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I made a trip to the range with my 1895 Winchester in 30US today. I have had the rifle a couple months but this was only the second serious range trip with it. First post about it is here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22054 Since the last trip I mounted a Pedersoli Soule sight on it.
It worked well! I had two missions today. One was to get the barrel mounted rear sight dialed in with jacketed bullets and the other was to test some cast bullet loads. I used the tang sight for the cast loads. I started at 50 yards. There are six rounds on this target. The top hole was the first shot after shooting the jacketed bullets. I shot a second round but I shot it at the wrong target and it would have been out of the group too. Then I started with the next five which went into 1 inch.
Now I thought that was pretty good so I went to 100 yards. There are two groups on this target. The upper group is with the 180 Sierra spitzer and the barrel mounted rear sight. It really doesn't care for those spitzer bullets. The bottom group is the cast bullet load, shot with the tang sight. It measures 1.2 inches! Not bad for a 110 year old rifle with a rough bore! I have several scope sighted bolt guns that I haven't succeeded in shooting cast bullets this good with.
The cast load is the RCBS 180 FN with 18 grains of 2400. The bullets are cast from range scrap. The amazing thing is that this is the first cast load I tried. I thought that the RCBS bullet would do well because it has a long body with plenty of bearing surface. And I have never gotten really good accuracy from 2400 in my other rifles. I decided to try it because I have a couple pounds and don't use it in anything. It found a new home.
Hey there Marc - Nice shooting, but please don't go spreading the word how well tang mounted peep sights work. You'll create a demand that will drive prices up and reduce the supply!! Best regards. Wind
Jeremy, I haven't chronoed the load but it should be doing 1600 fps or maybe a little better with the 28" barrel. I am going to cast some harder bullets and push velocities up and see if accuracy holds up. Probably have to use a different powder though. BL-C(2) or H380 get tested next. I also want to get a Lyman 311284 mold since that is the 30-40 bullet.
I like the tang sight but the bolt hits it so you have to fold it down to load from the magazine. It does open far enough to eject the empties and allow single loading without folding it down. Problem there is that it doesn't cock the hammer and it drops into the half cock notch when the action is closed. It has a 34-1/2" sight radius with the tang sight and the 28" barrel.
What is the speed on that cast load?
