Today I took my first loads to the range.
I took both the 115gr lead, and the 170gr. jacketed along with 20 factory loads (Remington 150gr. Core-Lokt).
I first shot 5 factory rounds to zero the rifle in. Since it's been a couple of months since I shot the rifle, I had forgotten how much kick it has. I know that there are those here who'll tell you that 30-30 rounds are light, but that's now what my shoulder was telling me.
Then I shot my first rounds of the 115gr. lead.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE IN RECOIL !!. Not quite a .22, but very light, a pleasure to shoot.
But how well did they do? My first few shots were really low, about 10" below the bullseye, so I raised the rear sight 2 notches up the ramp, which brought me just about 1" below dead center. Windage wise, I was more or less on.
My groups were not the best, I was shooting seated, and resting my left arm on the table, but I still managed to group about 4-5". Not all that great, but considering I'm shooting without any optics, and that the front sight dot is as big as the bullseye at that range, not bad either.
I next tried the 170gr. not quite, but nearly as soft as the others in recoil, but they shot a lot lower than the leads, and quite a bit to the left. I'm not sure why they dropped so much, I mean at least 6" low and 3" to the left.
I thought that maybe I had done something or that I somehow lost the zero on the sights, but no, I reloaded a few 115gr. leads and they were back up where they should have been.
So after shooting only 15 rounds of the 170gr. and not liking that load, I concentrated on shooting the 115gr. At the end, the 6" bullseye was pretty much shredded, a very satisfactory outing.
All in all, I think that if I want to shoot for accuracy, I'll have to buy a scope and mount for this rifle. I'm sure I can shrink the groups down to 2" or less. As for the load, I think that my 115gr. bullet with 9gr. of Trail Boss is my new favorite load.
Note: I also found out that my freeloaded rounds were not properly sized. They would not seat fully and because of it, I had to literally crunch the lever down on each one just so I can overcome the trigger/lever safety on the rifle.
When I got home I started to look at the spent rounds and realized that they were not necked all the way, so the case shoulder was actually too high, preventing the round from seating in the chamber all the way. After inspecting my sizing die I found that I hadn't screwed it in as far down as possible, and there was a gap of at least 0.05" at the top travel of the ram. I've now adjusted the die so there's barely any visible daylight at the top of the stroke between the bottom of the die and the top of the holder. I sized and dropped some shells in the rifle and they chamber perfectly now.
Is there a way to resize the neck & shoulder without taking the bullets apart ( I still have about 100 rounds I had already done).