It has been a while!
There are a few reasons for this.
I didn’t want to report back on the 38-55 Trapdoor project until I had
some firm results. I also just plain got
busy.
For a long while I couldn’t buy any of the correct brass for
this relined barrel. The 38-55 comes in
2 lengths. The longer 2.125” is the
original standard. A slightly shorter
version came about several decades ago because nobody was making brass and a
short brass could be made out of another, similar case. Anyway, in the great “Obama’s going to steal
my brass” hording scare of 2013, I found I was out of luck. I did manage to find a work around for
testing. It was still possible to get “38
Basic” brass, which is way too long and ungodly expensive. I picked up 20 cases and cut them down for
testing. Finally, about a month ago,
Starline came through with standard cases.
Load testing was interesting. I still have a long ways to go, but I at
least know what not to do. Like the
45-70, it doesn’t like light bullets. I’m
currently at 320 grains and looking to try bigger. The higher loads are bad as well. I’m currently at 44 grains and will be trying
less. I tried 1 batch of FFFG. Typically, I don’t experience much difference
with grain size changes. On this rifle
it made the pattern triple in size.
So today, now that I had some brass and a load, it was time
to take the old soldier to a match. It
was a bit breezy, but I can’t really blame that much. I’m incredibly pleased with how light the
recoil is. As it stands, the gun is
shooting as well as my rolling block. I’m
convinced it has a ways to go.
You’re probably wondering by now “Why 5 Will Get You 10?” Was there some Double-or-Nothing bet we don’t
know about? Take a look at this target.
I shot this today in the match. 5 in the black, and the other 5 floating about 1/4 inch away. A 5% reduction in group size should do the trick. Of course, if I'd just adjusted my sights up 1", that would have worked too. Hopefully, I'll be updating this blog a bit more frequently now that I'm shooting the old girl again.
