Loading the 6 TCU

[bradshaw]

Dick.... fine write-up. Missing, your favored powders and charge weights for 6mm TCU and .25 TCU. First tine I saw the 6mm Ugalde in action, I drove down from Seattle and joined Wes Ugalde and Skip Talbot and their wives on a drive down to Las Vegas for the inaugural Las Vegas IHMSA match, fringe of town, at the Desert Sportsmans range. My experience was limited to the great 6mm Remington in a fantastic dog leg Ruger M-77, a 6mm on a 98 Mauser, and the .243 Winchester, all rifles. Jim Stekl of Remington and the Bench Rest Hall of Fame would cure lack of 6mm handgun experience with his 6mm Remington BR in the XP-100. Naturally, I put a walnut George Petersen Thumbhole (Western Gunstock) on that one.

We know a light Nosler Ballistic Tip is a readymade in the single shot pistol, but your load dope factors as part of your knowledge.

Curious, also, on your fireform technique. The 7mm TCU just requires running a .223 case over a progressive expander, nothing more on new .223 brass. Salvaged brass is lubed and sent up the 7mm TCU full length die. Seat bullet over a competition charge of powder in the IMR 4198 to IMR 4895 or Hodgdon 4895 burn range. The fireform load is good to go and will provide match accuracy, while blowing the shoulder to 40-degrees without splitting. Perhaps smaller bores do not provide match accuracy on the fire-forming shot.
David Bradshaw

[sheriff]

I split the middle between the 6mm and the 7mm for my foray into the TCU fold and went with the 6.5 TCU in a custom shop 12"er. I always just run the .223 cases through the size die loaded them with Hornady's max load of w748 and shot them. Notes in my loading manuel indicate that I settled on a load of 27.5grs under a # 2630 sp (140gr) for an average muzzle velocity of 2150fps. It's deadly on our whitetails.

[callshot]

I'm always getting the short end of the stick on these forums. Especially from some un-mentioned member here. I don't know much about ballistics and such, but I do know toilet tissue. I use the John Wayne brand.. "rough & tough and don't take any crap off sixshot." Keep smiling and shooting Dick.

[sixshot]

David I think either method works depending on throating, I never shot heavy bullets & owned all of the Wes Ugalde family of cartridges. My first as I've mentioned before was one of Skip Talbot's first 6.5 TCU's in an XP100 & I'll back up here & admit I did shoot some heavies in it but not in any of the Contenders. The problem I found with the 6.5 was that all of the bullets were soft until you got above 129 grs so they weren't 100% on Rams. This actually made the 6.5 TCU one of the worst choices for Handgun Silhouette.

In the Contenders all my barrels were made by Fred at Bullberry & were short throated, minimum chamber spec amazing shooting guns. They didn't require neck turning but were superbly accurate, some shooting under 1/10 at 50 yds which is the distance I always tested for accuracy. I did this for 2 reasons & its the same reason most rifle builders do it also. First is you don't usually have a high power optics on top & the second is you can eliminate the wind for the most part. Also this was long before the wonderful 3X12 Burris scopes came out for handguns.

Trust me, shooting a medium weight "varmint" bullet in a pistol barrel makes a very good game bullet because of the reduced velocity. That 85 gr. Ballistic Tip in the 25 caliber is a real sleeper.

David, forgot, my powders of choice have always been H335, be careful here in hot weather if you are shooting top end loads & the other powder is H322.

Dick