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Post by 500fksjr on Jul 26, 2017 17:42:24 GMT -5
By chance I had the opportunity to have a good long visit with Keechikid yesterday. Quite an impressive and accomplished young man. He is building a Dustin Linebaugh style 475 Bisley Vaquero. He originally wanted to set it up for a particular load, hence this thread. I explained to him that sixguns had the unfortunate tendency to have other ideas. I further counciled he should leave his front sight "too tall" until he had the opportunity to sit down and test a variety of cast bullet designs. I told him his new sixgun might have a clear preference or do well with a bunch of designs but the sixgun would tell him for sure. Once testing revealed a clear choice, the front sight could be filed in. I also told him there were several guys on this board who would be happy to send him a few cast slugs to try out! Wise advice!!!
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Post by 2 Dogs on Jul 26, 2017 17:50:47 GMT -5
I'll tell ya, I was shooting my Harton 475 one day with Bill Fowler at our friend Tedd Adamovitch's private range. My gun and load was good for 3 1/2" iron sight groups at 100 yards. Bill and I were shooting at a steel target some 200 yards or better out. I don't want to down grade anybody's bullet but these weren't hitting anywhere near that target. The bullet itself just wasn't up to the task.
Bottom line, if I gotta have one gun one load, it better have a lot more reach than 100 yards!
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Fowler
.401 Bobcat
Posts: 3,559
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Post by Fowler on Jul 27, 2017 0:04:45 GMT -5
I'll tell ya, I was shooting my Harton 475 one day with Bill Fowler at our friend Tedd Adamovitch's private range. My gun and load was good for 3 1/2" iron sight groups at 100 yards. Bill and I were shooting at a steel target some 200 yards or better out. I don't want to down grade anybody's bullet but these weren't hitting anywhere near that target. The bullet itself just wasn't up to the task. Bottom line, if I gotta have one gun one load, it better have a lot more reach than 100 yards! Yea I remember that day, I remember I was shooting my FA 475 with a few different loads. One was a 425gr WLNPB bullet I was shooting a lot at the time. At the up to 25 yard ranges I normally shot at it was lights out accurate. One of my favorite drills was to see if I could put 5 shots inside the edges of a 1" square at 10 yards offhand, if I was up to the task so was the gun and load. I had shot it a few times at 50 yards and the bullet did well. But that day at Tedd's we turned to a 250 yardish 12"x16" gong and tried to hit it. I couldn't hold groups inside a barn door with the load. I figured it was me but I switched to a 375gr LFN design and all of a sudden I could hold my shots on or very near that gong shot after shot. Turns out after some more testing that the 425 flew alright to 50ish yards (maybe a trifle further if you leaned on the load a bit but not much) but beyond 75 yards it started to destabilize and at 100-200 yards if you would shoot paper you would see oblong bullet holes of a bullet starting to tumble. The 375gr LFN load for me would stay stable much further, I have never seen it put a out of round hole on a target at any range. My gun simply likes that bullet and it is what I have married the gun to basically, a 375gr LFNGC at 1050fps. Normally this bullet drops from my alloy at 380gr and I have shot it from 750fps gallery loads to 1350fps without any discernible increase or decrease in accuracy. I also have the MIHA hollowpoint mold that with the big hollowpoint drops bullets right at 385gr and luckily hits to the exact same POI as the 375gr bullet if I am hunting something that I want a bullet to expand on. I know the load that Dustin's Bisley Vaquero is regulated to is a 425gr LFN at 1200fps. I have shot it a fair bit myself, but Dustin told me he should have regulated the gun to something in the 385-410gr range at 1100fps. That load is a lot more friendly to the shooter, easier to shoot well, and will still kill just as well as the heavier load at any reasonable distance. He sticks to the heavier load because he is so married to the gun and load he just doesn't shoot that gun nearly as well with anything other load in the field, it is truly an extension of his hand. He killed a Grizzly in Alaska with the gun at 176 yards or so offhand hitting it with 3 killing shots from 3 shots taken. Dustin can shoot that gun and load. As Fermin has said get your gun, shoot a bunch of loads in it, find your sweet load for you and the gun, then regulate the sights to that load. Way too many customers have a guy like Dustin regulate the gun to a load that is more powerful that needed and then the gun never gets shot because they dont enjoy a 425gr load at 1200fps for casual work. Especially since they live in places where a whitetailed deer is the biggest animal the gun would ever be matched against and you simply dont need that much horsepower to kill one. You might trive on heavy loads I dont know, but you need to sort out for yourself. My 45 colt Bisley Vaquero was reworked by Dustin a number of years ago and I had him put one of his drift front sights on it then. I sent him a box of the load I wanted it regulated to, I had shot them a fair bit and it was a very accurate load, plenty powerful for any field work I was ever going to ask it to do, a 325gr LFNGC LBT bullet I cast at 1050fps. I also included 2 targets I had shot with that gun at 50 yards so Dustin could see how his eyes and hand shot in relation to my hands and he then modified the sight and regulated it so it hits as perfectly as if I had adjusted regular sights for me. 2" over the top of the front sight at 50 yards (6 o'clock hold on a clay pigeon).
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Post by hughree on Jul 27, 2017 5:15:54 GMT -5
There is a lot of good information in this thread!
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