Post by Bullshop on Nov 26, 2015 17:44:40 GMT -7
We added a new bullet design to our inventory this week. Its an 80gn flat nose plain base 25 cal. I had to give it a try right away so spent Thanksgiving working up a load for a Marlin 1894 in 25-20.
Having lots of Red Dot powder to burn I decided to go with that. Starting at 2.7gn bullets were tipping quite badly making wide holes at 50 yards. Working up .2gn at a time I found when I got to 4 gn the holes on paper were round at the 50 yard target.
Continuing to work up when I got to 4.5gn groups began to scatter.
Working back down I hit on the best load with this batch of quite hard bullets and this lot of Red Dot powder at 4.1gn. Too cold for chronographing I estimate this load to be about 1400 fps give or take.
This PB bullet design has quite a large meplate so this load should work well for small pests.
For a first try I am pleased with this new bullet design. I believe I can soup up performance a bit with slower powders like 2400 but judging from last summers gopher wars with the 25-20 using 2.7gn Red Dot with the 85gn Ranch Dog bullet this new design and load should work quite well.
Interestingly I was using a different lot of Red Dot last year that seemed a bit faster than the lot tried today. I gave the remainder of last years lot to a friend to try in his 25-20 and just started on this new lot today. With the previous lot of RD even the 2.7gn load was giving enough velocity to stabilize bullets but then the Ranch Dog design is a bit shorter. I also used the same load of 2.7gn of the old lot of RD with an original Winchester design for an 85gn bullet that is about the same length as the new design tried today and never noticed any bullet tipping.
Just goes to show how important it is to re work loads when changing powder lot numbers.
Anyhoo we now have a new 25 cal 80gn plain base design added to our extensive bullet design inventory.
Having lots of Red Dot powder to burn I decided to go with that. Starting at 2.7gn bullets were tipping quite badly making wide holes at 50 yards. Working up .2gn at a time I found when I got to 4 gn the holes on paper were round at the 50 yard target.
Continuing to work up when I got to 4.5gn groups began to scatter.
Working back down I hit on the best load with this batch of quite hard bullets and this lot of Red Dot powder at 4.1gn. Too cold for chronographing I estimate this load to be about 1400 fps give or take.
This PB bullet design has quite a large meplate so this load should work well for small pests.
For a first try I am pleased with this new bullet design. I believe I can soup up performance a bit with slower powders like 2400 but judging from last summers gopher wars with the 25-20 using 2.7gn Red Dot with the 85gn Ranch Dog bullet this new design and load should work quite well.
Interestingly I was using a different lot of Red Dot last year that seemed a bit faster than the lot tried today. I gave the remainder of last years lot to a friend to try in his 25-20 and just started on this new lot today. With the previous lot of RD even the 2.7gn load was giving enough velocity to stabilize bullets but then the Ranch Dog design is a bit shorter. I also used the same load of 2.7gn of the old lot of RD with an original Winchester design for an 85gn bullet that is about the same length as the new design tried today and never noticed any bullet tipping.
Just goes to show how important it is to re work loads when changing powder lot numbers.
Anyhoo we now have a new 25 cal 80gn plain base design added to our extensive bullet design inventory.
