4350 but now am using H414 - real cheap and easy to measure. The brass is PPU, I prefer PPU over Winchester and Remington - toss up with Hornady. Lapua is too pricy. Dies used are a Redding body die, Lee collet die, and Hornady seat die having an Amax seat plug. I throw charges directly into each case keeping powder level no lower than 1/3. Upon getting at the 1/3 level I dump in more powder, throw 3 charges weighing each to check, then keep on throwing powder. Primers are CCI 200's. Necks are turned enough to just clean up. The ELDM bullet has a slightly different profile than the AMAX, not as pointy, so it requires slightly deeper seating. Bullets are seated within 10 thou of rifling. The powder charge is 35.5 grains - this is considerably less than that shown in my Hornady manual - max charges as shown in the manual would be impossible to reach with any brass in my rifle.
Playing around with the Hornady 4DOF calculator provides gyro or Sg values of 1.45 @ 0 and 2.65 @ 600, MV is approximately 3150, 7.7 twist. The Hornady calculator pumped out aerodynamic jump values also - varying with wind direction and strength. 10 mph @ 90 degrees would give 1.5 inches up at 600. Playing around with the Miller Sg approximator modified for plastic tipped bullets gave a Sg of 1.81 at 3150 with a 7.7 twist at same range temp of 57 degrees.
The 60 grain tipped MK Sierra bullet also shows promise. 37 grains of H414 at probably 3350-3400 shot into .5 inches at 100 but surprisingly did slightly better at 300 than the 75 Hornady. The Miller Sg for this plastic tipped bullet is over 3.0 using a 7.7 twist. The Sierra bullet would probably blow up rodents better.
Shooting conditions were bad, I loaded rounds into the rifle and fired real fast to hit between wind gust periods. I use motel plastic body lotion bottles for the 0-20W.
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