Gary Miller
36 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2017
- Messages
- 57
- Reaction score
- 16
Very pleased with the Kaido 255 grain mold purchase. I sent a money order and had molds for casting a week later. Considering that was coast to coast postal service, it wasn't bad at all. The molds cast six at a time, never done that many with my little solder pot on a propane single stove, but it worked out well. I cleaned the molds and sooted em good with a piece of ignited pitch. Dropped the first three batches back into the pot and started water quinching each drop. Only took a light tap. First range session, had a few kinks. First thing I noticed was how easy the bullet was to seat straight in comparison with the 200 R.E.A.L. bullets I had previously shot. The Kaido's fall 1/3 way into cylinder, seat straight and leave a pretty little lead circle trimmed at chamber face. Significant difference in resistance when fired. You know you've stepped up the power game immediately. My first groups quite frankly sucked. A little humble pie for range master pistol whiz. My new front sight was not gathering light well do my poor design work. fortunately it was just tall enough as the 255 shot several inches higher than REAL, which shot high to begin with. I bottomed out the rear site and it was on. Second range day went much better. I filed the site angle very similar to original Ruger with a steeper slant in patridge style. Someone on this forum told be to slant it fully away just for that reason, but I got creative. Now I could see what I was doing. Got a solid bench and used my range box to get real comfortable. Started printing 2.5 to 3 inch groups of six at 25 yards with 30 fffg Swiss. Started with 32 gr and this was all I could compress and soon fouling and a sticking cylinder caused me to drop it back. I suspect about 28 gr. with minor compression would yield a fine close range deer and hog thumper. I finished with a standing, unsupported 25 group that was looking like a nice little five or six in circle until I dropped one low left in anticipation of recoil. The Old Army grip is too small for my large hand extending the index pad further across the trigger (almost hooking) and the factory trigger needs to be tuned up. I believe it will be a shooter when I get used to it and build some muscle memory. Anyway kind of a range report and update on my new toy. Shout out to Kaido for the swift service, followup calls and not getting upset when I blamed day one on his bullet. The 255 requires no modification of the loading port in an Old Army. The 220 and 240 were too long for my second generation Colt 1860. I considering buying one of those cylinder presses anyway and will open it up if I decide to use it as a hog gun.
