You Just Never Know

A few years back I got a box of .30cal 150gr Hdy SP's in a trade. You know me, mostly I shoot cast bullets and if I actually buy jacketed rifle bullets 90% of the time they will be Sierras and the other 10% Nos PAR's, so I just tossed these in the wooden crate with the "extras" where they sat gathering dust. Last summer I was teaching my daughter's BF to load and I had a couple of boxes of once-fired -06 cases, so I had him prep them for practice: FL size, inspect, measure, trim, prime, etc. The only -06 I own now is a Garand and I have several thousand rounds all loaded for it, so I had him charge them with a starting load of 4895surp and used the Hdy's to teach him how to set up the seater and the difference between a roll crimp and a factory crimp. OAL wasn't an issue as these bullets have a cannelure on them. They came out great, but the two boxes sat on my kitchen table gathering dust as I figured we'd find a home for them.

Just on a whim, on Friday I brought them to my shooting buddy who has a beautiful old Rem721 in -06 that he almost never shoots. Not expecting much of any accuracy, I was hoping for a 4-5" minute-of-deer load. The first four rounds went under 1" @100yds and he got so excited he jerked the trigger for the 5th shot, opening up the group to an outrageous 1.25". Then, after cooling the rifle between groups, just to see if it was a fluke each of us shot a 5shot group and both of them were under 1". Happy as a pig in shit, he sighted the rifle in for them and stuck one of the targets up on the wall of the shooting shack like a proud parent.

The only odd note of the day was a 1/8" longitudinal split in the web of one case. No affect on the accuracy (it was shot #5 in the smallest group of the day), but after the shot I noticed some smoke coming out of the bolt and the ejection port and figured I had blown a primer. When I saw the fired case I was very surprised. I have seen horizontal separations partial and total, neck and shoulder splits over the years, but never anything like this. As far as I can tell by looking at the case it was simply a flaw in the brass. Why it did not fail when it was initially fired with the hotter factory load I do not know. I put it in my "show & tell" box.

But back to the rifle. I should explain that for thirty years he would just reach into an old coffee can full of odds and ends -06 factory rounds, everything from 125's through 180's, and grab some random rounds to shoot at whatever was bothering his livestock, so he really never knew what the old rifle was capable of, only that it would keep most everything on the paper, good enough for a deer, bear, or moose and the occasional fox or coyote. Needless to say this has always driven me batty and I was always curious about what the old rifle could really do. I figured he should at the very least have a bunch of the same load and sight the rifle to it to shoot at live targets.

We have been taking it slowly the last two years testing some cast loads in it every few months, one bullet at a time, ten rounds per charge increment with each of us shooting a 5shot group, and we have had some promising but not outrageously impressive results. The best so far has been around 3", but we have barely started (still on the first bullet, a 150gr FNGC, and only the second powder, a total of ten test loads). We haven't found a combination it really likes yet but there is no hurry and we are having fun. I have plenty of cast hunting rifles with "the load" already worked up for them so there is no lack of something to use if we really need it, but none of them are his and eventually he'd like both a jacketed and cast hunting load for his own rifle. He's happy with the jacketed load, I'm not yet, but that's me.

Recently we finished a test box of 50rds, so I took that empty brass and loaded up the cases with the Hdy's and the same charge of 4895surp. He is not a deer hunter, just coyotes on his farm, so that ought to be enough hunting ammo to last him the rest of his life. Like I said, he's happy, but I'm really curious now. The very first load (not even a real ladder test) with what I consider an inferior jacketed bullet achieved an easy MOA. I'm going to talk him into ordering some 150 & 165 Sierra GK's. I'm betting the rifle is capable of .5 MOA with good bullets. Now that he has realized how accurate the rifle is, he's wanting to shoot it a lot more, so I don't think it will be a hard sell.

I have always been a big proponent of asking a rifle its opinion, not starting with a preconstrued notion of what I think it "ought to" like, though I am guided by what has worked consistently in the past in other rifles, and it drives the point home all over again that there is just no predicting what any given rifle will shoot best. It's always a surprise when trying different components, this time a pleasant one. I learn something from every test and it's not always what I expect.