Load/bullet for 50 yards...

Hi shooters,

I have not had much luck with the nosler 185 JHP bullets in my early testing so far. In fact, compared to my 185 lswchp, they are terrible. I have only tried a couple of loads so far and have only been able to test at 75'.

I won't have an opportunity to shoot at 50 yards between now and my next two tournaments so I am trying to determine which would work better for the 50 yard line. I have loaded both 200 grain and the 185s and both seem to group and shoot good at 75 feet, the 185s are better. Which of the two should shoot (group) better at 50 yards?

I have no understanding why, I just am assuming the heavier 200 grain bullet should perform better at the longer distance.

Chris

I have never seen a good gun not shoot excellent groups with the Nosler bullet, so I am baffled. Could you please tell me what powder charge, crimp and overall length you are loading?

Chris,
I will take all those nasty Noslers off your hands for .50 on the dollar!

Or you could try 1.220 OAL, .469 - .470 crimp over 3.9 to 4.2 grains of Clays or VV N310. I use WLP and mixed brass for the short line and all Starline for the long line.

I just shot 40 rounds Thursday from a sand bag at 25 yards and eliminated the X ring and 20 more rounds held the 10 ring easily at 50 yards. Then 40 rounds of sustained fire from my hand produced 37 10's or X's 2 - 9's and 1 - 7.

That was a mix of the Nosler and Zero 185g JHP I wanted to see how they compared side by side so I mixed up 50 rounds of each in a pile and started shooting. I honestly could not tell which ones were Nosler and which were Zero. Nice round groups with all of them.

Offer still stands for .50 on the $1!!

I have not tried too much in the form of crimp but the best I can measure is about the same as yours (.469 ~ .470). My OAL tests ran from 1.25 down to 1.21. I loaded with 3.7 and 3.9 grains of bullseye.

Joe, do you have a suggested equivalent of a bullseye load to use instead of the clays or VV?

I am loading with a Dillon 550 and if I recall correctly you (Joe) had trouble getting a consistent charge with the Dillon's powder measure and one of the powders. If I can stay with Bullseye, I would like to. Yeah, I know, it is dirty and smokey but it is consistent in my measure and in my accuracy with the 185 lswchp.

Chris

Chris Clays burns just slightly hotter than Bullseye so the weight of the powder drop should not be much different. Have you checked your barrel for leading?

And yes I have had trouble getting Clays to meter consistently in both brands of presses I use. It is a large flake powder and I may start using the VV N310, twice as much money but it is a fine powder that should meter better.

Hi Joe,

My barrel should be clean as a whistle (hopefully cleaner). I had leading problems with my 52 and no matter what I sent through the barrel it was a bad shot and right now my normal bullets (zero 185 lswchp) have been really accurate when I am on my game.

I did re-check my crimp and found it was a bit more tight than I thought. I was at .466 to .467 and that was the last batch I loaded up with 3.9 of BE with an OAL of 1.25".

I think my next attempt will be at 4.1 of bullseye and back off the crimp a bit. I do recall moving the wrong part of the die when I went to adjust the OAL. Thought I re-set it correctly but obviously I didn't.

Chris

Chris,

With 4.5 grains of Bullseye, your gun should group very well at 50 yards with the Nosler bullets. Your crimp of .470" and overall length look ok. I got this load from Dave Salyer, who with Al Dorman, developed the initial Nosler load and gave it to the USMC pistol team, many moons ago. If that load doesn't shoot very well in your pistol, you may have to start looking at your gun.

your load was way to light for a FMJ, you must bump up, fmj takes more to get them going. load them to 4.4 -4.5, and you must crimp them more too, at least .468 -.469, do that and you will see a vast improvement.

I bumped the load up to 4.1 grains of BE and that helped a lot but suspect there is more improvement with a bit more power behind it. Unfortunately, I didn't record the OAL on the test rounds but believe they had to be a bit too long as I had one instance where the slide did not go into battery. If I were to guess, I would say the OAL was around 1.250~1.255.

Chris

Still to light, you need to go to 4.3, 4.4 is better at the very least, set the oal at 1.200-1.210, crimp to .468-.469, If you want it to be even better switch to Vituhouri 3-10 in the same 4.3-4.4.

Chris,

I loaded up some rounds to test tomorrow and I used the VV N310 and it meters spot on every time! I am working a load for my gun that will be accurate and soft shooting.

I chronographed some of the Zins ammo (which does shoot soft and is accurate) with an average velocity of 636 FPS with a deviation of 19.38. My loads with the Clays were running 686 FPS with a deviation of 26.31! I suspect the large deviation is related to my metering problem.

I loaded up some rounds with the Zero 185 JHP and a range of 3.6 - 4.2g of the N310. I suspect somewhere in that range I will find my happy place.

My gun (Kart barrel) likes the 1.220 OAL and the crimp is right at .4695 and that has worked well also.

I will post results

Well, things got a bit better. Current data:
Nosler 185 jhp
4.4 Grains BE
1.20 OAL
Crimp .468

Group was better - close to what I get with 185 lswchp. The interesting thing is the group is 2" high and 1" left at 75 feet. Shooting high isn't a problem but left is. I have also run into a similar problem with 200 LSWC bullets. They shot a little higher than my 185 LSWCHP - maybe 3/4" but also shot left about 1".

Next weekend I have two matches, both outdoors. That will give me a chance to see how things behave at 150'. Damn thing is, there is an indoor range about 10 miles from my house with two ranges: 75' and 150' which would be perfect for testing. Only problem is they don't allow reloads in their range. Oddly enough, they will allow you to shoot a 50 BMG rifle, but they are concerned about damage from a bullseye pistol.

Chris

Get use to it, FMJ's shoot to the left about 4 clicks different from lead

I have a loaded sample round from the batch my hardball gun tested from the Ransom at 1" with the Nosler. 4.5 of N310, 1.202 oal, .465 TC. Starline with WLP. Loaded on Star.