Bluesteel45, Don't look now, but the Unertls, Lymans, and Feckers are already going out the roof. A really nice 30x Supertarget Spot sold on ebay last week for $1300!!!! I sold my last 30x with a near mint 52c for $1400 a couple of years ago. If the price of these scopes were any indicator of growing interest in Schuetzen, then somebody better start building a bunch of ranges.  With the NRA's rule changes for scoped BPCR silhouette, I could perhaps understand the price of Winchester A5s and Lyman 5As going up (they're bringing $500+). Is there a growing interest in scope collecting as a hobby...or do some folks have tremendous expendable incomes with an eye on scope speculation?????

Blue,

  Well, I was just passing on what is listed in the ASSRA's Journal. So, I would ASSUME they have Schuetzen matches but whether or not they actually do..... you'd have to call and ask them.

Glenn, Don, and others who might be offended by my comment about Shilouette shooters vs Schuetzen.

  If you will re-read my message again you will see that I was making a PERSONAL OBSERVATION of what I have observed at our Schuetzen shoots. Nothing was said about them being inferior shots. Even tho I have not shot a Shilouette match.... yet..... I fully realise that the game is not an easy one. Far from it!

  Now there might be many reasons for them not returning, and if you wish to think I am taking a personal slap at all Shilouette shooters shooting ability then you've got a problem...... Get over it!

  Did you take umbrage at my minute of Ram vs minute of angle? I stand by that!

  I really tend to think that the reason the Shilouette shooters never come back is because the rifles they use for that game are way over powered for Schuetzen and they just don't feel that they want to buy other guns to shoot the game.

  Now.... Lets get down to cases shall we? On this thread I, and another person, have asked for opinions on a lighter chicken bullet, loads, and if it's practical or necessary. Now why didn't you Shilouette shooters come forth with some comments? Are us Schuetzen shooters beneath comment from you? I know there are many of you on here as the member list shows many who are listed on BPCR, Shiloh, and several other BP Forums that deal with Shilouette. You are pretty vocal on them if a newby asks for help!

PETE

Pete

Well gosh, anybody can see by reading that paragraph that you meant that silhouette rifles are way too powerful for Schuetzen.

Sorry. My bad.


So, you want to know why I didn't weigh in when you asked for help? Mostly because I was pretending to have a life at the time and didn't get around to reading everything on the board. When I did, I found you had already ordered the mold and then learned that silhouette rifles were over powered for Schuetzen.



Ok, here is my advice. Send back the 300 grain mold. You will be hard pressed to get consistent accuracy with it out of a 16" twist barrel, if that is what you have. It will shoot pretty fair out of a 18" twist barrel, and I have shot it out of a 17.5" twist barrel with reasonable results. However, I spent a lot of time and powder trying to make that bullet shoot out of a 16 twist barrel. I tried every trick and technique I could conceive of or ever heard of. Every powder/ primer  combination available.  I tried compression, wads, neck tension, lubes, seating depths, primer wads and loading during different phases of the moon. And I tried it in more than one barrel.  I was able to get it to shoot a few good groups, but never was able to get it to do so with any consistency. And for what it is worth I know of no one who has been able to make the boolit work in a 16" twist. 

This is not to say that no one has made it work, or that it will not work in your rifle.  This is just my experience with it.

I would suggest that you send the 300 mold back in exchange for the RCBS 350 CSA, which you will see is exactly the same bullet as the 300 with one extra driving band.  In my experience this is one of the most accurate  and easy to please .40 bullets I have ever shot. I can't explain it, but there you have it. If I were to want to shoot Schuetzen with a .40 and real gunpowder, this is the bullet I would start with.  It will recoil a bit more than the 300 but the difference is not necessarily great as the bullet, having a longer shank, uses more case capacity and so can be made to work with less powder.

For a light recoiling load for the 350 I would suggest for a start that the bullet be seated out to touch the rifling and then determine where the base of the bullet will be. Drop enough Swiss 1.5 through a drop tube (just pour it in the funnel, don't dribble it)  to fill the case to a point where a .060" LDPE wad will further compress the powder column another .010" or .020", just enough for a firm bed to set the bullet on. No neck tension, the bullet is just dropped in and set down on the was. I suggest the Federal 150M large pistol primer. If you are adverse to using pistol primers you could try the Federal 210, but I have always found pistol primers to provide better results.

As a disclaimer, I no longer shoot a .40 at silhouette, having switched to a .45-70. I have not shot the particular load I just described. It is, however, exactly where I would start if I wanted to develop a light recoiling .40 load.  If I were to go back to a .40 I would shoot the CSA350 at the chickens and the Lyman Snover bullet at all the lay down animals. Assuming, of course, these choices were approved of by my rifle.  However, I have tried a lot of custom .40 molds and in the final analysis none have proved superior to these two bullets.

I do have a light load for the .45 that I have been using this year with good success. That is fodder for another post as my fingers are tired and I have to get back pretending I have a life.

Respectfully,

Glenn

Mr. bluesteel45:

Light bullet loads are problematic. Our rifles are set up for heavy bullets with twists considerably faster that what were used for the Express Loads of the late 19th century. Even then these light bullet loads were no great shakes for accuracy.  A. C. Gould makes this pretty clear in his book "Modern American Rifles". According to Mr. Gould the Express loads were effective hunting loads because of their "flat" trajectory, not because they were accurate. He states that in fact they were not as accurate as the heavy boolits and that  one would be well served to shoot heavy boolits for target work.


Howsomever, I did manage to find a combination that works pretty well in my .45-70. I tried a lot of things before I found it. It would have been real easy if I would have just tried this load first instead of doing all that messing around. Go figure.

The boolit is from an old Ideal mold, an early 457122 Gould HP. In the place of the HP pin I have fit a plug to make the boolit a flat nose. This particular mold cast a boolit with a small bevel base but I don' think that is critical. It weighs right about 348 grains in 20-1. I believe that Lyman once make this mold without the HP. I think it was designated 457123, but that is stretching the memory a bit.

The load is 60 grains of Swiss 1.5f over a Federal 150 primer. OAL is just enough to touch the rifling, and in fact may be just a few thousandths short of that. The powder is dumped in and very minimally compressed, just enough to provide a firm bed for the boolit. I put the .060" LDPE was in the case mouth and then actually shake the case gently to fluff up the powder before it is put into the compression die. Bullet is seated in the fire formed case without neck tension.

The barrel is a Green Mountain 1-18" twist. The chamber has no "throat", that is no freebore section, and has a 4 degree/side leade. Brass is Starline.

I can't say that this will make your rifle happy, but it might, or at least might be a good starting point. I do not know that this system will work with a different boolit, because when I found this load I quit looking.  This is not a Schuetzen load, but a chicken load. It shoots about 1.5" to 1.75" at 100 yards. I have never shot it on paper at 200, but it has been quite effective on the chickens. I know it is not as reliably accurate as my prone load, but being a sensitive, caring, New Millennium sort of guy I can't handle the heavy recoil offhand.

Best of luck,

Glenn

Glenn,

  Well, since you have shot Schuetzen quite a bit I'll take your comments as a poke at me with a smile on the end of it.

  Guns used for Shilouette are indeed way to powerful for Schuetzen. This was found out by the old timers over a period of years as they reduced the bore size from the .40 - .45 cal. range down thru the .38's and finally settled on the .32/40 as the optimum choice under normal conditions. The .38/55 will perform better under windy conditions, and the .28/30 will be better under dead calm conditions, but the .32/40 reigned supreme most of the time.

  Now I have shot.... and won..... 10 shot offhand matches with a .50/90 with full charges (92 grs. & a 600 gr. bullet) of BP. I have also shot.... and won... matches out to 500 yds. with it. But, I would hate to have to shoot it for a full 100 shot match. Bench or offhand! And I have shot.... and won..... 10 shot offhand matches with a .40/65 with a 417 gr. bullet and 59 grs. of Swiss 1 1/2. Again I wouldn't care to shoot a 100 shot match with one. For Schuetzen my preference is a .32/40 with a 185 gr. bullet for offhand matches and a 207 grainer for bench with which I have won many matches with.

  Just to head you off at the pass.... I know you can probably make the same claims, and probably more.

  So, when I say the typical Shilouette rifle is way to much for Schuetzen, I think I can say I speak from experience. I have yet to see the typical Shilouette rifle that is as accurate as a smaller caliber with either black or smokeless. Again experience, from shooting smokeless & black in everything from a .22 CF up to the .50/90 listed above, and a good round dozen in between, will speak of my experience on that.

  Again.... This is my personal experience and observations! As everyone likes to say YMMF! I don't speak on a subject unless I've done the work. I don't do my shooting from a keyboard.

  On to other things...... I appreciate your comments on a "chicken" load and I wish you would have seen this thread before I bought the mould. But, there are probably a good dozen or so Shilouette shooters on here, that I know of, and some I know personally, and my comment was more to them. You'd have thought that a thread with the words "Chicken Loads" in it would have drawn them in like flies on a 2 day old carcass.

  As you suggest I could send the mould back, but I think I'll keep it and see how it works in my gun. Experimenting is my favorite form of shooting and a challenge like this is something I relish. If it proves not to have the accuracy I want/expect I'll just buy another. The one you mention, most likely, as it has the exact same nose shape as the RCBS-40-300-CSA, and the RCBS 40-400-CS that I already own and will be my main bullet for the Rams at least.

  Dale53 seems to think the RCBS 40-300-CSA is an accurate bullet in his Shilouette gun. See his reply further up this thread. I've asked him for his load but he hasn't replied yet. Maybe we'll both learn something.

  I think you are probably right tho in your assessment of the 300 grainers accuracy. I've shot quite a few 265 gr. PP bullets in my gun with about the best I could get being decent hunting accuracy, which I suspect won't cut the mustard for Shilouette.

PETE

Boats,

  To some extent I'll agree with your summation of light bullets not working well with BP. But my .45/70 double rifle will regulate the Lyman 330 gr. H.P. with BP into one ragged hole at 75 yds. which is it's regulation distance. This of course is a long way's from hitting chickens at 200 Meters.

  Also, if I was shooting a .45/70 I'd go with the 405 bullet as you recommend. Might have to break out the Rolling Block in that caliber, if push comes to shove.

Dale53's response seems to indicate that the RCBS 40-300-CSA will shoot well with BP. Since individual rifles are a law unto themselves about all you can do is to try something out in yours and see what happens.

  I'll bet you're like me and probably have upwards of 75 or 80 moulds and you can count the ones that work well on your fingers. I just figure that's just part of the cost of working a gun up.

  Your comment on powder charges and the possible need for extra wads, fillers, etc. has crossed my mind. At this point in time I don't know what kind of velocity will be needed to get the accuracy I need so I'm not sure what I'll need for wads, fillers, etc. I really would like to get away from any of this to. My experience is that the more stuff you add to a load the less accuracy you get.

  My first thought is to go with 1F or 2F Goex since it should fill the case up better than Swiss, and hopefully allow for enuf compression without the need for adding wads.

  The main idea is to get the bullet out of the barrel as fast as possible, with the least amount of gun movement, which I think a lighter bullet should accomplish. My thinking might be all wrong, but I won't know till I try it.

  Speaking of the Devil...... The mould just showed up at the door so guess it's time to heat the pot up and cast a few out. 

PETE

Mr. Frog,

I don't think it's really a lack of respect for that particular boolit design, but maybe more of a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude.  Lots of folks DON'T use lighter weight boolits for chickens...depends on the individual, how his particular rifle is stocked, and his tolerance for recoil...lots of guys just shoot the same load across the course (even some shooters of my acquaintance with .45-70's and -90's).  I did the same last season, with a .40-65 Browning and the Lyman-Snover boolit.  I had an accurate load that I was confident in, and the recoil in a near-12 pound rifle was not bothersome.

My threshold was found rather quickly when I switched to a roller in .45-70 for this season.  The stock configuration (sporting, with steel buttplate) combined with full-house loads in 500+ grain boolits had me looking for a lighter kicking alternative after the first match.  Luckily, I didn't have to look too far, as the good ol' 405 grain flatpoint was already on hand.  It works for me, recoil is tolerable with decent accuracy (groups average 2" at 100 yds)...and as a bonus the same boolit works real well in a light-barreled Browning .45-70 I have set up for hunting.

Greg

PS...I bowhunted for those ilk for several years when I lived out west, with little success...