JustsayMo
Member
Recently I picked up a .454" Round ball mold. My last round ball experiment with 45 caliber round balls in my RNV showed some promise so I gave it another try. This time I used 6 grains of Red dot which averaged 730 fps out of my 5.5" Ruger New Vaquero. At 25 yards the load prints about 8" lower than point of aim (POA).
The25 yard Target. The round ball group is below the target on the cardboard. The group in the bull is a 255 grain Lee bullet over a slightly off the reservation load of SR4756 (~925 fps - sometimes more).
I was hoping it would print closer to point of aim but even at 25 feet the group was lower than what I would consider practical for field use.
25 foot target- 255 grain load centered on target. Round ball load (2 shots) printing lower. Point of aim was the center of the target.
The cases came out sooty but not as bad as they came out of my Marlin 1894CB.
After the serious work of testing was done I decided to have a little fun and see how the RNV and the 255 gr load would do at 100 yards. Shooting at an 16 x 16 inch target paper - the bull was too small to see at that range - I would aim just above the target and the shots would print on the upper half of the page into ~ a 9" group. Not bad! I would guess that load drops about 12" at 100 yards. It takes a while to get there. The dust splash on the berm and thud would appear well after the blast.
Good fun day at the range!
The25 yard Target. The round ball group is below the target on the cardboard. The group in the bull is a 255 grain Lee bullet over a slightly off the reservation load of SR4756 (~925 fps - sometimes more).
I was hoping it would print closer to point of aim but even at 25 feet the group was lower than what I would consider practical for field use.
25 foot target- 255 grain load centered on target. Round ball load (2 shots) printing lower. Point of aim was the center of the target.
The cases came out sooty but not as bad as they came out of my Marlin 1894CB.
After the serious work of testing was done I decided to have a little fun and see how the RNV and the 255 gr load would do at 100 yards. Shooting at an 16 x 16 inch target paper - the bull was too small to see at that range - I would aim just above the target and the shots would print on the upper half of the page into ~ a 9" group. Not bad! I would guess that load drops about 12" at 100 yards. It takes a while to get there. The dust splash on the berm and thud would appear well after the blast.
Good fun day at the range!
