475 grain 50 caliber Conical

[ronlaughlin]

Every test of these type have been done using either 50g Blackhorn, or 80 grain Blackhorn. For this test i chose to use 50 grain, because it seemed to me, most that shoot these heavy conical, use less than 80 grain of powder. It just seemed like testing the bullet at 25 yard with 80 grain, wouldn't help us learn much about the bullet, because most use less powder, and most shoot further. Even though one may use more than 50 grain powder whilst hunting, the bullet when reaching the critter out there, could be moving much the same as this bullet at 25 yard.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

 

[long shot]

I see what you mean. Got it

 

[flounder]

I would be interested in seeing what kind of result you would get by splitting the difference and going with somewhere around 65 grains.

 

[52Bore]

Ron, Thanks so much for getting your chrono out (and clarifying the carpet&plywood). I stopped by the range again this evening and - Deja vu! I had the exact same problem not picking up BH209 and picking up all my Swiss BP loads, back in forth, alternating, etc... a little frustrating - even a new member here was there to witness, we tried about everything and my very last shot with 40gr BH209 picked up a value of 1097 (another range session is needed).

I really thinking the HP is too small and the amount of material around it prohibited any expansion as it seem to act like a solid. I'll be interested to see at what hole size the bullet expands at that velocity, obviously 1/8" isn't working.
Here is my velocity from the LabRadar. While attempting to pick up BH209 loads, I was able to get some Swiss data.

Not sure if you can see all the data at different distances in the photo?
MV 1268
100yds - 1114
200 - 1037

 

[ronlaughlin]

I would be interested in seeing what kind of result you would get by splitting the difference and going with somewhere around 65 grains.

Art, i found three 50 caliber conical with a golden lube,that weigh about 500 grain. Seems they might be yours. Shooting them using 65 grain Blackhorn powder is what you are suggesting? Why not 50 grain of powder?

 

[flounder]

I would be interested in seeing what kind of result you would get by splitting the difference and going with somewhere around 65 grains.

Art, i found three 50 caliber conical with a golden lube,that weigh about 500 grain. Seems they might be yours. Shooting them using 65 grain Blackhorn powder is what you are suggesting? Why not 50 grain of powder?

Ron, the NASA lube I use is more green colored. I was thinking that 65 grains of Blackhorn would be closer to a hunting load. It should give you somewhere between 1200 and 1300 fps which is what a lot of conical shooters would consider about right.

 

[ronlaughlin]

Right or wrong, my thinking was/is 50 grain Blackhorn at 25 yard, is roughly the same as the hunting load of 65 grain black at 75 yard -- 100 yard.

Well, i was looking at the data provided by 52Bore yesterday.

The bullet is traveling 133 fps faster at 100 yard than the tested bullet at 25 yard. The data show the bullet is going faster at 200 yard than the test bullet at 25 yard. This has me thinking that 60g or so Blackhorn would be the way to go.

 

[GM54-120]

Just for comparison and FYI
60gr by volume is roughly 42gr by weight

Westerns cartridge data for 50/70 says
475gr
37gr by weight 112% (compressed load)
1230fps
19,360Kpsi

50/90
475gr
71gr by weight 112%
1762fps
27,610Kpsi

 

[ronlaughlin]

That's some interesting numbers Scott. For me thirty five grain only made 981 fps at 25 yard. Maybe 42 grain won't make 1200 fps

 

[52Bore]

Thanks for the input, interesting. My objective would be: at what point would the bullet NOT perform/mushroom (there is still 350gr of solid lead behind the HP in the body of the bullet) - I still think the HP is too small on this bullet, that's why I'm interested in the next ones.. We'll see soon..

I ran the LabRadar numbers against Hornady Ballistic program and the BC comes out about 0.3 (not all values at each distance match exactly, but I focused on 200 and my MOA was nearly right on.) (0.275 BC was close as well but fell off at 200)

Ron mentioned his velocity of 980fps vs the LarRadar at 200 of 1037fps. Hornady shows 980fps occurring around 275 yards. I appears the heavy bullet only lost 288pfs over 275 yards and I noticed it still retained 1000ft-lbs energy (which is probably why it went thru all of Ron's test bottles).

If my 1 BH209 value I captured was correct at 1097fps with 40gr W (57g V). This might help as to what charge would be needed to achieve 1250 +/-. (nearly 50g W / 70g V) ?

 

[ronlaughlin]

Thinking on trying 45 (weighed) grain Blackhorn with the 0.15" hollowpoint.

 

[GM54-120]

Thinking on trying 45 (weighed) grain Blackhorn with the 0.15" hollowpoint.

I believe that is a good guess and a safe load.

 

[52Bore]

Thinking on trying 45 (weighed) grain Blackhorn with the 0.15" hollowpoint.

If you have time, do both - MV is certainly important to know. 35g W/ 50g V has been one of two of your standard loads throughout all of your testing...
Enjoy the day.