Dirtybore
posted this
30 January 2014
Bob
The harder the bullet, the faster you can drive it. That's all well and good on a paper target. I've killed 9 deer with 218 gr round balls from a muzzleloader at a little over the speed of a throwen rock. Your now shooting cast bullets, not jacketed ones. Slow down, You don't need all tht velocity. That high velocity retoric is what the vendors sell magnum rifles and in-line muzzleloaders with. You don't need it because it's uneccessary. That high velocity stuff is only a mind set, you're shooting cast bullets now so throw it out with your dross.
Personally, in rifles 8mm and smaller, I start with heat treated WW bullets. This way, I'm starting at the harder end, just to reduce that veriable. I can always go softer at a later date but why start soft and wonder when a load leads, is it becasue of the load combination or is the bullet is too soft. When starting with a hard bullet, if it leads, you know it's the load combination and not the bullet.
The bullet must be the correct size to fit the bore, other wise it will always produce bad accuracy. Once you have a bullet that fits the bore, only tial and error will eventually produce the load with the best accuracy. Once the rifle decides what load it prefers, Bingo, your done, and it doesn't matter what the velocity is. Granted, you will end up someplace between 1300 and 1900 FPS. Once that magic load is found, you might want to try a softer bullet, say quenched WW, and softer yet for air cooled WW.
As the bullet gets softer, you might have to slow the velocity down even more. Obviously this is done by reduceing the podwer charge.
I don't chonograph loads untill I'm all finished load testing and the rifle has found it's best load. Then only to satisfy those who ask, do I want to know the velocity. I really don't care, and have only had a crony for 2 years. My wife got it for me for Christmas otherwise, I still wouldn't have one.
John R