I went about my business, shooting the Marlins in 356 Win, 375, and 218 Bee. All the loads were topped with my cast bullets, all from Ranch Dog molds. After firing this 1.9" 100 yard group and another just like it from the 375, I settled on this load of a healthy charge of RL7 and bullets cast from a Lyman #2 duplicate, water dropped. I was pretty excited about this load, a 230 gr. flat nose thumper moving out at 2200 fps should put the whammy on anything I'm likely to encounter.
I continue to struggle with the cast bullets in the 356 Win. chambered 336ER. I can have very promising initial groups at 50 yards, but when the same load is shot at 100 yards they seem to fall apart with miserable accuracy. I'm about to throw in the towel and just stick with proven jacketed bullet loads.
After I finished up my shooting, the 50 BMG guys were still there. They asked if I had a good way of disposing of a cartridge that failed to fire. I told them that a lot of times if you hit it again it may well go off. He asked me if I wanted to try it? What a silly question, that's like asking a crackhead if he want's some dope! I put the once-dimpled cartridge in the huge chamber and closed the bolt as I settled in behind the 30 pound rifle. Not knowing if the cartridge would burn it's powder, I really didn't want to look like a buffoon with a giant flinch if it didn't go off. So I convinced myself that it indeed would NOT ignite and started the trigger pull. "Click" Phew! I was steady as a rock, and almost relieved it didn't go off!
Unfortunately that was the last round they had so my first shot with a 50 BMG will have to wait for another day.
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