Had a great morning at the range.  I am going on a black bear hunt in a few weeks and wanted to put the finishing touches on my Borchardt 30/40 AI with 200 grain bullets.  As always that rifle shot lights out and I selected a zero of a tad high at 100 yards and a tad low at 200 yards.  Needing a backup rifle, I switched over to my 1903 Springfield in 35 Whelen that I built in 1985.  Same deal, a tad high at 100 and a tad low at 200 with a medium load using 200 grain bullets.  Then the fun began.  My 1875 C Sharps 40-70 SS sports a scope and I have a 350 grain gas checked bullet that shoots good with light loads of 5744 but I decided to up the ante and see how much velocity I could get before leading started with my 20:1 alloy and Javalina Lube.  I have 8 pounds of Vitavouri N133 left over from my 6ppc days so started out at 30 grains and worked up to 39 grains in 1 grain increments.  I shot mostly 4 shot groups as this was an exploratory session and I never got one bad group and several outstanding.  I would shoot two groups then clean the barrel and repeat.  All shooting was done at 50 yards off of a concrete bench using cross sticks.  Now I am going to try going from 38 grains up to 44 and see what happens.  If it keeps up the Whelen will be staying home and the Sharps will be going bear hunting as most shots are expected to be at 100 yards or less.  I also tried 4 shot of my grease groove 400 grain fn Accurate bullet with 39 grains and got a nice group with no obvious leading.  Now I was happy as that proverbial clam at high tide so I pulled out my 38/56 roller with Accurate 38-320J modified to fit my barrel and loaded with 20 grains of IMR 4227.  10 shots in one ragged hole at 50 yards!  Man do I like shooting that rifle off of the bench with no underlever to disturb the riffle setup.  As Mr T used to say, I love it when a plan comes together!  Tom   

"Expiring?"  For the bear, of course.  Great pun, John.

Bill Lawrence