I saw his pictures and listened to what he had to say, and that bullet was specifically designed to increase the pressures tremendously over a commonly used one…
IMG_4884 by Sharps Man, on FlickrI was given a honey bottle filled with cereal grains like Malt-O-Meal or something long ago by my father. It came with the Ruger his passed friend had. It always baffled me that people would shoot cereal out of their guns to make them work properly and seat the ball close to the mouth to improve accuracy. It clearly works or so many people wouldn’t be doing it, but it’s rather odd to me. Loading is tedious enough without needing to measure something else.
How would a ball with 15-20 grns and a bunch of cereal, possibly the most accurate load/charge possible for the sake of argument, be ideal when it lacks most of anything required to work well? It’s precisely why I started at 25 grns of sporting grade powder and found their more accurate reasonable hunting loads, and will fill in the majority of the excess chamber space with lead. Thereby it’s as accurate as it can be and still be humane and useful. I’m not after all the horse power I can get. I’m not looking for a “magnum” or some such. Good accuracy with good performance, a nice balance.
Yes but was the cylinder x rayed to make sure it didn't have any flaws from the factory. Did it have micro cracks from work hardening. Was it quenched or hardened steel that could have formed cracks. Was the powder 100% on the up and up not a bad batch or something. Was there a squib. Was the barrel undersized causing pressure spikes. Was the cylinder over sized causing pressure spikes. Too many variables for a non scientific and controlled scenario.
