charlie brown

Ok, I have a question for you all concerning how much powder you are actually burning.

My gun is a CVA Bobcat. I went out the other day, and did some testing. I can put all of my shots into the vitals of an elk up to 75 yds in field position with 90 grs Goex 2f and a 350 Maxi-Hunter. I am getting 1290 FPS, 80 grs will give me 1250 FPS.

A while back, I did a test with the 245 gr Buffalo Ball et's. I started at 80 grns, all the way to 100 grs, though this was with Pyrodex RS. The range... 5 feet. I shot at a plain piece of paper. With 80 grs, there was very little, if any powder residue on the paper. With 90, there was a small amount. At 100 grs, there was a LOT!! Clearly when I was getting up to 90 grs powder, I was not burning all of my powder. At 100, I was just wasting too much. So I know I will not go over 90 in that gun, at least with the 245's. I have yet to test this with any other bullet, powder combo. I will try it with the Goex here soon and the 245's, as well as round balls. I do not have any more maxi hunters left, so that will have to wait until I get a chance to buy some more to test that way also.

Either way, I will stick with that 90 grs with that Maxi Hunter for the elk. I could use every fps I can get.

Has anyone else done a test like this with there ML? I would be interested to know how those tests have turned out.

Thanks.

roundball

Interesting idea...one thought about the amount of material coming out...you didn't mention if the bore was 100% cleaned between shots for the test...if not, wonder if cleaning the bore between each and every shot would have an effect on this as you were increasing the powder charges...ie: as fouling builds up inside the bore, is it possible that more and more fouling would then get expelled because it has no where else to go, etc

cayugad

As long as I got good accuracy with the load I am sure the load you mentioned will be more then enough once the projectile is put in the right place. According to the manual 100 grains is the max charge anyway.

In my Mountain Stalker I have the best accuracy with 80 grains of Triple Se7en a wonder wad and a patched roundball. I tried some conicals out of mine but was not impressed with the groups after 50 yards with them. Are you using a wonderwad?

rick_reno

Charlie,

Thanks for this post - gives me another thing to look for. I confess, I would have never thought to look for powder on the target.

charlie brown

Nope, I never have used a wonder wad for my round ball loads. I know that I can still get an honest 1.75" center to center at 50 yds with 80 grs RS and the round ball. The others, the best I can do so far is 3" or so. I have some of those round ball targets still. I figured there was not need to have a wonder wad if I can get less than 2" at 50!!

cayugad

I could not agree with you more charlie brown. The reason I shoot a wonder wad is using the Triple Se7en powder I discovered I was smoking the patches. And I do mean smoking, like still smoldering in the grass after shooting. I added the wonderwad and that all stopped and the accuracy is exceptional. With the kind of groups your shooting I would not change a thing...

In fact I ordered the rifle in September I believe it was and started working up a load for it. It tuned in so fast that I used it that November for deer hunting and it was more then able to handle the job.

charlie brown

Just to make sure, I dug out some targets. Looks like I had one shot at 42 paces that was actually 1.9" and one at 50 that was 2.0."

I thought they were a little smaller than that. Oh well, I was close anyway, lol.

Edit - and I honestly don't recall what my cleaning was while doing those tests. I will have to do another one to find out.

Slamfire

Looks like your sheet of paper said the same thing as my shoulder, ain't no point in shootin' more'n 80 grains in a Bobcat.

BS

charlie brown, I was sighting in my new peep sights today and clocked some of my loads. I am using a 50cal witha 27" barrel. Shooting Hornady Great Plans 410 HBSP, with MMP sub-bases under them. Goex powder. Two shot groups.

80gr FFF 1270 3" and low
90gr FFF 1350 1 1/2"
100gr FFF 1410 1 3/4"
100gr FF 1310 2 1/8"


At 50 yards the 90 and 100 grain loads all group together, 2 and 3F.

Waiting to move out to 100 yards and see what happens with the groups.

cayugad

BS.. I've sure been reading a lot about these sub bases. There must be something to all this because a lot of people are claiming better accuracy using them. Your results will be most interesting when you get back to 100 yards..