Jon, I shot high power this past Saturday with a CMP issue RI 03 w/HS 4 groove, Ly peeps front and rear, set in a Bell & Carlson Carbolite stock. Very comfortable. Max range at my club is 200 yards, so we shoot the reduced course. My load was 31.0/surp 4895 and a tuft of dacron with a 314299 sized to .312. That load also shoots very well in an older hvy bbl Mdl 70. I think anywhere between 28-32 grains would work just fine.
Now time to tell on myself. I ran across something that has never happened to me before (loading since early 70s). I am a very careful hand loader, but for some reason I missed some cleaning media stuck in the bottom of a case. That round was in a string during the rapid prone, and the next round didn't want to chamber. Uh-oh says I. I pulled the bolt back without ejecting to take a look see. Looked fine, so I slammed'er home again. Chambered fine, finished the string. Then, during SF prone at round 17, it happend again! I'm thinkin', “no, this can't be happening." I ejected the round, got out of position to take a look see, turn the rifle over and about 20 pieces of media fell out. Get back into position, try to chamber a round, no go. Back off the bolt and slide it in again, it goes. Last three rounds were fine. Finshed SF prone with a 176 and Xs, not the best I've ever done, but it's been awhile since I shot this rifle. I'm pretty sure this rifle is capable of at least 190 SF prone with this or similar load at 200.
When I got home all my cases were mouth up in their boxes, so I did the flashlight thing and found one case that had about 15-20 pieces of media stuck in the bottom. Had to scrape them out with a probe - did I mention that I never had this happen before. Sure, gotta check when the come out of the tumbler, but I've never had any fail to empty out by tapping them or stick a small dcrew driver in there with a twist. I'm very careful about checking powder level while I'm loading, saw nothing amiss last week while getting the ammo ready, so that indicates that the offending rounds, three that showed themselves, had only a very small amount stuck in the bottom. All flash holes were open. I knew this, that's why I kept shooting during the match.
Last thing I had to do was blow out the receiver with compressed air as it had some media lying in the lug well, base of the barrel. All is good to go now for next month, and looking forward to it. The media that I used was new big bag crushed walnut from the feed store, Midway brass polish, and let run for about 10 minutes before adding that batch of brass. I'm going to run another batch through just like the first and check them very closely. I'm wondering maybe if there might be too much moisture of if the media itself may be a bit sticky. If I discover anything, I'll report back.
Anyway, with the cost of full length gas checked bullets (jacketed) shooting with cast makes a lot of sense (cents).
