There was an objective, actually more than one, this morning as I packed up and headed to the Rock Pit for some components testing...
1. I wanted to shoot CCI 209 primers... Grouse and I had talked primer the other day and one thing led to another and we ended up at his NULA... The primer suggested fro the NULA was CCI primer. I no We speculated that the CCI might be more uniform in size and might be somewhat cleaner than the W209's that I have been using.
This actually might be correct... I hastily shimmed up an old version #1 Lehigh plug to fit the CCI's - installed it in the rifle last night in preparation for this trip. This morning my quick work up proved not to be so good as I was not getting a seal at the primer nose that I thought I might. The primers were coming out a little bit dirty not as bad as they could but enough I did not like them.
But the 'GOOD POINT' and I will have to re-shoot this test - after 15 shots, the flash channel had very little residue in it. Was very easy to hand drill out. So maybe the CCI's are cleaner as we speculated. As noted I will re-shoot this test.
2. I wanted to shoot some of these Parker bullets - sabotless. The yellow tipped Parkers with a diameter of .4505 were a little bit to small for any of the 3 45 rifles I tried them in. It would and was very easy to knurl them up between to files. The knurled bullets worked very well in the Supper DISC.
The larger diameter black tipped Parkers (.451) - initially I thought were going to be to tight for the Super DISC. This proved to be false. A couple of them were definitely tight but loaded with the rod OK. Other and probably the majority were great.
Now I am totally speculating to a certain point at this next part. Tuesday when I pushed a .451 through the bore and out the other end - I could definitely see the bullet was contacting the lands of the bore. I could not tell you that they were reaching into the bottom of the grooves. There was not markings at that would indicate that.
So from this and from the shooting today I believe I was shooting a bullet or bullets that were riding only the lands up the barrel. I do not think I was creating enough pressure with a 120 grains to make them obturate to the bore - possible but I do not think so. There is a Ballistician Lutz Moeller that specifically designs 'bore riding' bullets that are extremely accurate. I am thinking might have been doing that shooting a 'bore rider'
The first 3 shots I took at the 9 bird setup were with a Nosler 40x200 HP and a MMP sabot. For me the bursting of all 3 birds confirmed that the rifle was good to go..
The next 3 shots were taken shooting the smaller diameter yellow tipped Parkers that I had knurled last night... They continued the winning way breaking all 3 birds.
BUT I had made a mistake loading them - I forgot to put a wad in under the bullet. The next 3 shots I did install the treated Wonder Wad and the results followed suit - 3 broken birds.
The next 3 shots were shot using the 'Black" tipped .451 bullets. I was a little apprehensive about shooting these because I was worried I might get one stuck in the bore. My worries were for not. They all loaded without any major problems.
I really wanted to shoot more of the .451's so I set up another six birds - the second set of birds. The same results were noted with all the bullets shot this morning. It might be noted that I did remember the wads on all the .451 shots.
I think I should also indicate shooting clay pigeons @ a 100 yards is really not anything difficult. I think most of any of the muzzleloaders we shoot today would do the same thing.
The reason I wanted to try these Parkers is that across the country really good shooters are using them for shooting competitions with great results. I think I achieved similar results this morning only on a much smaller scale.
Parker does offer an even another bullet that has a much higher BC - the EMax. For those shooting totally for accuracy that could be the bullet for you - I am to cheap!
Here is a picture summary
