Seasons bag, 2014

[Mortblanc]

I have a nice little Lee mold in .312 that I milled down to 90 grains. I use it for all my .32 revolver loads and for my light duty 30 caliber rifle loads.

I find the point of impact so far off from my full power jacketed loads that I do not attempt to fire the lead bullets from my dedicated, scoped rifles.

I do have one of my 30-30 rifles set up with both scope and irons and the irons are adjusted to the lightweight cast bullets and the scope to jacketed fare. The scope is on QD mounts so it is off and on with no change of zero. This is one area where the deep cut rifling of the Winchester brands beats the micro-groove Marlin barrels in most cases. One nice thing about the 30-30 is that one can push heavy cast bullets to the same velocities as factory jacketed bullets most of the time. Often the same sight setting will work for both.

I also have one of my M/N Russian rifles dedicated to cast bullets. The deep cut M/N rifling does good work with cast bullets.

Powders???

At this point in time I find myself using what can be had instead of what I want to use. (Praise be to our illustrious leader!)

In the past two years I have found myself using powders I would never have considered for calibers I was told they would not tolerate. I have also learned that there is no expiration date on powder, after using several cans of IMR4350 that were probably older than I am and at least one can of Reloader22 that I know I bought in 1968.

If the present shortage ever ends I am going to buy myself a 50 pound keg of Unique and about a bazillion primers.!