A week or two back my 99 Savage .30-30 got a bump, and I had some concern over its zero. I checked it on the boresighter. It looked like it might have lost a couple of minutes of elevation and gone left a bit. Time for a range trip.
I’ve been wanting to run a group with the rifle for a while anyway, having changed my seating depth. Choice was between 2.500” and perfect feed from the rotary magazine, versus 2.530” with maybe better group but rougher feed. Time to recheck the maybe on 2.530”. This is with the supposedly 2200 fps LVR x 176 gn HP load.
I’ve also wanted to check first shot POI with some few-days-old fouling in the barrel.
My short range head shot load is #311576HP, same 16 BHN alloy as for the big stuff. Load was 12 gns Unique and 1900 fps. The powder drought has forced a change to 10 gns Red Dot and 1800 fps. I use this load for smaller animals, or finishing off where required, or when less noise is desired. With the rifle zeroed at 150 meters for the full power loads, the lighter load is dead on at 50 meters.
Here are the results, full power loads at 100 meters and lights at 50.
It turns out the boresighter WAS right. POI at 100 m was about a minute left of where it should have been and about 2 minutes low. With that adjustment restored the rifle will be on for a bit over 100 meters with the main hunting load, and dead on at 50 for the light load.
Both groups were OK – 2.22” (mean radius 0.78") at 100 m for five shots of the “heavies”, and 1.04” at 50 m for four shots of the “lights”. The aiming squares are 1.625”.
The warming shot over some two day old fouling went a couple of minutes above the group centre, so no better than if shot on a clean bore.
The longer COL, or perhaps the cool morning, or the slower cadence while I waited on the wind, left me with lower than usual velocity – 2146 instead of the expected 2180 or so. The extra COL might require another grain of powder.
You are only as good as your library.
