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Thanks Gatsby, I hadn't thought of that. I tried Blue Dot (70gn) in my Bland for the first time last weekend. It was snowing so hard I didn't bother to set up the chrono but they felt good for a 'moderate' pracitce round. First 2 shots were touching 2" high at 25yds, the last 2 (of 8) it was all I could do to keep'em in the 8" ring at 50. Really, I don't have a problem, I can stop anytime I want...honest!

Brian, my loading method is certainly low tech, but after much trial and error works ok for me.

I start by placing the primer on a flat metal plate and inserting an undersized wooden dow into the case and gently tapping it home with a mallet(with safety glasses, fingers clear in case of discharge, no powder or other primers near, etc). I used to dump the charge through a 5' droptube, but couldn't determine any benefit, so now just pour it into the case. I then gently compress the charge with another dowel with notches on the side to verify the amount.

Next, I seat a thick tightly fitting cardboard wad over the powder, again with a dow. I either cut these with scissors or preferably punch them out of the thickest solid cardboard I can find such as tablet backing at a minimum. Using tablet backing over BP it seems like about 1/4 of them fail and get blown through, but with no appartent effect other than burning into the wad.

I then seat the thickest felt wads I can find (compressing with a dowel)to bring the height up to the base of the bullet. I lube the wads by melting wonder lube (preferable)or bore butter in a thin tray (like a styrofoam meat tray) in the microwave at low power and then rolling the wad in the liquid to lube the sides. It's messy so I do'em in big batches and let them cool on wax paper or foil. If you don't lube the felt will be charred from the powder gasses, but lubed ones seal tightly and look pristine after firing in a clean bore. I save mine and have even loaded them again after cleaning and relubing. That sealing can also let you get by with a slightly undersized bullet w/o leading issues, assumuing accuracy is ok. I seat bullets by hand and don't crimp in my single. Sometimes bullets have to be rotated repeatedly to work the trapped air from the case and get the bullet firmly seated on the top wad.

I deprime with a punch and mallet with the case seated in a recessed anvil, then wash throughly in hot soapy water and tumble the cases in porcelain beads/soap/water to clean gunk from the insides.

One caution that I'll add reference to compressing the powder, is that while the BP loads I've used generally have an extreme spread of <10fps, I usually load the ammo the day prior to firing. Last week I pulled bullets from several rounds that were loaded a year ago that had been shuffled around in transit to the point I was unsure which charge of which powder each contained. The BP was 'chunky', to say the least, and some had to be scraped from the case. The BPCR experts here probably know if that is a concern or not, but I don't.

By no means is this authoritative, just based on tips from others and it works ok for me. If anyone has any tips or better ideas, I'm all ears too! Please do keep us posted on this great rifle.

Bob

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"If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?"

Edited by Omnivorous_Bob (17/12/06 04:43 PM)