Got some time this morning so I packed up and headed to the Rock Pit to get some 100 yard Bird Shooting in. I had sighted in for a 75 yards at the Farm and wanted now to verify the guns ability at 100 yards.
My initial intentions were to set up 5 clay pigeons on the rock wall and shoot them with the Sierra 458x300 gr. FN HP bullets to verify what I thought I already knew. The first three shots went pretty much as planned so I decided to switch things up a little bit and shoot some Lehigh/Bloodline 458x300's. I got the same results with them as I did the Sierra's. For this shoot I was using a 6 O'clock hold on the birds with the bird sitting right on top of the front sight. I forgot how small a 4 1/4" round bird is at a 100 yards looking through a peep sight but using my portable bench and rests I was able to get the job done. With the birds gone and really not much shooting done, I set up another 5 birds for another go at them. This time out of the blue I decided I would try a completely different bullet. I found a box of Lehigh 50x350 grain CF bullets. So I will start with these and see how it went.
The Lehigh .500x350 is a center fire bullet and the circumference of it is smaller than most 50 cal. ML barrels. To get this bullet to work in a ML I apply a knurl to the bullet. This is the bullet after knurling
These bullets were knurled to fit my Ultra-Lite which has a slightly tighter bore than does is much older Tony Knight MK-85; because of that I was really unsure of the fit. I placed the MMP sub-base in the bore and then the knurled 350. It was not tight at all - in fact it was very easy to push down on to the powder. I was very skeptical of this first shot. Since brass does not obturate to the bore as soft lead does and this is a long bullet I was worried that it would not stabilize.
First shot went off without a hitch and the bird was gone! Loaded up 4 more of these bullets and two the 4 loaded with more pressure - a pressure I was more comfortable with and all 4 of these bullets found there mark.
I forgot to get a picture of the second set of birds until I had already shot two of them... but here is a group of pictures showing what I was doing.
The gun is ready to hunt with - the neighbor across the street should be able to get the job done.
