2nd outing with the Ruger 77 in 303 British

[Will Henry]

Well, I got out for another short session with the 303 and a different load. I had a partial can of IMR 4895, so I decided to try that. To me, 4895 has always been THE powder for the 308; this especially with 150's. The 303 has the same capacity. With this in mind I loaded twenty up with 42 grains of that. I also seated the bullets a little deeper, so they were just touching (I know. you should only change one thing at a time). The pressure was still too low, as I knew it would be. Consistency was a little better though. Velocity was down under 2600fps. Nonetheless, it shot pretty good. Once I got it sighted in again (it was hitting low, of course) I put five shots into 1.218". This at 300 meters. The next group wasn't quite as good at 1.272". Both groups were more vertical which was no surprise since the load was too mild and velocity, though better than the Varget load, was still pretty variable. Lateral dispersion was around .650"
So, I'm getting pretty close to .3 moa. I have some H4895 on the way. I'll load around 45 grains, I think. That should get the SD down which should allow me to get down around an inch.
There are some problems intrinsic with shooting a rifle like this. It kicks. It kicks the rear bag around and it kicks me around. The trigger guard hits my finger, if I forget to stay out of the way. I'll be replacing the Pachmayr brick before the next session.
The old 24X Leupold I have on it (my first BR scope, bought in 1977 at the White Elephant, in Spokane, Wa.) just doesn't have the definition I would like. WH