.440 PRB Consistently 1" low at 50 yards

[Hierophant]

Interesting, My squirrel rifle was built by a B ~ Turner out of Mississippi.

Hmmm, The dealer I bought the gun from said the maker was local to Massachusetts, he had a couple of other guns inscribed B Turner. I did just a quick Google search but it didn't turn up anything.

 

[Billnpatti]

I conducted a similar test only I was using leather wads saturated with Ballistol. My rifle was a .50 cal Plains rifle. My powder was 3f Goex. My patch was a .018 lubed with a light coat of Balliastol. The ball was a .490 ball. 5 shots without a wad and 5 shots with a wad.

Without the wad, the mean MV was 1289 fps. The extreme spread was 53 fps and the std. dev. was 21 fps.

With the wad, the mean MV was 1317. The extreme spread was 15 fps and the std. dev. was 7 fps.

The use of the wads gave an increase in MV of only 28 fps which is a change of only 2.2% and a decrease in the std. dev. of 14 fps which is a change of only 1.1% improvement.

So, wads do provide a slight improvement in performance but it is so slight as to be of no practical importance, especially when shooting offhand. For a bench gun shooter, the difference may provide some useful improvement but for the rest of us........not so much so. At least that's what my data says.

So, if you like to use them or your data is different from mine and you find that they do help you......or they just make you feel good, use them because I have no data that says that they hurt anything. I've got a bunch of them, both leather and felt, so I still shoot them occasionally just to use them up and just for the hell of it. :hatsoff:

 

[stude 283]

Where do you get leather wads and/or what do you use to punch them out.Would one of ohioramrods punches work with leather?

 

[biliff]

Interesting, My squirrel rifle was built by a B ~ Turner out of Mississippi.

Hmmm, The dealer I bought the gun from said the maker was local to Massachusetts, he had a couple of other guns inscribed B Turner. I did just a quick Google search but it didn't turn up anything.

If memory serves he was from Corinth, Ms. I'm sure there are plenty of B. Turners out there.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Probably Bryan Turner of Corinth, Miss. Don't know if he's still active or not.

 

[Billnpatti]

I get pierces of scrap leather form a local saddle and shoe repair shop. He has a trash can that he throws all of his scrap in and I just ask for some and he gives it to me.

Ohio Ramrod's punch is exactly what I use for all of my wads. He made me a couple of the exact size that I wanted. He also made me a device that fits in my chuck on my drill press that lets me use the drill press to punch out the wads rather than using a hammer or mallet to punch them out. If you have a drill press, be sure to buy one of his adaptors so you can easily punch out wads with your drill press.

 

[Hierophant]

Well, trying different ball/patch thickness combos was definitely a good idea. I'm grouping much tighter with 70 grains FFFg, .445 RB and a .018 patch. I tried all the conceivable combinations of .440 or .445 ball and .015/.018/.020 patches and that one works best.

Still low though, so I'm definitely going to have to file I think.