The 25/20 at 300 yards

[earlmck]

At our monthly "buffalo shoot" our "Sunday Fun" shooting includes what we refer to as "Quarter-bore". Which originally meant 25/20's of both WCF and Single-shot persuasions, but we have allowed close cousins such as 32/20 and 218 bee to sneak in. This had been a 50 to 200 yard match and I was generally at or near the top. Then last year we decided to put our "big boy" pants on and do this from 100 to 300 yards. At which point the kid has not been real competitive. That 300 yard buffalo just keeps ducking and dodging with lots of "overs" or "unders".

Now my load I have been using happily to 200 yards for some years has been the 68 grain Arsenal, gas checked, pushed along at about 1900 fps by 8 grains of Lil' Gun. And since my equipment now includes the slick little Garmin chronograph I just set it up and let it read my shooting. At which point I notice that along with my 1900 fps speed, which is nicely flat shooting to 200 yards, I am getting a Standard Deviation in the 28 to 30 range, which has room for extreme velocity spreads from low 1800's to high 1900's. So I'm thinking this is contributing to this high/low missing I've been doing at that pesky 300 yard buff.

So for some years now I have been loading my "light" 38/40 load as a duplex load with a bit of Unique topped off with WC860 (war surplus 50 cal machine gun powder) to make a compressed load that is immune to having the loaded rounds in the magazine shorten under recoil. Which the wimpy neck on a 38/40 is kinda' prone to allow, as my fellow 38/40 shooters are no doubt aware. But along with this duplex loading for length stability (with a bullet which does not have a decent crimp groove) I am getting wonderfully low Standard Deviations, flirting with single digits. Maybe I should try this to the 25/20?

So I load up a few different rounds using Lil' Gun under the ww860 and it turns out that 3.7 grains of the Lil' Gun with a near case-full of the 860 ((about another 13.5 grains) gives me my 1900 fps velocity but with the SD's cut in half to 14 to 15. We shall see if this helps my get back in the game...

Here are some loaded rounds alongside charged cases where you can see the powder is up where seating will give about 0.15" compression. (more compression seemed to lead to lower SD's)

2520loadedRounds.jpg

Two powder measure set-up for throwing the charge..

2520TwoMeters.jpg

And the powders used:

2520TwoPowders.jpg

[GunnyMack]

Interesting solution.
Back in school I once used my Savage 23B (25-20) to pop a prairie dog at 298 paces. Yeah it took me 3 shots to figure the windage but I made the shot. If it was a groundhog I would have hit the bigger critter all 3 times.
I need to get back to load testing for my new to me model 92. Actually I should get it relined then get to testing.

[Bill in Oregon]

Earl, bless your heart, you just continue to amaze me with your devotion to handloading details that prove to be meaningful.

[Twodot]

300 yards is a long poke for a 25-20.
I'm curious, tell us about the buffalo target; size, etc.
I assume if it's a steel silhouette that any hit counts.
thanks.
..

[TedH]

I bet that will help considerably.

[earlmck]

I'm curious, tell us about the buffalo target; size, etc.

Hardened steel buffalo silhouettes, the 300 yard one is about 30" wide, any hit counts including a "skip" should that happen.

[ywaltzucanrknrl]

That's darn cool Earl and I would also think the extreme spread is what is giving you fits at 300.

I have some WC860 and I've always used it in cartridges like 280 AI, 338 Lapua, 6.5x06 and even 6.5x55 with good success but I never thought about loading it in a smaller capacity case as a duplex.

I'm wondering how you came up with the amount of the faster powder to use?

For black powder duplex some folks use a percentage----maybe 4-8% depending, but how did you arrive at what charge to use with the faster powder?

[AJMD429]

Earl, bless your heart, you just continue to amaze me with your devotion to handloading details that prove to be meaningful.

It is a reminder to me that I need to make more time to reload and do other things I keep putting off.

[earlmck]

I started out thinking the WC860 could be considered "combustible filler" but rapidly discovered the slow powder contributes much more to the equation than "filler". So these are treated as duplex loads and I start waaay low on the fast powder and just watch to see where we start successfully burning up the slow powder. I balance the powder amounts to give me a modestly compressed load because I don't want the complication of worrying about mixing differences. And I make sure I use a strong action rifle such as the m92 Win or a bolt for the testing.

It doesn't take a whole lot of the fast powder to get a feller more pressure than he wants. I am just looking to replicate my regular load but get better velocity consistency. For example, in the 38/40 the duplex load is my "low-power" load and I use a case full of RL-7 for my hi-power load. This 25-20 load is plenty zippy but mild for pressure according to how my brass cases fare...

[Griff]

I have always been so leery of any duplexing that, I don't turn away from it... I RUN as fast as I can in the opposite direction. But, I'm jealous of the SD & ES numbers often gained.

[marlinman93]

Long range gongs with pistol length cartridge rifles are lots of fun, and just as challenging as bigger cartridge rifles at 1000 yds.! I've shot my .32-20 rifles out to 500 yds., and hits are not common. For whatever reason 400 yds. for me is far more consistent at hits. I only have one .25-20 and it's a Remington Hepburn Match A rifle and haven't tried stretching it out yet. Mainly because it had a new barrel on it when I bought it and the previous owner set it up for a target scope, and never cut a front sight dovetail. So the scope runs out of elevation before I can get very far out. I need to get my files out and just get to work making a front sight dovetail and put irons on it.