Starting in 1975, accuracy tests at 300 yards commenced in a huge warehouse in Houston, TX. After several years and hundreds of thousands of rounds, many fired by the country's top shooters, some, to me anyway surprising conclusions were arrived at. Among them this one about powder:
"In this shortened 22PPC, he used IMR4198 exclusively. He adopted this powder after Don Geraci, an advocate of 4198, visited the warehouse. Although 4198 has a reputation for varying considerably from lot to lot, Virgil never bothered to lay in a big supply of any particular batch. “I just went out and bought some when I needed it,†he said. “Lot number didn’t make any difference.â€
Within limits, neither did powder charge. Virgil threw his charges from a Culver conversion, and the grain-cutting operation obviously gave him reasonably consistent results with the long, little kernels, considering the excellence of the resulting groups. He did, however, later use a Belding & Mull powder measure in order to lessen the grain-cutting problem.
Powder charges, as long as they were fairly consistent and bracketed within a couple of grains, were not important, he said. On one occasion, as an experiment Virgil shot one group with his 6PPC barrel on the Cooper action using a 53 Culver setting of Winchester 748, the next 52 and the third 51. All three groups were identical.
I find that statement somewhat incredulous but wish I were wrong on that point. Sure would be nice to be able stop weighing and fussing with powder loads. How do members of this forum feel about it?
The entire article, a 10 or 15 minute read, can be seen here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/max357/houston.html
"In this shortened 22PPC, he used IMR4198 exclusively. He adopted this powder after Don Geraci, an advocate of 4198, visited the warehouse. Although 4198 has a reputation for varying considerably from lot to lot, Virgil never bothered to lay in a big supply of any particular batch. “I just went out and bought some when I needed it,†he said. “Lot number didn’t make any difference.â€
Within limits, neither did powder charge. Virgil threw his charges from a Culver conversion, and the grain-cutting operation obviously gave him reasonably consistent results with the long, little kernels, considering the excellence of the resulting groups. He did, however, later use a Belding & Mull powder measure in order to lessen the grain-cutting problem.
Powder charges, as long as they were fairly consistent and bracketed within a couple of grains, were not important, he said. On one occasion, as an experiment Virgil shot one group with his 6PPC barrel on the Cooper action using a 53 Culver setting of Winchester 748, the next 52 and the third 51. All three groups were identical.
I find that statement somewhat incredulous but wish I were wrong on that point. Sure would be nice to be able stop weighing and fussing with powder loads. How do members of this forum feel about it?
The entire article, a 10 or 15 minute read, can be seen here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/max357/houston.html