Froggie,

  I'll start a new thread on this as I'd sure be interested in finding a fixed ammo load that will work for the upcoming WSU Election Day Match. Breech seating a 100 rounds makes me tired just thinking about it.

  I've been trying, without a whole lot of success, to come up with fixed ammo rounds in my .25/20SS, .28/30, and .32/40. As it stands right now making the best of a bad situation, I'll proably use the .32/40.

  Altho the .32/40 was specially throated for breech seating it will shoot fixed ammo better than the other two which have standard throats.

  Possibly I'm expecting more accuracy than I have a right to expect, since all guns will shoot very well if breech seated.

  I've tried 4227, AA#9, & 4759, plus at least two bullets, and two primers in each gun without a lot of success.

  The .32, with fixed ammo, will give me about 1 1/4", on average, at 100 yds., and the other two are lucky to keep them inside 1 1/2" at the same distance with their best groups. I'd like to come up with something that will consistently shoot at least an 1" at 100 yds. as this will far exceed my offhand capabilities.

  Am I expecting to much? I'm sure open to ideas on what others have come up with.

PETE

As I mentioned on the other thread, I have a Ruger #1 that has been rebarreled to .32-40 by Douglas.  When I purchased it, the previous owner had included some loads he apparently made for it, supposedly composed of a Bud Welch bullet of 190 gr in front of a load of 14 gr of 4227 in original Winchester Western brass and using BR-2 primers.  Like a Dummy, I started blasting away with it to "see what the rifle would do." When I saw how well they shot, I was smart enough to keep the last couple to measure and break down for exact weights of powder, etc. so I SHOULD be able to exactly duplicate everything but the alloy and the lube.  One of my projects for the Winter.

My first high-wall restoration was also in .32-40 with an original Winchester barrel.  Since I didn't have a breech seater for it at the time and since some of the events in which I was shooting demanded that fixed ammo must be used. (Ram Bash, etc.)  Where smokeless is allowed I got pretty good results with the original 165 gr bullet design (Ideal 319247) and with a couple of the 185 to 200 grainers as well using about 13.6 gr or a little more of 4759 in whatever brass (mostly W-W Duke) I could find, lubing with Frog Guano and lighting it off with W-W LR primers.

As with all reloading ventures, YMMV, but these are both fairly conservative loads and should be safe in any rifle made for this caliber and in good condition. I would NOT suggest nor trust either of these loads in the Stevens 44 or low-wall Winchester rifles that sometimes show up in this chambering.

Yours for accurate fixed ammo,
the Green Frog

For fixed schuetzen ammo I would start by talking to Marlin Basset. He has done extenseve work with bench rest rifles and fixed ammo. You could save yourself a lot of work.

40 Rod

When I started shooting high-walls fairly heavily several years ago I began using 4759 in them almost exclusively because I read in Charlie and Waynes' book that the least likely powder to ring a barrel was 4759.  I initially was able to get good results with both my original barrel on my sporter and the Green Mtn bbl on my take-down schuetzen using this powder both in fixed and breech seated loads.  My dear friend leadball became convinced that I would never be able to beat him as long as I used 4759 so he even went so far as to give me several pounds of it  .  While 4759 is not the be-all and end-all of powders, I am still very happy with it in fixed rounds of modest velocity like I use in my sporter.  The jury is still out on the breech seating in the schuetzen rifle, but now that the Ruger is getting shot in offhand I use 4759 for breech and 4227 for fixed.  Works for me, but YMMV!   8)

Froggie