#smokelessmuzzleloader

At the request of a friend I reposted this from a post I made in 2014 on a forum we used. It was posted over several weeks of nickel and diming the project so I have edited it to remove all the extraneous commentary from the forum:

This project is way over-due but I am gone a lot and I have to work on things every few months as I can. I chose to call this project the Green Beanie (they will understand why) in tribute to the two men who have made it possible. Matt is a local retired guy who has a gunsmith shop up the road and gives me free run of the place to do things I don't have tools for at home. Mike is a friend, brother in arms, and an artist with metal: more to follow on that when I post the complete project. I don't get to see him as freely as I would like but he has been inspirational as a man and artisan. My wife bought me a Boyd’s Tacticool stock for my rimfire trainer an Christmas or two back. I really like the stock and bought one for this SML. The more I shoot the Tacticool the more I realize it is not quite right for me. The grip is too much and could stand some more taper from tang to wrist. The forearm is beaver-tailed and too fat for a psuedo-sporter. The Tacticool barrel channel is for a Varmint/Sendero channel and as a result left a unsightly gap around my barrel. I used a modified Douglas 5A contour on this gun so I taped the barrel and full-length bedded the gun so that when the tape was removed I had .040" of float from the recoil lug forward. To reduce the forearm I used a plane and cut the beavertail down parallel to the top edge of the forearm and all hard edges were radiused. Using the McMillan ADJ GameScout I am smitten with, I sketched the reduction in the stock tang/wrist area and began to work it down with a rasp (not a great tool for laminate as it is very "chippy"). I changed over to a cabinet maker file and orbital sander. The comb is too low to allow for a good cheek-weld using a 20MOA off-set base and low Night Force rings so I molded, cut-down, and sanded a cheek-piece from Multi-Cam Kydex with an American flag to keep in tradition with the rifle's theme. Once I had it close to completion I mounted it on the stock and drilled the hardware holes though the Kydex and into the stock. I am not anywhere near done but it was time to take a coffee break and eat second breakfast. I still need to clean up the bedding as well as epoxy in the cheek-piece bushings, QD Push-button inserts, and bi-pod m1913 rail bushings. When all the prep-work is done I will primer the stock, cut the stencils, and paint the entire stock to match the cheek-piece. Was this the easiest way to get what I wanted? Absolutely not. Ordering another GameScout would have been much easier but some of us are diseased. Tacticool stripped of textured black paint, drilled for hardware, bedded, and ready for shaping (note: you can see where the stock has cross-pins and you can't see it but at the bottom of the pistol-grip there is another plug where they epoxy a pin into the grip just like you should in wood vertical grip stock which checked off one item from my to-do list):

The bedding before clean up (the overflow was allowed so I had proud material to allow for the reshaping of the grip and to allow for a better fit of the ejection port cutout in the stock as it left a lot to be desired). The stock was ordered as an ADL since they don't offer a 40-X inlet and they only do a 700ML in a thumbhole so the mag box cutout was filled with cutdown carbon arrows (which I have broken while stump shooting with my longbow) and everything epoxied in place:

Rough sketch of grip reduction to occur and holes for cheeck-piece hardware (the comb on the Tacticool is too low for a 20MOA base with low NF rings):

Kydex cheek-piece (only .080" thick so as not to remove eye far from center-line of comb):

Tacticool in relation to GameScout which it is going to resemble soon:

You can see little pock marks where the trigger pin holes were filled to prevent a mechanical lock. They are ugly so I cut them out. Honestly, I don't know that it is necessary but it looks better. Since I didn't have Matt’s mill I used my drill press with drill press vise and a router bit. I line up where I want the recesses and use the depth stop on the press to make as uniform a cut as possible. I make a small cut, again and again, to the desired depth so that the bit doesn't walk:

I mentioned I wrapped the barrel with tape and full length bedded it to fill the barrel channel which was a gross mismatch for my contour. You can keep good tight wraps on the barrel shank and straight taper but the radius just forward of the breech gets little wrinkles and there are fine lines where the wraps of tape meet along the length of the barrel. So I put two wraps of tape the entire length of the barrel and took a strip of 150 grit aluminum oxide cloth, tightened the action down and cut back the barrel channel bedding just enough to remove blemishes then prepped it for paint. I also removed the proud bedding material along the top stock line where the ejection port cutout formerly was a poor fit:

Grip Reduction complete and blended with the angle of the tang:

I decided not to dish out the "thumb flute" (if you will but it is not a flute in the traditional sense but it is not the wrist either) as it looks awfully thin once the grip/wrist reduction was finished. Thumb-holes are thinner I believe but they remind me of an H-brace in a fence and I think they probably distribute the recoil force better. Regardless, I stopped once it felt good enough to quit.

I also epoxied in the brass bushings for the cheek-piece hardware. I use Loc-Tite 5-minute epoxy for things like this. They use a 10x32 machine screw and are available through Brownells:

A few weeks back I received my breech plug lapping tool. Today, while I was waiting on some epoxy to set, I worked the BP shoulder over. I used three different cameras trying to get a good picture. This is the best I got for my efforts and shows an evenly polished shoulder:

I off-set it to the upper portion of the stock because if you don't the gun will tend to tip away from you when slung because the barreled action and optic make them top heavy:

I learned that the hard way when I ordered them pre-installed on the McMillan:

The forward insert is 13" ahead of the trigger-guard and lines up with where the insert in the M1913 rail on bottom goes for the bi-pod mount:

It's time to paint the stock on the Green Beanie. I masked the bedding, recoil pad, and plugged the threaded inserts for the cheek-piece so we don't get paint anywhere I don't want it. I then used a paint and primer color that is a grey/tan/slate color with a slight pink hue. It is a good base color for a Multi-Cam type pattern:

While it is drying I took a piece of wax paper and taped it so that the taped over lapped and drew my stencils:

Once the primer/paint combo dried I faded a flat tan into it in patches. I don't know that you can tell in the picture:

To create light spots I lay in the decals and then paint over them in a dark brown as they should be grouped together:

The blue decals will be dark chocolate colored and are paired with the grey/tan color from the picture above. I just did the reveal on the match rifle skins and they are sitting next to the Green Beanie stock. My dark brown paint wasn't playing nice with the plastic of the skins so I am going to have to go back and add it in but the Green Beanie should finish up similar to those skins.

I am going to let the brown dry overnight and tomorrow I will do the last two coats. To get the mid fade you need a light loam green and a red brown color. The goal is about a 50-50 coverage running in stripes that have some fade to them. I run them at a diagonal so that when I come back for the next coat I can run the other direction (criss-cross) to achieve a non-polarizing effect:

Now that we have a micro detail in light grey/tan and dark brown and macro detail in loam green and red brown we need larger pattern stencils. Macro detail in place over mid fade:

And final fade is tan, olive drab green, and another weird but slightly brighter loam green:

All decals removed you have something that looks similar to Multi-Cam. It just needs to sit in the garage a while to ensure that the paint is completely dry and tack free:

The Green Beanie is finished. Quick Re-Cap: Remington 700ML with Hunter Bolt Nose Kit PT&G .187" stainless lug McGowen CM .442/.451", 1-24″ twist barrel in a modified Douglas 5A contour crowned at 23", threaded for a muzzle-break Trigger is blueprinted factory and adjusted to 2.25# All CM parts are finished in Graphite Black Cerakote Scope base is Murphy Ti 10 MOA (Devcon bedded, screws siliconed and torqued to 25 in*lbs) Boyd's Tacticool (modified and pillar/glass bedded)

Quick load test shows a preference for 300gn bullet:

In the past couple of days in particular and in the previous months I have seen where a number of guys have double loaded their smokeless muzzle-loader. I have seen it on a muzzle-loader board and received texts about it from guys who have read about it. Some got lucky and only bulged a barrel or escaped an exploding rifle without injury. Others went to the hospital for surgery.This is not a first nor it will it be a last but I have heard about it more frequently as of late. I want to discuss how this happens, what happens as a result, and how to prevent it because I was only issued two eyes, one face, two hands, and one life and want to maintain all of them as long as I can.

As a case study we will look at one of the recent survivors. He is a bench-rest shooter and self proclaimed expert for nearly anything rifled that fires a single projectile. His version of the story:

Last Tuesday I was shooting Deep Purple with my new Sightron 8x32x56 scope.  I proceeded to fire about six shots getting the POI just right! BTW, I love the scope and the reticle.  The click adjustments are very positive and audible.  So, having it zeroed "dead nuts on" at 100 yards with the 300 gr. SST type blem using a 6/65.8 Clays/H-4198 duplex, I decided to move out to 300 yards.  So using the second hash mark (which would have put me 4" high at 100) I fired a shot.  That shot hit 7" low and a couple inches to the right. Now here comes the fuzzy part..............I evidentially took the gun to my "loading station" ( the next bench) and loaded it.   Then put it right back up on the lead sled.  So now I am sitting behind the gun looking thru the scope, playing with the dials, checking which hash mark I would need to be on at 300.  Then I put the second hash mark back on the bull and saw that the center dot was situated in a rock above the target........so, I decided to "dial the dot to the bullet hit and see how many MOA I needed if I did not use the hash marks.  I then returned it back to the 100 yard zero and decided I would bridge the third and fourth hash marks.  This procedure took maybe five to ten minutes of playing around.  When I finished, I took the gun back to the loading station and loaded it---------------------------------------------------------THE SECOND TIME!  Another 72 gr. of powder and another 300 gr. bullet   Do Not need to hear about the witness marks!  They only work when you have reason to look at them!  In my mind, the gun had been fired and I needed to load it!   Well, you think CYCLOPS is a powerful gun?  672 grains of bullets and powder exited the muzzle at 3484 fps.  I knew right off what happened  as I saw the little wisp of smoke come from around the bolt. The module swelled  a bout .027" and was semi-stuck on the bolt.  I was able to just tap it off.   The primer was still in and very flattened.  I ran a patch down the bore and could feel the bulge about 4" forward of the recoil lug.  I tried to load another charge and bullet but the bullet got dead loose when it got to the powder column.  Even being a duplex, it would not ignite so I put it up for the day and shot my other rifle. Deep Purple was 29 1/2" long and now its 26" long.  I am getting good at doing these HIS plugs!   Like I said, witness marks only work if you look at them.  Lets just say that the fact my barrel was 1.250  in the area of the bulge, there was no safety issue.  Had it been a sendero or lesser contour, ...........who knows.  

How did this happen? He broke a sequence, did not have fail safes in place, and did not use (or look at if he had one) a witness mark. After firing his gun he loaded it, put it back on his lead sled to figure out how many “hashmarks”  (MoA was the word he was looking for but he never understood the Mil-Dot either) of hold over he needed to shoot a longer target than the one he just fired. Personally, I would have looked it up on my phone while I was behind the gun and ready to shoot. He then went back to his loading station and double loaded it because in his mind he had fired it. He also stated that a witness mark was not important. My imagination is not powerful enough to fire a rifle and you do need a witness mark. He was right about only one thing, a witness mark only does you service if you look at it. As a testament, this is the second barrel he has bulged. Over the years I have learned that when you lose respect for something dangerous it will usually remind you why it is dangerous whether it is guns, alcohol, or your pet tiger. Luckily, his gun did not come unglued, all that happened was a bulged barrel but doing that twice in a lifetime is twice too much since it can absolutely be prevented.

Additionally, if this happens to you my personal opinion is that barrel is compromised and needs to become a tomato state. His solution was to cut back past the bulge in the barrel and reinstall. That’s not a good idea as steel has a plastic limit and a double load is probably pretty close to getting you there which means it is more susceptible to future failure. Just because a structure doesn’t fail immediately does not mean it’s not prone to doing so from being weak and over stressed; just look at the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. It was under built, over stressed, and already had cracks. It was totally fine until it wasn’t and then it fell in the Mississippi. I am not going to continue to run 50-60Kpsi through a barrel I know had an integrity compromise.

You may be asking, “So what?”, this has never happened to me. Point is it can and will when you take it for granted. I used the example I did because lots of people look at the bench-rest crowd as the epitome of rifle shooting (I don’t but they have driven advancements in equipment that have benefited everyone) and a guy who has shot 15K rounds of SML down range should have a process down. As I was told by a mentor at work in regard to negligent discharges: there are two types of guys who use guns (use them everyday, not casual hobbyist shooters), the one who have had a negligent discharge and those who will. The casual shooter is always a little afraid of a gun because they don’t spend enough time with it to ever master it. I can see it at the range all the time, that little creeping lack of confidence that causes them to give things and extra look. The guy who lives with a gun does not do that. The problem is that eventually confidence will override competence and you will fall back on your lowest level of training. It is never quite as crushing for the casual shooter because that lowest level of training (or confidence) is never very high. Either way, it normally turns you into a very safe shooter because you become hyper-aware. A double load is the same way, you have either had one or you are waiting on your turn but you should do everything in the world to ensure your number doesn’t come up.

I do not think that Smokeless Muzzle-Loaders are the right choice for a casual hunter and there are a few essential rules to avoid a double-load if you decide the SML is for you:

1. Shoot alone or if you have others on the range ask them to give you a minute of uninterrupted attention to your task. If they cannot give you that courtesy stop what you are doing immediately and resume what you are doing when they go away.

2. Treat every gun as if it loaded. Do it every single time you touch it even if you have no doubt. Have a process that ensures your safety by proving or disproving that it is loaded. The first thing I do when I pull my SML out of the case is remove the bolt. The bolt does not go back in until the rifle is loaded. I do the same thing when I fire it: bolt comes out and does not go back in until it is loaded. The reason I do this first is that with the bolt removed I can point the rifle skyward and see light through the vent orifice in the breech-plug. If I have to walk away from the rifle for any reason, the first thing I do is pick it up and point it skyward looking for that light. This is the equivalent of conducting a press-check or clearing a center-fire gun. You do that every time you pick up a rifle, shotgun, or pistol. Right? Do it with your SML.

3. Come up with some sort of sequence and organization that supports your sequence. I pull my bolt from the rifle and place it on the far right side of the bench as I am looking at it. As soon as I pull the bolt out of the gun I turn it upright and place my funnel in my break and place the ramrod in the barrel so that the T-handle is sitting flush with the top of my break (this serves as my unloaded witness-mark). I am now ready to start a load procedure.

For me everything is bagged separately: bullets, powder, primers, wads, etc. I have a box for expended powder vials and primers/primer modules. I lay them out on the bench in the order they are loaded: powder, wads (if used), bullets, then primers. I then pull out one of each for the shot to be conducted and lay them in the same order used. I never load by grabbing stuff out of bags as I need it.

Now that my rifle is in a no-fail safe condition and my load is staged I am ready to make the rifle ready to fire. I remove my ramrod from the barrel and take control of my rifle. I uncap the powder vial, pour my powder through my funnel, then replace the cap on the vial and place it in the expended box. If I am using a wad, I place it in the funnel and ram it home on top of the powder column. Next, I pull my funnel from the break and wedge my bullet in the end that sits against the muzzle then reinsert it into the break and turn it until the bullet indexes to the rifling and the bullet seats in the muzzle. Lastly, I use my ramrod to push the bullet home through the funnel until it makes a positive stop with the powder and my witness-mark is flush with the top of my funnel. I remove the ramrod and funnel then place the rifle into my bench-rest setup (if I’m using it) or place it on bi-pod if shooting prone. I take my bolt and insert the primer/primer module and move into my shooting position. The last thing I do is place the primed bolt into the rifle and place it into battery. This sequence ensures that everything that should have been removed is removed and everything that belongs is in place.

If for any reason I have to stop mid-sequence I place the ramrod back in the barrel before I step away from the rifle. When I come back to the rifle I immediately look at the ramrod. If it is not sitting flush with the top of my break it means something is in the barrel or your bullet is not fully seated (which also causes bulged barrels). I will then remove the rod and point the rifle skyward to confirm there is either light or no light and reference that to what I have left on my loading table. At that point I am safe to go back into my loading sequence where I left off.

As soon as I fire my shot and ensure good follow through, I open the bolt and remove it. I take it back to the table, remove the primer and place it in the expended box, then place the bolt back on the far right side of the table as I’m facing it. I then retrieve my rifle and start the sequence over gain.

So far we have determined that developing a load with the lowest standard deviation in muzzle velocity is important since with “no wind” models it translates to fewer high or low misses. We have also determined that under ideal conditions 100fps may be worth as much as a small boost in ballistic coefficient; at least that is the party line in some SML circles that “know” a lot about long range shooting. Up until now we have modeled ideal conditions. That is to say, bluebird skies and no winds. Unfortunately, in my experience, those conditions never present themselves to me during the late fall and winter. It is usually cold and windy where I have hunted so we are about to take our chosen loads head to head with the conditions they will face when it counts.

Wind is the great equalizer. It is hard for everyone to deal with and it is the only thing that we can’t account for with a good ballistic solver because it is the only thing we cannot say for sure that we actually know. We can use a laser range finder and know the range within +/- 5yds which is not a huge deal. We can use our phone or Kestrel to get all the atmospherics (temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity). With those we we can calculate the deterministic variable of drop. Since we know we don’t carry enough velocity to shoot much beyond 400yds with the light bullets and about 500yds with the better heavy stuff we don’t have to worry much about spin drift or Coriolis. Both are very minimal to imperceptible at those distances. Wind on the other hand makes all the difference in the world and your phone or Kestrel  cannot give you a definitive answer as to what the wind is doing, just what the wind is doing exactly where you are.

Winds are like fluids. They ebb and flow. They roll over the ground, speeding up, slowing down, pushing up, pushing down. They swirl. They gust. Winds have gradients that are higher above the ground than they are at the ground. It takes a lot of practice to get a handle on them on a flat range with good indicators like flags and the funny little flowery, spinning things BR guys use. It is even harder to master in the field where your indicators are are natural effects (grass, trees, dust, etc) and perception (feel) or mirage.

There are two ways to ensure success while shooting in the wind. The first, and best, is to shoot in the wind often. Never shy away from the range because it is windy. You will not shoot the little groups you enjoy shooting but it is like I said about shooting groups compared to MoA targets: Who cares? The goal is to make good, centered, repeatable hits on demand. That only happens by shooting in difficult conditions until difficult becomes routine. That will take a lot of practice and a .22LR or a .223 Rem will be a good way to sort it out since the cost of SML bullets and the price you will pay in recoil may be prohibitive. That said, find a way to shoot in the wind as often as you can.

The other approach is to improve your gear. You pick a bullet that offers you the least amount of drift at your maximum range, in the worst conditions you expect. While it is absolutely true you cannot buy skill you can buy bullets that improve your odds despite your skill level. Velocity cannot always best wind despite that common myth. That is what we propose to determine with these WEZ analyses.

We will give ourselves the benefit of the best rifle and load combo we could muster as well as an accurate laser rangefinder. Assume we have a rifle capable of .5MoA groups on demand (although that is only likely with 3-5shot groups, not the 10-shots we tested), an MV with a standard deviation of 7fps (so if you are a Smooth guy you need a Veggie Wad), and we know the range because we own a quality range finder. One gun will have a 275gn MH at 2900fps, one a 300gn MH at 2800fps, and one will have a 344gn BOMB at 2750fps (my personal LR load although it can be pushed faster).

We will rotate these guns between three shooters in medium difficult wind conditions: one a casual shooter (LO confidence) who can guess wind at +/-4mph, one a regular enthusiast who gets out often but doesn’t have a lot of experience or training (MED confidence) who can guess wind at +/-2mph, and one who shoots a lot in competition and/or has very good training (HI confidence) who can call wind at +/- 1mph. This is representative of what I see on SML forums based on what I glean from range reports. Having worked in a gunshop and range for close to 10 years prior to joining the Army I think this is a fair representation of shooters in general.

That said, the greatest enemy for most shooters is they don’t know what they don’t know. I cannot tell you how often I hear some guy asking about shooting deer at 500yds when he has never even shot a piece of paper at 300yds. If you are shooting a .300WM or something similar that is not overly difficult even for a guy without a lot of training but we are shooting low to fairly low BC bullets at slower velocities which means knowing wind effects becomes very critical.

Consider our first scenario where our rifle shoots a 275gn MH (or similar) bullet over 78gn of IMR4198 at roughly 2900fps and produces 1MoA or better groups every time it goes out. We are deer hunting a field we hunt ever year, from a comfortable blind with a solid rest. A good buck steps out of a treeline into the beanfield at 455m/497yds. We know how far it is because we have hunted here for years but we check it with the range finder anyway. We again confirm against our drop chart and see this is the absolute furthest shot we should be taking based on what we got from our phone’s app.

Here’s the rub: our phone says winds are at 5mph (Kestrel’s don’t measure wind inside of a blind) but that is at the local airfield so we take an educated guess based on what we see around us.

Shooter #1 (Regular Joe)

Shooter# 2 (Range Regular)

Shooter#3 (Rifle Junky)

That is a significant difference in success based on ability to read wind. It would stand to reason that spending more time at the range with someone who can teach you would be the best course of action to ensure higher success. The most probable course of action though is that we will try to buy success by improving equipment (probably a bigger scope but shouldn’t be). Let’s say that we take a friend’s advice and try a better bullet even though it will be a little slower and will kick a little more. If we had had the better bullet things would have looked a lot more like this:

300gn MH (or similar) over 73gn H4198 for 2800fps all else equal to the last scenario.

Shooter #1

Shooter #2

Shooter #3

We now have two out of three shooters inside of our 90% threshold by a simple upgrade in a bullet. It was not as apparent in the previous blogs because there was no wind. We also were showing max ranges for each combination before and how each bullet reacted to changes in velocity deviation and form. Now when we combine them and pit them against each other it all comes together.

Finally, lets say that three shooters have known each other for a while and while the two junior shooters have not had the range time to get as good as Shooter #3 but have at least mimicked his choice of gear because of the advantages he says it offers and had it at the onset of this story.

344gn BOMB over 90gn of IMR3031 for 2750fps, all else being equal:

Shooter #1

Shooter #2

Shooter #3

The heavier, harder kicking, higher BC is clearly the champion. It beat out the speed demon 275gn bullet as well as the welter weight 300gn bullet. It didn’t make the average joe a long range expert but it moved him up a lot closer to 70% than the nearly 60% he started out with using the light and fast bullet. The big boy also got there with more velocity and energy and in the hands of the two better shooters could have been used further.

Last time we studied the effects of muzzle velocity deviations and their importance to hit probability. In regards to sheer hit probability we saw that a single digit SD (like what is seen in good handloads) gained us an additional 100yds over an SD of 15fps (like good factory ammo). I also said that a low BC bullet will be more affected by velocity deviations than a higher BC bullet. Using the same AB Analytics WEZ we will compare bullets to determine what the payoff is.

We will make the same assumptions as before: shooter and rifle can shoot within 1MoA, has a Kestrel to record atmospherics, can read wind (or has no wind), and knows precisely the range to the target.

To keep this as apple to apples as possible we will use Parker bullets since Bob makes more styles of bullets in more weights than anyone else in his Ballistic Extreme (BE) and Match Hunter (MH) lines. Having shot quite a few of them over the years I know the BC’s are pretty optimistic but we will take them at face value for the purpose of this test. We will consider the 275gn BE, 275gn MH, 300gn BE, and 300gn MH. All velocities were pulled from pressure traces and we will model 7fps and 15fps SD’s for all.

The 275gn BE is a very popular bullet among guys who shoot muzzle-loaders. I think it is probably the most popular bullet out there for guys who are serious about muzzle-loaders because they tend to shoot well and kill well. They can be shot fast and the recoil is not bad. The problem is they are about as aerodynamic as a shoe-box. Until the 275MH came out several custom builders advocated them as the ultimate long range SML bullet capable of dispatching deer to 500yds.That is someone trying to sell you a product instead of success. The truth is it only retains enough velocity to be effective to 410yds under PERFECT conditions and past about 300yds gets blown really badly in the wind. The 300gn version is identical in form, just slightly longer and heavier and only gets to 382yds with 1800fps. Neither has ever been a long range proposition despite what anyone has claimed.

275gn BE, MV 2900fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 732yds

275gn BE, MV 2900fps, SD 15fps, 79% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

300gn BE, MV 2800fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 732yds

300gn BE, MV 2800fps, SD 15fps, 78.4% hit probability under ideal conditions  at same range

The MH line of bullets is significantly more aerodynamic than the BE and are a superior design for increasing desirable flight characteristics. According to AB Lab’s research for every caliber length increase in the nose of a bullet you reduce drag by some 19%. That is to say that just changing shape can make a huge difference in aerodynamic performance. The 275gn MH carries that 1800fps to 465yds (50yds increase) and 300gn MH to 492yds (110yds increase).

275gn MH, MV 2900fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 765yds

275gn MH, MV 2900fps, SD 15fps, 80.9% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

300gn MH, MV 2800fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 765yds

300gn MH, MV 2800fps, SD 15fps, 79.8% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

This has been an extremely busy year for me (having been gone a lot or working 18-hour days) and I have not been able to continue this study of Smooth-Form and Full-Form shooting that I started back in May. It is pretty apropos that this is Labor Day weekend because I just finished a huge bullet order for Arrowhead Sporting Goods, I have four days off from my real job, and I can just sit here and write up a continuation of this analysis. If you have not had a chance to read the case studies of  Smooth-Form vs Wads and Smooth-Form vs Full-Form give them a once over so that you can follow along. With hunting season quickly approaching I wanted to give you something a with a little more gravity than a bar graph on which to base your choices.

To start with this will be a completely conceptual approach based on modeling. Leading into the live fire portion of this test I shot a pound of powder and $100 worth of bullets in a couple of range sessions. Prior to that I shot close to 500 bullets ($1000) down range and gave away half that many for R&D to develop the BOMB and M-BOMB. That is not sustainable for me (or any small shop) at the moment. Enter Bryan Litz and Applied Ballistics, LLC (AB).

Bryan is the Chief Ballistician at Berger Bullets, a competitive shooter, and founder of the Applied Ballistics Laboratory. If you have not read his books you should because they are modern advancements on older works by Rinker and Mann. Bryan also has written the most advanced and accurate ballistic solvers around. I received his AB Analytics Package for my birthday last week and have been running the Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ) analysis for everything I own to ensure I have set myself up for the highest chances of success in every combination I shoot from the field of competition the hunting fields. The WEZ will be the tool we use to compare down range results of Smooth-Form and Full-Form shooting based on the findings from the aforementioned studies.

The WEZ is a modeling program that allows us to choose from several confidence levels (parameters for uncertainty) in regards to the shooter’s ability to judge wind, estimate range, or zero the rifle as well as the rifle’s precision and velocity deviation. We will continue this study over several weeks where we look at the shooter and various bullets but today we are only concerned with the gun and load. We will assume we are talking about a very good shooter who can properly zero, has a range finder, and can read wind very well (or we can have a no wind day). I understand there will say that this is just a model and isn’t real. That is undeniably true but Bryan has live fired a lot of ammo to test the modeling and they line up. I compared it to my competiton guns data and it pretty well matches my records as well. Even if you don’t buy that, modeling 1,000 shots with our chosen parameters stills saves you and I a lot of money and provides the necessary information to make better informed decisions about what we shoot and how we shoot it.

For the purpose of analyzing Smooth-Form vs Full-Form in the WEZ I am primarily concerned with velocity deviations since that is what the major take-away from the prior study was although I have also found that Full-Form tends to give better precision as well. We will also look at the two in regard to precision but it does not have as large effect on hit percentage as what you might believe. Plus, Smooth-Form can give really good precision but 100yds groups do not mean much in regard to long range shooting once you get inside of the 1MoA benchmark.

To start the comparison we are going to say we can shoot within the capability of the gun/load combination and have a Kestrel for atmospherics, can read read wind (although we will model winds at 0mph), and know precisely how far the target is. The same bullet was shot in all trials so there is no advantage between loads except the precision and velocities recorded. To isolate the effect of velocity deviation we are going to use the best precision recorded for all 10-shots which was right at 1MoA.

Since we are not using these rifles for score shooting or benchrest nobody cares about the MoA of the group at range in regard to hunting. If you do you are not thinking right except to determine the max range your raw precision affords your a fight chance at a first round hit. The vitals do not change size with range. Since most of us are deer hunters we will model the target as a 10″ circle since that is about the size of a whitetail’s vital area. All we are concerned with is a high percentage chance of making a first-round lethal hit. All range inputs for the WEZ are metric as it is intended for the military but all will be converted to yards in the caption. I will consider 90% to be our threshold for success and that anything below 90% we will have enough self control to pass on the shot since this is a living, breathing creature we intend to shoot at.

Also, before we even get started I am not advocating that anyone shoot this far using an SML. As discussed in the the bullet design and penetration entries we know that bullets need about 1800fps for reliable expansion. Our best load here hits the 1800fps barrier around 448yds. Although all examples here carry the prescribed 1000 ft-lbs of energy much farther than 448yds they don’t have the requisite velocity to ensure proper bullet performance. I am only demonstrating the importance of pursuing low deviations for the purpose of increasing hit probability.

Smooth-Form/No-Wad: Avg MV 2687, SD 15fps, 90% hit probability under Ideal conditions 656yds

Smooth-Form/Wool-Wad: Avg MV 2678, SD 16fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 646yds

Smooth-Form/Veggie-Wad: Avg MV 2691, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 749yds

Full-Form/No-Wad: Avg MV 2707, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 751yds

One of the things everyone in the precision rifle world deals with is dimensional tolerance. Most of the fixes are well known: actions are trued, match grade barrels installed, high dollar optics mounted, rings lapped, stocks bedded, etc. One thing that has been overlooked for years is the fit of a scope base to its receiver. It may seem odd to think that a scope base may need to be fit to a receiver but it is a fact. All receivers have some dimensional difference on their circumference but round rear bridges (newer Savage or custom like Stiller/Pierce/etc) seem to be better than actions with flatter bridges (Rem 700 or Win 70).The same way that a stock is the platform for the barreled action so the base is the platform for your optical sight. A scope base will benefit from epoxy bedding as much as a rifle stock will.

The idea had never occurred to me until a few years ago. I spent my high-school and college years (late 90s to early 2000′s) working in a gun shop where I mounted hundreds of scopes. Back then nearly everyone used either Leupold or Weaver mounts and often as not they were two piece bases. If you did not have scope alignment bars (almost nobody did back then) you would have no idea that a scope mounting system had issues until you bore-sighted or zeroed and didn’t have adequate elevation or windage adjustment.

Our solution (supported by Brownell’s selling shim packs) was to shim bases to adjust elevation issues and to use Leupold windage adjustable bases (or the dreaded Millett ringsif a customer insisted on something cheap) . Shimming was a viable solution but one I never liked. I knew there had to be a better solution.

During this same period of time I met a guy who was a mechanical engineer and hobbyist gunsmith. He used a reamer to cut his rings into alignment. To me this was a better way to deal with things like uneven bases than shimming was or  mounting holes out of alignment by means of windage adjustable bases. It still did not deal with putting things back into alignment though.

The other thing this guy was adamant about was that when you bedded a rifle into a stock that you did it with the scope mounted since there was apt to be stress on your action due to some level of misalignment stress due to your  mounting system. I assumed this was probably most important if you did not ream your rings since that should remove all stress but there is a limit to how much you can ream and lap mounts. I still did not have a one-hundred percent solution but what I was beginning to to really put together was to eliminate stress in your system if you want success.

Around the time I was seventeen I began bedding my own rifles because I was not happy with the bedding jobs I had paid for from a couple of gunsmiths. The bedding was functional but they didn’t use pillars and their finish detail was poor; their should not be any unfinished edges to include being able to see where it flowed in the barrel channel because that is half-assed sloppy work. The more bedding I did the more I learned you could do with epoxy. I decided it could replace shims on rifle bases if I did it right.

I played with bedding the 2-piece Leupold and Talley bases I was using at the time. It could be done but it was a lot of work. You needed scope alignment bars to determine which base needed to move and then you needed a long bar to bridge the two pieces in order to bed the pair. A 1-piece base made things much simpler. I was also of the opinion (still am) that a 1-piece base also adds some rigidity to your receiver.

Back then I would sell a 1-piece Leupold base if at all possible but as “tactical” guns, gear, shooting, etc. has become increasingly popular a few really good pieces of equipment have become available to civilian shooters. The piece that is most important in regard to rifle hardware is the one-piece M-1913 or Picatinny rail. This rail allows for industry standard dimensions and does not require rings to be twisted into dovetails or be lined up using opposing screws. Instead quality rings are machined as matched pairs. As a result you have what is potentially the system with the least induced stress.

To guarantee that stress is eliminated you bed it for the best platform for your rifle sight. If you just slop epoxy under the base and tighten it down you did about as much for your system as those stock bedding jobs I mentioned. What we are concerned with is where and how to bed a scope base.

The first thing I want to know is which end of my action is the end that needs fixed. Given that the barrel tenon is in your front receiver ring that is where I start. I place my base on the receiver and put the front screw in and tighten it down. That screw should secure your base to your receiver to the point where it will not wiggle. If the base wiggles it is too long and needs to be shortened so that it is not bottoming out before it secures the scope base; this important not just to the base but if that hole goes clear through the receiver (as it often does) you do not want to mash the threads on your barrel tenon.

Once I have ensured that screw is of proper length I will tighten down both screws on the front of the base. More often than not (unless your receiver and base are perfect mates) the rear bridge is where you will find you have a gap. Sometimes you can see daylight between the base and rear bridge. Other times you can just barely tell their is a gap but it is there. You can make that determination using paper or feeler gauges if you cannot see it.

If I can see no light or easily slip a feeler gauge under that base at the rear bridge (one of the the things they got right with the Remington 700 RR actions) I will install the rear screws and remove the front screws then reassess. I find the front has the gap far less often due to the way the rear bridges are ground and the fact that many actions these days are the same diameter front and rear.

Once I determine which end needs epoxy I plug the mounting holes with modeling clay. I do not use screws on that end because you do not want to compress the epoxy and the front will take care of the alignment.

I also plug the screw holes in the base. I do not want a mechanical lock above all else but I also do not like to clean up epoxy that has flowed into those counter-bored holes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Use some sort of straight edge plane the clay flush with both the surface of the rear bridge and the scope base. Bolt down the other end of the base. Before you tighten the front end push the base all the way forward. If the base has a recoil lug (Seekins, Badger, Nightforce) the lug will engage the front receiver ring. If not the front mount screw holes will engage the screws. Either way, you get a positive stop that will stop the base from working forward (due to inertia) under recoil and will keep thing aligned on axis. With the base secured, tape off the receiver around the base to make clean-up easier.

Remove the base and coat the sides of the base and the metal of the receiver with a release agent (I like Brownells aerosol but any of the paste wax varieties work fine too). Mix up a two-part epoxy with high compression strength (Devcon, Steel-Bed, or even JB Weld) and spread a thin layer on the end of the base to be bedded. Install the screws on the opposite end of the base, press forward, hold, and tighten. Any excess epoxy will slowly flow out from the base while the rest settles into a stress free base. After a little while the excess epoxy will begin to firm up but will still be a little gummy. You can take a toothpick and trace the edge of the base and it will neatly cut away. Let the base harden for 24-hours before removing the base which will have two neat little reference marks for your mounting holes.

I have now been shooting Hankins Ignition System (as seen in Semi-Custom, Path 2: Centerfire) for a little over a year after it came back from repair work. His system is the only truly proprietary system out there since you must use his primer modules vice being able to make a module by cutting down a brass case from a center-fire cartridge. This is not a comparison to a 209 system based on ballistic efficiency or superiority, just things to note after extensive use with a lesser known system than the Savage plugged guns out there; a ballistic comparison is coming though. After some five-hundred rounds fired through this breach plug and module with no cleaning the following are my findings:

1. The HIS worked 100% of the time with no hang-fires, misfires, or failures to fire. That is how a breach plug system is supposed to work so, while reliable, is not unique in this facet.

2. The modules were acquired at different times; the second half of the modules came as a trade for a 209 shotgun primer breach plug he owed me but couldn’t make work. Some of them have a very different feel to the primer pocket than others; sort of like a loose primer pocket in a rifle case (which means they get scrapped). After cleaning them in a sonic cleaner with a case cleaning solution of water/vinegar/dish-soap (which I took from 6mmbr.com) you can see that not all batches of brass are the same (react differently to cleaning solution) and could contribute to the difference I mentioned above. So, you will notice the difference in primer seating which feels like loose pockets but I cannot tell that there is any kind of gas cutting on my bolt face like you get with a center-fire gun with loose pockets (again due to how a bushing acts as a pressure snubber).

3. The modules are durable thus far. Each has 10 firings on it. Considering that each module costs $6 it absolutely should last 10-firings since a .338 Lapua rifle case costs about $2.58 and will last 10-firings and bears the entire chamber pressure of a firing which a HIS module does not. For that matter a piece of Lake City 7.62 brass which costs forty-three cents new, and a fraction of that if bought once-fired, will last eight to ten firings. So long and short is you shouldn’t have to replace them but if you do they are grossly overpriced at $6 each.

4. The plug will give up consistent ignition and velocity even when heavily fouled. After some 500-shots it had a massive build up of carbon. After soaking in solvent for a week some of it the fouling came loose. The rest was very stubborn. Tumbling in stainless steel media still did not remove all of it but that was largely due to the fact that orifices at both ends of the plug are just large enough to let the stainless pins wedge inside instead of tumbling like they do in a rifle case; that is to say you can only tumble the outside of that plug. I removed the stuck media with a pick and had to use drill bits to ream the carbon out. I stay away from any sort of cleaner that needs a neutralizer because I have never been able to remove my bushing in the HIS plug and Jeff states on his website that if you do it voids your warranty (perhaps it is press fit so he is worried that pressing or hammering it will crack it since Tungsten is hard but brittle). Using a cleaner that needs to be neutralized could lead to a corrosion issue in the space around the the plug.

5. Any module system is more work than a 209 primer system. You must prime a module and de-prime a module every time you wish to shoot compared to shotgun primer system which must only be inserted into your bolt or plug and fired. It could be too that my Peirce action is particularly hard to load compared to a Remington bolt but I have used a HIS on a Remington action as well and did not find loading it any easier; perhaps I have Simple Jack hands. I have trouble loading the module into the bolt face with the bolt still in the receiver so I pull my bolt out to re-prime as it is much faster for me. It loads easily with the bolt in hand. I’ve not had to do that with 209 guns. YMMV.

By late winter I had the concept in hand  (picture at top of page) and by early spring I had the first test batch in my possession for preliminary testing: 25 x boattail and 125 x flatbase. I kept the boattail and 25 of the flatbase, the rest were mailed out in 25 count boxes to testers who were experienced in shooting monolithics or who were experienced shooting sabotless with Blackhorn209. All were .458″ since all the testers primarily shoot Full-Form.

First run of the Monolithic B.O.M.B off the Swiss lathe:

The first thing I discovered was that these copper bullets were not the nightmare to size that I had heard from other shooters using other solid copper bullets. That meant the choice of copper already showed an advantage. On the flip side, I had to adjust my sizing die 8.75-ish notches tighter. The Hankins die does not have fine graduations like the Swinglock die so you have to estimate or scribe your die if you ever need something in between that you intend to reference again. The usual setting I use for the cup and core bullets was painted green so I knew where to return to. Without that sizing adjustment there was no prayer of those bullets going down the barrel. That is why you pull your plug and size bullets then test fit them at the house. If you don’t you get to the range and they might not load.

Flat Base and Boat-Tail versions of the Monolithic B.O.M.B. Full-Formed after test sizing:

Where I ran into an issue right up front was I had been shooting a bunch of IMR3031 along with jacketed bullets for the past year. I chose to clean the barrel prior to switching over to H4198 and the mono bullet. My test fit at the house was spot on for a clean barrel. After two foulers into the berm and a 3-shot group I found the next bullet had to be hammered down using a rubber mallet. I shot it and hammered down two more (seen below is the target with the first two groups shot with these bullets). If you reference the target it supports my claim that as seating pressure increases it is less controllable and precision suffers (not much in this case but happened nonetheless).

Boat-Tail at 100yds from my gun:

I jumped in the truck and sped away to the house where I again pulled the plug and tightened up the die until I had an appropriate fit for the dirty bore that allowed for one hand of seating pressure. I sized three more bullets, threw my charges, re-primed my modules and headed back to the range since I had an hour of light left. Since the M-BOMB had shot so well at 100yds I could not call it quits until I had shot them to 300yds. I got to the range with enough time to go paint a piece of steel and hammer out a group in the cold, windy evening as the light failed.

Boat-Tail at 300yds from my gun:

Having seen the night before that the boat-tail M-BOMB was stellar when Full-Formed I felt certain that the flat base would be too but Full-Forming the flat base had to wait. With a six week work trip coming up I had limited time so I decided to draw some down to .452″ and smooth size them since I hadn’t gotten .452″ bullets for testing. I chose the flat-base over the boat-tail because conventional wisdom is that you cannot shoot boat-tail bullets Smooth Form. Since I did not have a ton of the boat-tail nor did I have a surplus of time I took the safe bet. Maybe I’ll test that theory later.

I Smooth-Formed them and they tumbled when I shot them so I determined that as soft as these were compared to other copper bullets they were not soft enough for smooth form. It is possible also that running a .458 bullet through a .454 sizer, then a .452 sizer, and finally a Swinglock Smooth-Form die work hardened the bullet to a point where it was too hard for use as a land rider. I decided to anneal them and try again. Fifteen minutes on the electric stove, set to high, softened them up (but did not jettison the tip which annealing with a torch will do as one tester found out which supports the idea they work pneumatically) and quenching them in a cup of Apple Cider Vinegar cut the oxidation right off. Some guys do not bother cleaning them after annealing but I don’t like to put anything that looks like that through my dies or barrel. A quick spin in a piece of bronze wool and they looked brand new. Don’t worry, the .452 version will come pre-annealed using inert gas so you will have a soft and clean bullet for Smooth-Form without having to do any of the work.

A copper bullet will slightly shrink when you anneal it so it came out slightly undersized with my current setting on my Swinglock Smooth-Form die. I didn’t want to adjust the die since I only intended to Smooth Form a few so for the first (and probably only) time in my life I used a pair of files to knurl the annealed bullets up a touch in diameter until I had the proper fit. Some guys do this regularly and it works. I would caution  if you do this, ensure you use high quality files or you could end up with slivers of teeth from the file embedded in your bullets and that will ruin a barrel (happened to a couple of guys I know).

Flat-Base annealed, drawn down to .452, and shot Smooth-Form in my gun:

I Full-Form sized the remainder of the flat base bullets for testing precision and drops to confirm or deny what computer modeling had predicted for ballistic coefficient. They sat for the next eight weeks, unused while I was gone, and were shot when I got back. Apparently a copper bullet will spring back just a touch over time just like a cup and core bullet will. After two months they were just enough larger that they went from one hand loading to two hands. I recommend, regardless of bullet, that you size them only as you need them to fill your shooting needs. I did not bother resizing them because I could load them consistently enough to feel good about it and was getting pretty good precision.

Flat-Base at 100yds from my gun:

Flat-Base at 300yds from my gun:

My buddy Carlos did quite a bit of testing of the M-BOMB as well. Carlos is a long time SML shooter and does a lot of internet muzzle-loader business for Ed’s Gunshop in Vass, NC.  He used two separate rifles for the testing: one gun had a 1-18″ twist like my gun and the other gun was a 1-22″ which is more common for a .45 SML. In either case he met with great success using the M-BOMB and had results compiled for me as soon as I got home from my training.

Flat-Base at 100yds from Carlos’ Gun #1:

Flat Base at 100yds from Carlos’ Gun #2:

Flat Base at 300yds from Carlos’ gun:

With everything having panned out so far Carlos, Rob, and I hit the range to test some 415gn BOMB bullets and to test powder sensitivity with the new M-BOMB. The bore was freshly cleaned so Carlos shot a fouler then we started the test. Using 81gn, 85gn, and 90gn of IMR3031 with the M-BOMB showed very little change in the point of impact across the 150fps change suggesting that the bullet is fairly insensitive to changes in powder charges. This was mirrored in my gun also which showed very little POI shift between boat-tail and flat-base versions of the M-BOMB.

Powder Sensitivity Test: