Questions about BP subs

[BobinIL]

I have made the switch to BP and I am having some trouble with accuracy in my rifle. I am shooting a 20" Taylors 73 short rifle in 45. I am using the short schofield brass which I know hasn't been optimum for the rifle but would still work for CAS size targets. After much experimentation I have found that the 250grn bulet shoots much better across the board than the 200's. I started neck sizing my brass and that also helped. I have used Hodgdon 777 and APP both in FF grain size. The problem lies with sustained accuracy. Last night I tried the APP under a 200grn bullet and the first 3 shots almost cloverleafed. The next two stayed within the 8" circle but the last five were all over the target board. This leads me to believe I have a barrel fowling problem. I have not tried the 250grn bullets with APP because I think that the capacity of the Schofield brass would be so small the load would barely be traveling 600fps. The 777 loads while hot they do hold their accuracy through a full match. Still hitting within an 8" circle by the end of the day. Should I be swabing out my barrel between stages??? Can I do this without gettiing in trouble by the RO? I am going to go back to the 45 long colt brass in my rifle and try the APP and 250grn bullets. I think this will be a very accurate load but the fowling will deteriorate accuracy quickly so swabing after each stage may be neccesary.

My pistols love the APP with schofield brass and 200grn bullets. very mild shooting and lots of smoke

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy BobinIL, and welcome.

If you are not adverse to shooting genuine black powder, I have a solution for your problem that works for many others.  The PRS Big Lube™ 250 grain bullets were designed by ol Pigeonroost Slim for just your application.  With a compressed load of genuine black powder this bullet is very accurate and maintains it's accuracy indefinitely.  Function never falters and cleanup is a snap.

I can't/won't address sub/replica powders.

DD-DLoS

[knucklehead]

I don't know about schofield brass because i dont use them but i will answer with my experiance.

I use 45 long colt brass. I drop 30 grains by vol. of tripple 7 2f with a winchester standard large pistol primer and a 250 grain bullet.
I don't swab out the barrell during the match. I have not noticed any accuracy problems with this load. the only problem i have is the carrier tends to bind up during a match. I spray down the carrier area with ballistol every 2 stages so that it dosen't bind up on me.

I shot the oregon state champ match 12 stages without cleaning my rifle at all. I just sprayed down the carrier every two stages with ballistol and had no problems during the match at all. in fact the only misses that i had with the rifle was me own fault  >:(not the rifle fowling.

[hellgate]

Bob,
With the BP you might want to get a sheet of beeswax from a craft store. Thats the stuff you roll up and make candles from. You can get it in quantity quite cheaply as medium brood core from beekeeping suppliers. For a trial one sheet is plenty. After you charge the cases with BP press the sheet over the mouth of the case to punch out a beeswax wad then seat the bullet on top of it. This provides a little extra lube for the travel down the bore. I found in my Rossi 357s with BP that the extra beeswax (BW) disc gave up just enough extra lube to keep the last 4-6" of the bore to be fouling free. You can easily punch out a second wad on top of the first one if it is not enough to keep the bore clean. With the 357 I found that accuracy suffered at 50 yds with groups going from 2" to 6-8". The larger 45 cal bullet is a little less likely to have that problem but only paper punching will tell. I could shoot the BP (SPG lubed bullets)+BW all day long and the bore was a 3 patch cleanup. Without the BW wads the gun was very accurate but required a wet swab "pull through" between stages to maintain accuracy. I have weighted nylon cords with a loop on the end to drop through the barrel from the chamber end and pull them out the muzzle. I got tired of getting my shirt cuffs dirty when the cord flew out and the black gooey swab hit me as I was pulling it out the muzzle.

I now use 777 with just about any bullet and lube I want and accuracy is fine. I would likely be using a "big lube" (Snakebite) bullet with real BP but I could not get it to feed reliably in both of my rifles. One cool side effect was when powder granules stuck to the base of the bullet I would get a tracer effect as it cooked off. Too much of that could cause a fire or ruin accuracy but it sure makes scoring hits easier and is a nice touch to show the smokeless boys what they are missing.

BP is never boring to watch.