158 gr in the Rossi with 30 twist barrel

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Johnnyjr
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158 gr in the Rossi with 30 twist barrel

Post by Johnnyjr »

Just wonder what cast bullets you are using in your mod 92s and what accuracy your getting. I'm using a 158 lee soft cast with gas checks with only fair grouping at 50 yards which is about my limit for hunting. I have a green dot scope on it. I'm sizing my bullets at .360 . I have heard you have to really push them for any type of accuracy. So what MV are you running yours. I have not tried any jacketed bullets as my goal is to use cast bullets of a soft alloy. I will appreciate any advice. The season is fast approaching...
Pisgah
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Re: 158 gr in the Rossi with 30 twist barrel

Post by Pisgah »

It's been a while since I was loading for a .45 Colt Rossi 92, but it definitely preferred hard cast bullets, and the critters didn't care.
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AJMD429
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Re: 158 gr in the Rossi with 30 twist barrel

Post by AJMD429 »

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In the 44 Magnum caliber I get my best accuracy with jacket and soft points or hard cast bullets. Jacketed doesn't matter too much but the hard cast have to be on the larger size, just as with my Marlin lever actions. The Ruger 96/44 has a faster (1:20) twist and we'll shoot about anything pretty well, but it is also a gun I keep a 4-16x scope on, and scopes always help my accuracy. I don't I don't know if the Ruger is more accurate because of the twist or if the rifling is deeper or what. Now that I think about it I'm not sure I ever slug to the barrel like I have the Marlin and Rossi's, but the latter are all a bit larger then ANSI, or at the upper limit. I've read that this specifications for rifles are different than handguns, which of course seems crazy but go figure.

As far as the 38/357 in lever actions, most of my shooting is either mild 158 grain lead round nose 38 Special (factory loads or bulk-purchased gunshop reloads), or 357 Magnum 125 grain jacketed soft point factory loads which would be the ones used when the firearm is in home protection mode. All of those will group into about an inch and a half at 50 yards off of the bench and pretty much whatever gun I use them in. You would think that the heavier and therefore longer 158 grain bullets would have to be the hotter end of the spectrum to get enough velocity to stabilize as well as the relatively short 125 grain factory loads that are already at 'magnum' velocities, but from a practical standpoint I'm not able to tell the difference. It may be that I'm just not a good enough shot to shoot out the difference between the loads though.

When my kids were starting to hunt whitetail deer a couple of them had trouble with the heft and recoil of 44 Magnum in a levergun so I gave them the option of using 357 Magnum. We were using 170 and 180 grain factory loads of some sort. I think Remington jacketed soft point. At the time we were shooting them out of a 1970's vintage Marlin 1894 CS with a 16 inch barrel, and a 2000 vintage Rossi with a 20 inch barrel. Despite the heavy long bullet, they also did well enough that my kids could hit a soda can with the first shot three out of four times at 50 yards. That was kind of the informal test they had to pass in order to be able to hunt deer.

I think some of the data about required twist for rifling is based more on theory than real world experience, and ignores subtleties like the characteristics of the rifling itself, land and groove diameter, and so on. They're also seems to be a fair bit of difference between supersonic and subsonic bullets, as well as some nonlinearity as you go from short fat bullets like we see in 45 Colt versus long skinny bullets like 7 mm Remington Magnum. If I recall there was a formula by someone named Dell that was a modified version of the other formulas out there that corrected for some of those things.

I think what you're doing makes more sense anyway, consulting with people who've been out in the field with real guns and real bullets. Many on this forum are way way more experienced than I am and have kept meticulous data, and I would depend on what they say long before I'd go by whatever reloading manual tells me.

And then the other factor is some guns are just inherently accurate for reasons I don't know that any of us can explain. Our family has had several Marlin 1894 44 magnum rifles and one of them would shoot pretty much any load you fed it to the same point of impact and I would group about 2 in at 50 yards, which wasn't spectacular, but it was so consistent that it was way more fun to hunt with than the other guns which were picky about their loads.
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Johnnyjr
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Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:30 pm

Re: 158 gr in the Rossi with 30 twist barrel

Post by Johnnyjr »

Today tried some 160 swc with gas checks. I call them 160 as that what they weigh with my soft alloy. 158s. I'm only trying for 50 yards which is going to be my set limit with this 92 Rossi. Anyway I got some pretty decent groups I think. Only 3 shot groups. Using 4227 imr. Had 1 inch up to 3 inch. The faster I go the wider the groups. I hope to try the same loads tomorrow run over the Chrono. Seems to me that a 1200 to 1300 fps will work for deer. Thanks for any replies. John.
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