A problem that sometimes occurs when we reload is that a case gets stuck in the decapper/expander die (also known as the resizing die). This can result from not adequately lubricating the case prior to running it into die, or not cleaning a new die prior to use. The case gets stuck in the die, and when you attempt to extract it on the reloading press down stroke, the shell holder deforms the case’s rim and it pulls free of the shellholder. Getting the stuck case out can be problematic.
A friend just bought a new set of Lee .223 dies and forgot to clean out the decapper/expander die. The result was a stuck case (as you can see in the photo above). Here’s the easy way to remove stuck cases using tools that can all be bought at your local hardware store.
1. Remove the die and take off the pin retainer using the proper 1/2″ box and 3/4″ open wrenches. No crescent wrenches, pliers or vice grips!
2. Put the die in a well-padded vise and knock the pin down with a brass or hard plastic mallet. The brass mallet or brass punch works best.
3. The expander pin will remain in the case. It will be loose and rattle around a bit, but still trapped inside the case.
4. Use a small tubing cutter to remove the base of the case.
5. Clean up and polish the expander pin using a non-abrasive wheel or a Scotch Brite pad with soap and water. Get all that factory gunk out of the sizing die body too. I use brake cleaner, but WD 40 will also loosen the factory crud.
6. Reassemble everything with the pin lining up with the top of the retaining nut. Secure VERY tightly again using the proper wrenches.
Your die will now be better than new because the factory gunk is gone and the expander pin has been polished.
Make sure to use a good case lube on all bottle necked rifle calibers. I’m not a huge fan of the white Lee water soluble case lube but it works. I prefer to use spray lubes such as Lyman or Hornady One Shot.
The good news is when I was recently on the range with my Remington Custom Shop Model 504 the air was dead still and I had the range to myself. The bad news is the 5-shot 50-yard groups were just so-so, and I didn’t have anything to blame that on but myself. Well, maybe. I only tried two kinds of ammo (an old box of Remington Target 22 and a new box of CCI standard velocity ammo). You have to play around trying different makes (just like you would experiment with different reloads) to find ammo that a rimfire rifle really responds to. I’m not there yet. But I’m having fun along the way.
Representative 5-shot, 50-yards groups from the Custom Shop Model 504. I’m expecting to see groups in the .250-.300 range from this rifle (I’m not done yet).
Sue and I were in Rapid City, South Dakota, several years ago exploring Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. We took a lot out of that trip…we saw Mt. Rushmore during the day and in the evening, we saw bunch of stuff in the Black Hills area, we went out to a little-known Minuteman Missile National Park, we saw the Badlands, we stopped in Wahl Drug, we went to Devil’s Tower, and of course, I had to check out what I now know to be one of the best gunshops in the country: Rapid City’s First Stop Gun and Coin. I could have spent the entire day there, but we had other things to see and do. After our visit, I started checking out what First Stop had listed on Gunbroker.com, and it wasn’t too long after that that I saw a Remington Custom Shop Model 504.
High end walnut, as is appropriate on a Custom Shop Remington rifle. The recoil pad might be more appropriate on a .416 Rigby, but it looks great on this rifle.
I didn’t even know what a Model 504 was, I’d never handled or shot one, but I knew what the Remington Custom shop was all about. The rifle had my interest. It was not cheap, but that was maybe a dozen years ago and when you see a Custom Shop Model 504 come up for sale today (which hardly ever happens), the ask is about three times what I paid. I’ve never seen another Custom Shop 504 in person; I’ve only seen them on the rare occasions one appears on Gunbroker and in a couple of Internet reviews.
Remington wanted a high end .22 bolt rifle in the early 2000s to compete with the offerings from Kimber, Browning, Ruger, CZ, and others, and the Model 504 was the result. Remington had three versions: A Sporter model, a heavy barreled Varmint version, and the Custom Shop 504 you see here. Remington built the 504 from 2004 to 2007. The Custom Shop Model 504 was the flagship and it had it all: A machined steel receiver, a highly polished deep blue finish, a free-floated barrel and glass-bedded action, highly figured walnut, a subtle forearm tip, a super smooth action, cut checkering, a recoil pad that might be more at home on a .300 Weatherby, and a barrel from the super-exotic Remington Model 40 target rifle. I didn’t know any of this at the time I hit the “buy now” button, but I knew any Remington Custom Shop rifle is a collectible item.
The Model 504 receiver is glass bedded.The Custom Shop markings on the 504 barrel.A very subtle forearm tip.
My rifle came with the rings of unknown origin and Bausch and Lomb mounts. I first mounted Bushnell scope, a scope set up to be parallax free at 100 yards. But I typically shoot a .22 at 50 yards. I next put an old Weaver 4×12 variable scope (adjustable for parallax) on the rifle, and when I adjusted for 50 yards it had no parallax. I don’t know how repeatable that old scope is (and as you’ll notice from the photo above, the groups seem to move around a bit), so one thing I’m going to do in the future is put another scope on the rifle, mostly likely Mueller’s 4×12. I have a Mueller scope on another rimfire rifle and I know it is good. I like the looks of the old Weaver the 504 is wearing now, but when I tried adjusting it, there didn’t seem to be much correlation between the adjustments I was making and where the bullets were going.
The Weaver scope mounted on the Model 504.
Something that had me scratching my head are the plastic inserts on the scope rings between the scope body and the rings. I’ve never seen this on any other rifle, but from what I’ve read on the internet, they work well for other shooters (even on heavily recoiling rifles, which a .22 is not). The scope appears to be secure.
The plastic scope ring inserts. I had never encountered this before.
The Model 504 magazine is apparently scarcer than an honest politician. Only one magazine was included with my rifle. Now that I am shooting it more (it’s no longer a safe queen), I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a couple of spare mags until I saw their price. When you can find one on Ebay or Gunbroker, they go for around $200. I think I’ll be careful with my one magazine and keep looking; maybe I’ll get lucky and find one in a gunstore’s discounted junkbox (most old line gunshops have these).
The difficult to find and very expensive Model 504 magazine.High end walnut, starboard side.High end walnut, port side.
It may be that the Model 504 is just not that accurate. My findings are consistent with what other 504 reviewers have published (in fact, my gun is turning in tighter groups than what others have previously published). Recognizing that the Custom Shop model used the same barrel blanks Remington used for the Model 40 .22 rifle, I would have expected more. Maybe it’s there and I just haven’t found it yet. At least that’s my hope.
Good buddy Paul sent this very recently released video from Lipsey’s to me last night:
The video is just under 10 minutes long and it’s worth watching. To me, this new J-frame Smith addresses most of the shortcomings I’ve noticed with my concealed carry J-frame revolver. Here are my thoughts:
I like it.
The ideal of a .30 caliber 6-shot is intriguing (in addition to the 5-shot .38 Special version Lipsey’s is also offering). I know most concealed carry handgun encounters are settled in less than two shots, but having an extra round (one over the standard 5 shots) makes sense to me.
I notice the grips don’t go below the bottom of the grip frame, which would be a problem for me. Getting my little finger caught under the grip frame is what makes shooting a J-frame revolver uncomfortable (in fact, it’s downright painful after a shot or two). I do like the G10 material grips, though. I have those on my Sig Scorpion 226 and it is the best grip material ever, in my opinion. I would like a set of G10 grips that extend lower than the bottom of the grip frame, like the Altamont grips I put on my J-frame. These would be very comfortable.
The sights are a much-needed upgrade. The stock Model 60 and other J-frame sights are a joke.
The aluminum frame means light weight, which I guess is good for carrying the gun all day, but those little J-frames can have fierce recoil. My stainless steel Model 60 packs a punch; the aluminum version recoil will be worse. I suppose the assumption for most is that the gun will be carried more than it is shot, and that makes sense. But, still, that’s going to be a lot of recoil.
The J-frame endurance package is sorely needed. I shot the hell out of my Model 60 doing rapid fire at 7 yards and it quickly went seriously out of time. That was an expensive fix. Mine also had excessive headshake. I was able to address it with a shim kit, but it should not have been necessary.
It will be interesting to see what this new Lipsey’s/Smith and Wesson J-frame revolver costs and if it gets approved in California. My prediction is that Lipsey’s will later release a .357 Magnum version (not that anyone would need it, but it would probably sell well). I also predict a 9mm version. 9mm is the most popular centerfire handgun cartridge in the world, and I believe a 9mm version would sell well, too.
Bushnell scopes have been around forever and they are kind of a generic scope…just as effective as the name brand medication but at a fraction of the cost. I’ve had several that came with rifles I bought, but I never bought a new one until recently. I’m glad I did. I bought the Bushnell Banner 4×12 and it’s a great scope.
The 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope. It’s a surprisingly good scope for well under $100.
The story goes like this: I won a Ruger No. 1 in 243 Winchester in an online auction about 15 years ago. The rifle was a 200th year Liberty model, it looked good, and I stashed it in the safe. I shot it for the first time a month ago, and that’s when I learned I had an accuracy issue. The Ruger came with a period-correct 4×12 Weaver (long since discontinued), which provided plenty of magnification but my groups were embarrassing.
The .243 Ruger No. 1 on the range. The rifle is wearing the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope in this photo.
Let’s go tangential for a second or two: The “4×12” I use above refers to the scope’s variable magnification, which ranges from 4 times actual size to 12 times actual size. With a good scope (one offering optical clarity), you can see the bullet holes in the target at 100 yards when the scope is zoomed up to 12 times actual size.
The Ruger American Bicentennial inscription. It’s on all Rugers made in 1976.
For hunting, I always prefer a straight 4-power scope (i.e., a nonvariable) because of its wider field of view and the fact that I can still hold a pretty tight group with a 4-power scope. Magnifying the target four times is good enough for hunting. That’s especially true on a deer-sized target, but it’s good enough even on rabbits. I’ve sent a lot of Texas jacks to the promised land with a simple 4-power Redfield on my .30 06 Ruger No. 1.
The scope companies pretty much all say that you should keep a variable scope at low magnification to acquire the target, and then zoom it up for a more precise aim. But I’ll tell you that’s just marketing hype, it’s laughable, and it’s a lot of baloney. When I’m hunting and I see a game animal, the adrenal glands go into overdrive. It’s all I can do to remember to take the safety off, and I can remember a few times when I forgot to do that. The thought of seeing a target, acquiring it in the scope at low magnification, taking the safety off, lowering the rifle, increasing the zoom, raising the rifle again, reacquiring the target, and then squeezing the trigger is ludicrous. Nope, for hunting purposes, a straight 4-power scope is the way to go for me. On the other hand, when I’m on the range, I just leave the variable scopes at their highest magnification. In short, I don’t need a zoomable scope. But the marketing guys know better, I guess, and that means they weather vane to variable scopes. That’s pretty much all you see these days.
But I digress. Let’s get back to the main attraction, and that’s the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope on my .243 No. 1 rifle. This all started when I loaded some brass good buddy Johnnie G sent my way. The rifle would not consistently hold a zero, and even when it did, it shot grapefruit-sized groups. My thought was that the old 4×12 Weaver scope that came with the rifle had conked out, so I replaced it with another inexpensive scope I had laying around (an older Bushnell Banner 3×9 scope that is probably 50 years old). While mounting the older 3×9 Bushnell, I checked both Ruger rings (front and rear) to make sure they were secure. They seemed to be, but they were not (more on that below). I took the No. 1 (now wearing the older model Bushnell Banner) to the range. The accuracy situation did not improve.
The 4-12X Weaver scope that came with the 200th year .243 Ruger No. 1. That scope may still be good; I’ll have to mount it on another rifle to confirm that.
So I removed the older 3×9 Bushnell and the Ruger rings. That’s when I discovered that the front ring was not secure. It had felt like it was, but it fooled me (which is not too hard to do). Ruger provides rings with their centerfire rifles and they are good, but the rings on this rifle were muey screwed up. The clamp (the bolt with the angled head) on the front ring was mangled, and both the nut and the clamp were gunked up with some sort of adhesive (probably Loctite, but who knows). I think what had happened was the clamp could be tightened on the mangled part of the clamp’s angled surface. The buggered-up clamp was not properly positioned in the mounting surface and the caked-on adhesive compounded the felony. Under recoil, the forward ring was moving around.
A Ruger scope ring. Ruger provides two of these with each of their centerfire rifles.The Ruger scope ring clamp. It’s a bolt with an angled surface (denoted by the right arrow) that clamps onto a machined crescent on the rifle’s scope mounting surface. The threads on mine were caked with an adhesive.The Ruger scope ring nut. It’s what threads on to the clamp shaft in the photo above.
The Ruger No. 1’s forward scope ring. This was not firmly mounted because the clamp had been damaged by Bubba gunsmithing. God must love Bubbas; He sure made a lot of them.
I recut the clamp ‘s angled surface with a file to eliminate the mangled portion and reblued the clamp using Birchwood Casey Cold Blue, and I wire-brushed as much of the adhesive as I could from the clamp’s threaded shaft with a bore brush. I then worked the clamp into the nut until I cleaned out the remaining adhesive on the nut. I reinstalled the ring and satisfied myself that this time it was secure.
The Bushnell Banner box. The scope was nicely packaged.The Bushnell Banner’s parallax adjustment ring. These really work.The Bushnell Banner’s quick adjust focusing rear ring. It’s a nice feature.The Bushnell Banner’s adjustment knobs after their covers had been removed. These have a nice feel, with a distinct tactile click for each 1/4-inch adjustment. You don’t need any tools to make these adjustments. It’s first class.
When my new 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope arrived a few days after I ordered it on Amazon, I was impressed with its appearance. I even liked the box. I looked through the scope and was impressed with its optical clarity. These inexpensive Banner scopes have continued to improve over the years, and this one looks great.
The Bushnell Banner’s operator’s manual. It contains basic information about mounting and boresighting the scope.
The Bushnell scope has a lifetime warranty and it came with what I thought was an impressively thick operating manual. The manual is printed in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), so it was only one fifth as thick as it first appeared to be. But it was still a good manual. The scope also came with lens covers, which is a nice touch.
The Bushnell has other features that are important to me. It has a quick focus ring at the rear to focus the reticle, and it has a parallax adjustment feature on the objective end (the front of the scope). Parallax adjustment has become increasingly important to me; it minimizes the scope’s susceptibility to slightly different eye positions. You adjust for parallax by moving your eye around and making sure the reticle stays centered on the target.
The Bushnell has removable windage and elevation adjustment dial covers, and windage and elevation adjustment can be made by hand (no special tools are required). Each click represents 1/4-inch of movement on a 100-yard target, which is pretty much the standard on scopes.
The Bushnell has a 40mm objective lens, which I think is about right. It looks right and still allows the scope to be mounted low on the rifle. Some scopes go bigger with 50mm objectives, but I think they look silly. These bugeye scopes have to sit higher on the rifle (which makes sighting through them difficult). Nope, for me a 40mm objective is as big as I care or need to go.
Although I own a boresigting device that mounts on the barrel, I prefer not to use it. The thought of potentially damaging a rifle’s crown, which a boresighting device can do, is not something I want to entertain. I boresight the old-fashioned way: I’ll set the rifle up in a rest, look through the bore (from the breech end) and move the rifle around until a 50-yard target is centered in the bore. Then, without moving the rifle, I’ll adjust the scope’s windage and elevation until the reticle is approximately centered on the target. Once I’ve done that, I’ll fire one shot and see where it hits. I’ve actually done this and had the impact be on the target with that first shot, but it took four shots this time. After each shot, I adjusted the windage and elevation to get the next shot two inches below my point of aim at 50 yards, and then switch to a target at 100 yards to finalize the adjustment.
On the range at the West End Gun Club. The first target is at 50 yards; the second set of targets is at 100 yards. I used the first target for boresighting and initial scope adjustment.To boresight the scope, you look for the target through the rifle’s bore. It appears to be a little offset in this photo because it was difficult to get the camera aligned with the bore, but you get the idea. You want the target centered when looking through the barrel.I used PPU (PRVI Partizan) 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets for this round of load development. The Ruger has a 1 twist in 10 inches rate. A 100-grain bullet is right at the edge of stability with this twist rate; lighter bullets should be more accurate.Another shot of the PPU 100-grain bullets. There’s a long bearing area on that bullet.I used two propellants for this test series: IMR 7828 and IMR 4166. The IMR 4166 performed better than the IMR 7828 load and it reduced the copper fouling in the bore.
For this outing, I had loaded two groups of .243 ammo, both using PRVI Partizan 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets. One load had 43.0 grains of IMR 7828 propellant; the other group had 34.5 grains of IMR 4166 propellant. I used the IMR 4166 ammo last. IMR 4166 was one of those new powders that is supposed to not leave copper deposited in the rifling (I’ll explain why I used the past tense in a second). I wanted to use it to minimize the cleaning after shooting the rifle.
So how did it all work? The IMR 7828 load didn’t perform well as the IMR 4166 load. The IMR 7828 load was shooting 2 1/2 to 4-inch groups. Part of that was due to the Ruger’s twist rate (1 in 10), which is marginal for a heavy (for the .243) 100-grain bullet. But I was surprised with the last group of the day, which was with IMR 4166 powder.
The last shots of the day, and the last of the loads with IMR 4166 propellant.
Four of the five shots went into 0.889 inch; the fifth shot opened the group up to 1.635 inches. That fact that the IMR 4166 grouped much better might be due to the fact the propellant may have removed some of the copper fouling (it appeared to have a lot less copper fouling when I cleaned the rifle later), it might be due to the fact that IMR 4166 is a faster powder compared to IMR 7828, it might have been me, or it might be a statistical fluke. You might think this would push me to develop a load with IMR 4166, but unfortunately the powder has been discontinued (I’m on my last bottle). Future load development work for this rifle will be with lighter bullets and other powders with burn rates similar to IMR 4166. Varget comes to mind. I’ll keep you posted.
I know, I’m digressing again. I started out with the intent to do a product review on the Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope, which I think I did, but I morphed into a bit of load development work for the .243 Ruger No. 1. On my intended topic: The Bushnell Banner is a great scope, and it performs way beyond what it’s sub-$100 price would indicate (I paid $72 for mine on Amazon). If you’re looking for a good low-priced scope, the Bushnell is hard to beat. I like it so much I’m going to by another one for another Ruger, but that’s a story for another time.
I’ve never had any desire to hunt African game and I probably never will. But I’ve enjoyed reading about the African plains rifles since I was a kid in junior high school. Bringing a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine to school would probably get you a quick trip to the principal’s office these days…but I digress.
Exquisite walnut is often found on the older Ruger No. 1 rifles.
Quite a few years ago I saw an old Ruger No.1 Tropical in the consignment rack of a small gun shop that is now long gone. The owner said, “just pick it up and feel the heft.” And of course, I did and the next thing you know we were talking price, knowing I would never pay $2,000 for a collectible Ruger No. 1. Shaun confided in me that the rifle’s owner couldn’t find the obsolete 405 ammo for it anywhere and he wasn’t a handloader, so he wanted to sell the rifle. Another problem with the rifle was that a previous owner had cut down the front sight, probably because he had been shooting handloads with .41 caliber pistol bullets. So we settled on $500 and I became the owner of my first “unobtainable” Ruger No. 1!
In the gun shop years ago eyeing the Ruger No. 1. Salesman Shaun said, “hand me your phone and let me take a photo of you so you can see how good you look with that rifle!” Shaun passed away a couple of years ago, but I know he smiled down from Heaven yesterday as I fired the Ruger No. 1H Tropical for the first time. And he was right, this gun was meant for me!
It took me a lot of searching over the past few years, but I finally located a set of 405 Win reloading dies, the shell holder, and all the components to bring this rifle back to life.
Hornady had made a run of new 405 Winchester brass and I was lucky enough to find a new old stock box of 50 shells. I also located some new Barnes .412, 300-grain TSX bullets.
The first step in restoring the old 1H Tropical was to contact Ruger and purchase a new gold bead front sight. That was a simple install as the blade is held in place by a small detent spring.
New Ruger NOS gold bead front sight blade installed.
Not wanting to use the expensive Barnes TSX bullets quite yet, lead bullets were cast from lead wheel weights with a bit of tin added using a Lyman 412263 plain base mold to cast 288 grain bullets. These were sized to 0.413 inch and lubed with Alox. Lyman has since discontinued this fine old bullet mold.
A Lyman 412263 bullet, lubed and sized.
Finally, yesterday morning I decided it was time to resurrect this old rifle! Besides, the project would give me the opportunity to test some old “salvage” Hodgdon 4198 powder I’ve had sitting on the shelf for nearly two decades. The powder is probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. I also had some ancient CCI 200 large rifle primers on hand.
Hodgdon “salvage” 4198 smokeless powder. The powder is probably WW II US Military surplus powder that Hogdon bought in bulk and repackaged in the late 1950s or early 1960s.Vintage components for a vintage cartridge.
I loaded 20 rounds of 405 Winchester ammo using the cast lead bullets and a starting load of 38.5 grains of 4198 and headed down the hill with good friend Yvon to an informal shooting range on BLM land.
The obsolete 405 Winchester cartridge (left) and the popular 45-70 Government cartridge (right) used by 1880s plains buffalo hunters of the American west. I don’t shoot buffalo and never will. But I enjoy reviving and firing old guns!
Let me say that this Ruger No. 1H Tropical in 405 Winchester lives again. It shoots incredibly tight groups with the cast bullets and gold bead open sights.
My next project will be to develop a non-lead hunting load using the 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets.
Bringing life back into old obsolete rifles can be tons of fun.
A quick preface before you read Joe Cota’s blog: Wow, we are up to three Joes on ExNotes…Joe Gresh, me, and now, Joe Cota. Joe Cota has contributed a few blogs to us previously (before we implemented our new writers program). When Joe most recently sent this in, I felt it was time to include him as one of our regulars, and with this blog, he is. Joe is one of the good guys. He is a professional geologist, an active off-road racer in Baja California, a handloader and bullet caster of 18 years, and an avid flintlock rifle and pistol shooter. Joe lives in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. When not working or racing trucks and buggies in Mexico, Joe can be found fly fishing at his summer home on the Henry’s Fork River in eastern Idaho.
– Joe Berk
Written on Christmas Day, 2023
Merry Christmas to all 🎄❄️🎅!
A lot of you will be casting and handloading today, some with their new reloading equipment! Here’s something for your consideration that came up on another message board. Powder weight weenies will argue that all handloaders MUST unequivocally weigh each and every single powder charge to one tenth of a grain of powder or less. Some wildly claim that a half-grain (0.5-grain) of powder makes a 50 to 100 feet per second difference or more in rifle cartridge velocity while others often use this as flawed reasoning as back-up for claiming that volume-based powder dispensers, such as the Lee Auto Disc used on turret presses, are highly inaccurate and produce terrible and unacceptable ammunition. This could not be further from the truth! Let’s bust some reloading myths.
The variation that my ancient Lee Auto Disk throws is about 0.1 to 0.2 grain, depending on if I am using ball powders versus extruded powders. The photos below is what 0.5 grain of Hodgdon H4831 SC extruded rifle powder looks like. For reference, the variation in powder charges that my Lee Auto Disc throws is less than half of the 0.5 grain of H4831 shown in the photo.
So what does a half-grain of powder actually mean in terms of velocity in a typical big game hunting rifle? Let’s explore a real life example. I load .300 Weatherby Magnum ammunition with 168-grain bullets and H4831SC powder. Per the Hodgdon Reloading Data Center, the starting load is 74 grains (which provided 2,865 feet per second in their test rifle) and the maximum load is 81 grains (which provided 3107 feet per second in their rifle). That’s a 242 feet per second difference in velocity over a full 7-grain powder spread. Interpolating these results linearly (a 242 feet per second velocity difference over a 7-grain propellant spread) means that each additional grain of propellant over the minimum powder charger yields an additional 34 feet per second. Therefore, a half grain of powder would make only 17 feet per second difference in velocity! Everyone who uses a chronograph knows that 17 feet per second is typically only a fraction of the extreme velocity spread most rifles and rifle ammo produce.
What about pistol handloads? Take the .45 Colt, using a 255-grain cast lead bullet and Winchester W231 ball powder. The starting load is 5.1 grains (which provides 677 feet per second) and the maximum load is 6.9 grains (which provides 917 feet per second). Using the same methodology as the above rifle computations and comparisons, each 0.1 grain of W231 powder equates to only about 13 feet per second. Again, this is far less than the extreme spread one can expect in .45 Colt ammo.
Does case size matter? I believe it does, but not that much. Take the .223 Remington cartridge, for example, loading 55-grain Hornady bullets with Winchester 748 powder. Straight from the Hornady manual (the 7th Edition), 1 grain of powder between starting and max loads for this combination is 100 feet per second per grain of powder, or 10 feet per second for each 0.1 grain. And again, 10 feet per second is only a fraction of the extreme spread one could expect from perfectly identical powder charges.
So variations in powder volume does matter a little more in the smaller rifle cartridges, but not enough to make anyone steer clear of auto powder dispensers on turret presses versus individually weighing each charge. Richard Lee was right when he wrote in his Modern Reloading book that powder volume is more critical than weight and that one should periodically weigh a charge only as a double check for volume.
So there’s little justification for being a Tenth of a Grain Weight Weenie! Don’t be THAT guy who bashes turret press and powder dispenser users based on misconceptions posted by folks on the Internet.
Happy handloading and a prosperous new year to all!
In a prior blog I described bidding on a Ruger .357 Blackhawk that had been owned by Hank Williams, Jr. The Rock Island Auction folks predicted the gun would sell for between $900 and $1,600, and I wanted it so I put in a bid at $2,000 (which I thought was ridiculously high). That gun sold for $5,000. There are evidently guys out there who have the disease worse than me.
The Hank Williams, Jr., Ruger .357 Magnum Blackhawk. It sold for $5,000. The buyer’s premium on top of that would have been nearly a thousand bucks!
Then last month another Rock Island auction rolled around, and this one had a Ruger .357 Bisley. The concept and history of the Bisley is interesting. Bisley is the name of a target range in England, and when Colt introduced a target variant of its famed Single Action Army revolver in 1894, they named it the Colt Bisley. The most obvious differences between the Bisley and a standard Single Action Army is the Bisley’s longer grip with a more pronounced hump. Colt’s Bisley also had a rear sight that is adjustable for windage and interchangeable front sight posts for elevation adjustment.
Ruger introduced a modern Bisley version of its Blackhawk revolver line in 1985 (with revolvers chambered in .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 Colt). I always thought the Ruger Bisley was a marketing thing and I thought the Bisley’s odd-shaped handle was visually unappealing, so I never felt the need for one. But needs and wants can change. A friend of mine let me try his .357 Magnum Ruger Bisley a few years ago. I liked its heft and slightly longer barrel (7 1/2 inches versus the standard Blackhawk’s 6 1/2 inches). Ruger stopped making the .357 Magnum Bisley a few years after it was introduced, and they are hard to find now.
A sense of scale: Ruger .357 Bisley, Ruger .357 Blackhawk, Ruger .44 Super Blackhawk, and Uberti Colt Walker. They are all big guns.
The modern Ruger Bisley has a massive appearance, and that’s kind of cool. At 7 1/2 inches, the barrel is an inch longer than the .357 Blackhawk and the Bisley has the larger grip frame. The Bisley grip frame feels awkward to me, but it is easier on the hand under heavy recoil. I’m probably just used to the standard Blackhawk grip frame. For me, the larger Super Blackhawk grip frame is the best of all.
Some might call these big guns horse pistols, which have been defined as handguns usually carried in a holster while riding a horse. The Bisley is smaller than a Colt Walker (a monster of a handgun), but by any other measure the Bisley is a huge revolver. It is heavier than the regular .357 Magnum Blackhawk for four reasons: The unfluted cylinder, the longer barrel, the grip is larger, and the gripframe is made of steel instead of aluminum.
Ruger’s .357 Magnum Blackhawk (on the left) and their .357 Bisley (on the right). Note the difference in the grip shape and length.
The Rock Island folks guessed that the Ruger Bisley would go for between $600 and $900 on their website before the auction. I bid $600. I wanted it, but not so badly that I was willing to go crazy, which is kind of what my previous results told me you had to be to win in the Rock Island crazy competition. To my great surprise, I won the Bisley with my $600 bid. Then I received the emailed invoice and I was even more surprised. There was a 17.5% buyer premium, which tacked another $105 to the price. There was a 3.5% credit card fee, so that was $21. The gun had to ship 2nd day air to my FFL, and that was $46. There was insurance, and that added $7.05. And of course, the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia sales tax for another $60.39. My $600 Bisley suddenly became an $839.44 toy and it hadn’t even arrived. When it did, there was the California DOJ fee and the FFL transfer fee ($74.90). My $600 Bisley was now up to $914.34. I guess that’s okay, though. If I had seen a .357 Ruger Bisley in new condition for a thousand bucks, I would have pulled the trigger (literally and figuratively) and felt good about it. In that sense, I was $85.66 ahead of the game.
Another difference between Ruger’s standard .357 Magnum Blackhawk and the Bisley is the cylinder. The standard Blackhawk has a fluted cylinder; the Bisley has an unfluted and roll-engraved cylinder.
When I saw the gun in person (the day I started my 1o-day waiting period), I was blown away (figuratively speaking, of course). I could see that it was in excellent condition. The quality, fit, and finish are light years ahead of what Ruger is producing these days. You’ll recall that when I lost the Hank Williams Auction I bought a new Ruger .357 Blackhawk and its quality was terrible. The Ruger Bisley’s quality appears to be much better in both fit and finish. I looked up the Bisley’s serial number on Ruger’s website and learned that my gun was manufactured in 1986; I guess Ruger cared more about what was leaving the factory back then.
I’ve been to the range a couple of times with my Bisley. On my first day out with the new-to-me Ruger, one of my friends (a bench rest shooter) came over to watch. There was an old bowling pin laying on its side on the 100-yard line. You know the situation…like the bad guy in an old western movie, it was just begging to be shot. I asked my friend to spot for me. The first shot went high, kicking up a dust cloud about three feet above the pin. I held lower and my second shot sent up another dust cloud two feet below the pin. Okay, I had the elevation dialed in (I wasn’t actually adjusting the Bisley’s sights; I was just holding the front post at different heights). My third shot hit just to the right. On my fourth shot I nailed it, sharply kicking the bowling pin back 10 yards and spinning it violently. Now, just the pin base was facing me, presenting a 3-inch diameter circle. “Okay, let’s see you make that shot,” my friend said. I did, and the pin was kicked back another 10 yards. I looked back and smiled. “Piece of cake,” I said, and we both had a good laugh.
25-yard targets shot with the .357 Magnum Ruger Blackhawk (left) and the .357 Magnum Ruger Bisley (right).
On a subsequent range outing I compared the Bisley’s accuracy to the regular Blackhawk using the same heavy .357 Magnum load in both revolvers (8.0 grains of Unique and the Hornady 158-grain XTP jacketed hollow point bullet). They both shoot groups that were about the same size, and both are biased with the sights adjusted as far as they will go. The regular Blackhawk shoots high at 25 yards with the rear sight all the way down (the front sight is not tall enough). The Blackhawk prints about 3 inches high at 25 yards with the rear sight adjusted as low as it will go. I’ve contacted Ruger and they sent me their shortest rear sight blade for the Blackhawk, but that’s the one the revolver already had in it. Custom gunsmiths offer a taller front sight (Fermin Garza comes to mind), but I don’t know if I want to do that. It’s custom work I shouldn’t have to pay for.
The Bisley’s elevation is okay at 25 yards, but it shoots to about one inch to the left at 25 yards. When I received the revolver from Rock Island Auctions, the rear sight had been cranked almost all the way to the right by the former owner. He ran out of adjustment range and the gun still shoots to the left of my aim point. I thought that the leftward bias could be due to a poor ejector rod shroud fit, or it may just be due to the fact that I was shooting max loads and it’s how the gun reacts in my hand. I fired a few rounds of .38 Special wadcutters and the gun still shot to the left, so I don’t think it is a function of how hot a load I’m shooting or how it reacts to my grip. Then I took the ejector rod shroud off to see if that would make a difference. The ejector rod shroud was very poorly fit to the Bisley and it was pulling the barrel to the right, but when I took it off, the point of impact did not change. You would think the manufacturer would deliver a gun that shot to a point that was within the gun’s adjustable sight range. I’ve been inside a revolver manufacturing facility (not Ruger), and all they do is proof each gun with a high pressure load; that other manufacturer did not check where the gun printed. Ruger evidently does not, either.
The regular Ruger Blackhawk ejects all cases easily (even with the max loads I was using). The Bisley does not. With the max loads I shot in the Bisley, one chamber wants to hang on to the cartridge case. Less than max loads (38 Special and mid-range .357 mag loads) eject satisfactorily from the Bisley. The Bisley has a sloppy surface finish inside its chambers (there are machine marks from the chamber reaming operation). It shouldn’t have left the factory back in 1986 like that, but it did.
There’s one other quality-related observation on the Bisley I should mention. The Bisley makes a firing pin primer indentation in the primer that is bigger and deeper than any I have ever seen. Looking at the firing pin after it has been hit by the hammer, it looks bigger and sticks out of the breech face more than I am used to seeing. I had a bunch of max load .357 rounds with Aventuras primers I had assembled earlier, and Bisley pierced the primers on the first five (so I didn’t shoot any more of those). The firing pin is smooth and round (there are no sharp edges on it); it’s just taking the primer cup material near enough to its yield point that the pressure takes it the rest of the way. These same cartridges worked fine in my regular (i.e., non-Bisley) Blackhawk with no pierced primers, and the same .357 load with CCI primers and Winchester primers worked fine in the Bisley. Note to self: Don’t use Aventuras primers for hot .357 loads in the Bisley.
The Bisley’s firing pin in the extended position. It’s smooth, but big.Pierced primers on .357 Magnum cartridges loaded with 8.0 grains of Unique, the 158-grain Hornady XTP jacketed hollow point bullet, and Aventuras primers.
So there you have it. My knowledge base on the Ruger .357 revolvers continues to grow (and yours does, too, if you’re reading this). I’m still looking for that perfect .357 Magnum revolver. I’ve owned a bunch over the last 50+ years, and I’ll keep looking. I still dream about wandering into a rural pawnshop somewhere and finding a brass grip Blackhawk like that Hank Williams, Jr., Ruger for $200. You never know.
The New Year hits tonight. The years keep rolling by and it’s time for my 2024 resolutions. I’ve made a few, and with your indulgence, I’ll share them here.
I’m going to continue to hold my tongue (and my keyboard) on all things political. I’ve never seen anyone read a social media post or a blog or listen to someone with an opposing viewpoint and suddenly exclaim, “ah, now I understand…of course you’re right, and I was wrong all along…” Nope, the era of intelligent political discourse ended in the 1960s with the Vietnam War protests. Back then, and now, everyone is convinced their opinion is the only true path. I’m never going to call anyone ever again a leftwing idiot or a rightwing idiot, partly because of this resolution and partly because I hate being redundant.
I’m going to stop getting upset with people at the gym tying up machines while screwing around on their cell phones. Nope, you can sit on a machine and text to your heart’s content. I’ll just move on to another piece of equipment. Someday, though, when you’re standing in front of the Pearly Gates, you’ll have to answer. And I’ll be there. Just in case there are any questions.
I’m going to lose weight. The answer is to use that calorie tracker on my cell phone and exercise. Really. This time I mean it. I want to be skinny like Gresh.
I’m going to cook more, but in line with the resolution above I’ll eat less. I do a great barbequed salmon, a marvelous Italian meat sauce, delicious stuffed shells, a wonderful chili, incredible stuffed peppers, a great wild pork sausage and mushrooms casserole, tasty chicken tostadas, and a few others. I want to try making my own chile rellenos this year and find at least three more dishes to add to my repertoire.
I’m going to sell a few guns. I own too many to enjoy and more than a few that I don’t shoot. It’s time to convert these investments into cash and let others have some fun.
I’m going to ride my motorcycle and my bicycle more. I’ve slowed down on my riding quite a bit in the last three years. Part of it is the pandemic…law enforcement on our public roads has dropped to nearly nothing, and there are too many people driving like maniacs out there…speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, and screwing around on their cell phones. I’ve been hit by cars twice in my life while on two wheels (once on a motorcycle and once on a bicycle), and I don’t care to add a third bone-breaking event to my resume. But I haven’t been riding enough and I want to get out and ride. Get my knees in the breeze. You know the feeling.
It’s time to put more pork on the table. I’m going to do at least two hunts in 2024. One will be a varmint hunt for coyotes in Arizona with Baja John; the other will be a pig hunt with my 6.5 Creedmoor (location to be determined). If you’re a vegetarian or fundamentally opposed to hunting, you have my permission to skip any blogs I write about these events.
I’m not going to buy any more watches. I came across Segal’s Law last year, which holds that a man with a watch knows what time it is, but a man with many watches is never sure. I’m the guy who’s never sure, raised to an exponent.
I’m going to do Baja again, most likely in March so I can see the whales, eat a chile relleno in San Ignacio, and visit Javier at the La Casitas in Mulegé. I think Gresh wants to go, too. Maybe we’ll get our other ExNotes writers in on the action. You’ll read all about it here on ExNotes.
I’m retiring, for real this time. I’ll still write for the ExNotes blog and Motorcycle Classics magazine (I enjoy writing for both and I never viewed either as work), but I’m done with everything else. It’s time.
There you go…my 2024 resolutions. How about yours?
I recently posted a blog about a couple of accuracy loads for the 6.5 Creedmoor Browning X-Bolt. This blog focuses on a different Browning: A .223 Browning Micro Medallion A-Bolt. It’s the rifle you see here.
I bought the A-Bolt new from a local gun shop in southern California about 35 years ago. I paid $339 for it. It doesn’t have fancy walnut but when I saw it on the rack I asked to see it. I soon as I held it I wanted it. It just felt right. I fancied it as a walking around varmint rifle suitable for rabbits and coyotes, although I’ve never taken this rifle anywhere but the West End Gun Club 100-yard rifle range. I still make gun purchase decisions based on the kind of hunting and shooting I did 50 years ago in Texas. Someday I may get out and chase jack rabbits and coyotes with this rifle again. I can dream.
The right side of the Micro Medallion.
Browning offered their A-Bolt Medallion series, which were full-sized rifles, and their A-Bolt Micro Medallions, which have a shorter barrel and a shorter stock. The Browning Medallions and Micro Medallions were discontinued a few years ago when Browning shifted to the X-Bolt rifle, but you can still find the Micro Medallion A-Bolt rifle on the used gun racks and on the gun auction boards. A recent check showed that they go for around $650.
The rifle you see here is Browning’s Micro Medallion. I like the smaller size. It’s a lighter rifle and the shorter stock fits me well. I don’t like the gloss finish, but at the time it was all Browning offered (they later offered a satin finished rifle). What’s nice about the gloss finish, though, is that it has held up well. It and the deep bluing make this firearm look brand new. I like the rifle’s cut checkering and the darker fore end pistol grip tips, too. Browning made a big deal about their rifle’s short bolt angle in their advertising back in the 1980s and 1990s (bolt angle is the angle the bolt turns through to allow extraction, ejection, and loading). I like it, but if the rifle had a c0nventional bolt throw it wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s something different, but it’s not necessary. It is cool.
Fairly plain, gloss finished walnut. The Browning’s bolt throw is a short 60 degrees, much less than a conventional bolt action rifle’s 90 degrees. The rifle’s bluing is amazing.A nice rifle. I use the notepad to keep track of which load I fire at which target.Cut checkering on the Browning. These rifles were manufactured in Japan. They did a nice job.The fore end tip and the pistol grip have rosewood caps. They look good.
Shortly after I bought the rifle, I mounted an inexpensive 4X Tasco scope on it. That worked okay for a couple of years and then the scope called it quits, so I bought another inexpensive 4X scope (a Nikko this time). The Nikko has held up well.
You might wonder: Why a nonvariable 4X scope? Why not the more popular 3-9X you see on most rifles? In my opinion, the 4X is a lot more useable in the field. I don’t get dramatically better groups with higher magnification scopes, and I like the lightness and the much larger field of view a 4X offers. Unfortunately, not too many companies offer fixed power 4X scopes these days. The scope companies’ marketing has convinced everyone they need variable scopes with high magnification.
The Nikko 4X scope was inexpensive. It has parallax and focus adjustments. Not the roll engraving on the receiver.
In my recent blog about the Browning maple Medallion 6.5 Creedmoor X-Bolt, I described a couple of accuracy loads I developed for that rifle. This time, my objectives were different. I wasn’t shooting the .223 Micro Medallion for accuracy. I was harvesting brass.
Bulk Remington .223 ammunition. It comes in a big plastic bag. I counted out 100 rounds for this range session.A macro shot of the bulk Remington .223 ammo. Note the crimp applied to each round. I generally find that uncrimped ammo is more accurate with this cartridge. I think the crimping induces a bit of tilt in the bullet.
Several years ago I scoured the Internet looking for Remington brass. I’ve always had good luck with Remington brass (it lasts longer and it provides better accuracy, in my opinion). At that time and to my surprise, loaded Remington bulk ammo was cheaper than unprimed brass. For me it was a no brainer: I ordered a thousand rounds of loaded .223 Remington bulk ammo. When I need .223 brass, I’ll shoot up a bunch of the bulk ammo to get the brass.
The bulk Remington ammo was notoriously inaccurate in my Ruger Mini 14, which is the only rifle I had previously used with this ammunition. I wanted to see how the ammo would shoot in the Browning. I knew the Browning was accurate based on previous range testing at 100 yards (some of my reloads would shoot into a quarter of an inch in the Browning; I’ll give you those loads at the end of this blog).
The Remington ammo did well enough in the Browning. It held loads right around a minute and a half of angle at 100 yards, and it printed about where the scope was zeroed. Take a look:
Cheap ammo, but results that weren’t too shabby. I could hunt with this load.
This accuracy is good enough for minute of jackrabbit or coyote. The Browning Micro Medallion rifle is fun to shoot, too. It has negligible recoil, the shorter Micro Medallion barrel helps to keep the weight down, and it connects well at 100 yards.
About the accuracy loads I mentioned above: In a previous load development effort I tested .223 loads in several rifles, including two Remington 700 varmint guns with bull barrels and big scopes. To my surprise, the Micro Medallion and its 4X scope had no problem running with the big guns and their much heavier barrels and much higher magnifications. Here’s how the Micro Medallion and three other .223 rifles grouped a few years ago at 100 yards:
The Browning Micro Medallion shot half-inch groups with ARComp propellant (and it was basically a minute-of-angle rifle with nearly all other loads). I’ll reload the brass harvested from this range session with the Hornady V-Max bullet and ARComp propellant. This is great performance, especially considering the lightweight barrel and the 4X scope. It’s a great rifle.
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The creek is dry and getting to the West End Gun Club is a lot easier these days, so I reloaded some 6.5 Creedmoor ammo in the brass good buddy Johnnie G sent to me. I wanted to try a couple of new loads in my maple-stocked X-Bolt.
A right side view of the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. Note the muzzle brake on the end of the barrel.
I bought the X-bolt when I saw the wood, and it had a cross-country ride and a half to get to me. I saw it in a shop in Lamar, Colorado, and I knew I had to own the Browning as soon as I saw it. You don’t see many rifles with wood of this caliber.
There was a problem, though. The Colorado shop owner wouldn’t ship it to California. There’s an extra hoop or two a dealer has to jump through to ship a gun to California and I guess folks in Colorado aren’t basketball players. Here’s where capitalism came to the rescue. There’s a guy in Virginia who makes a living off of these kinds of situations, so I had the Colorado dealer ship it to the Virginia dealer, who then shipped it to my dealer in California. None of these dealers did so for free (going to Colorado-to-Virginia-to-California route wrapped the Browning in another $100 bill, and you can guess who had to pay up). But that’s okay. I wanted the rifle and now I have it. It really is an exquisite firearm. And it is exquisitely accurate. I’ll get to that in a minute.
I mounted a 4×12 Vortex scope on the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor. Check out the roll engraving on the receiver.Another view of the 6.5 Creedmoor Vortex scope. The scope includes a parallax adjustment on the objective lens.A macro shot of the receiver’s roll engraving. It’s a nice touch.The stock has a darker wood fore end tip. It’s a classy rifle. The action is glass bedded from the factory.The X-Bolt has a muzzle brake. The bluing is fine; that’s powder residue you see on it. I can feel a light puff a fraction of a second after the bullet leaves the barrel.
I used the Hornady 140-grain full metal jacket boat tail bullet for two loads I wanted to test; one with IMR 4350 propellant and the other with XBR 8208 propellant.
Reloaded 6.5 Creedmoor ammo with Winchester brass and the 140-grain jacketed hollow point boat tail bullet. It’s good looking ammo.The business end of the 140-grain Hornady bullets.
The loads showed no signs of excess pressure after firing. The bolt opened easily and the primers were not flattened.
Winchester brass, and unflattened Winchester large rifle primers.
I full length resized the 6.5 Creedmoor brass because I have two rifles chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor (see our earlier story, A Tale of Two Creedmoors). The alternative approach is to neck size the brass only (which can theoretically offer improved accuracy), but when you neck size the brass the reloaded ammo will only fit into the rifle in which the brass was previously fired. I didn’t want to try to keep my ammo segregated by rifle, and as it turns out, I don’t need to. The full length resized 6.5 Creedmoor brass provided great 100-yard results in the Browning X-Bolt rifle with both the XBR 8208 and IMR 4350 loads.
The first shot of the day at the upper left target was low and to the left, which is a common occurrence when shooting from a clean and lightly oiled barrel. The next three grouped tightly into the orange target (I could see the bullet holes with the rifle’s 12X scope). I let the barrel cool for a few minutes, and then I fired another three rounds at the upper right target. I was pleased; the load returned an even tighter three shot group in about the same spot as the first group. Both groups, when measured later, were a satisfyingly tight half minute of angle.
I let the barrel cool again, and then I moved on to the IMR 4350 loads. Wow, talk about consistent. Both shot to the same part of the target, and both were exactly the same group size: 0.829 inches.
Two great 6.5 Creedmoor powders: IMR 4350 and XBR 8208.My old RCBS powder trickler still works well.
I had read that IMR 4350 was a “go to” powder for 6.5 Creedmoor accuracy, and my results confirmed that. I had not found much information about XBR 8208 accuracy in this chambering, but it sure seemed to get the job done for me. As the above target shows, the XBR 8208 performed even better than the IMR 4350 loads. Here’s a bit more on info on these two loads:
Both had the Hornady 140-grain bullets seated to an overall cartridge length of 2.800 inches.
I did not crimp the bullets in place.
I did not trim the brass for either load.
The powder charges for both loads were weighed for every cartridge. I used my powder dispenser to drop a little bit lower charge, and then trickled in the last few grains.
I used 31.5 grains of XBR 8208.
I used 39.0 grains of IMR 4350.
I used Winchester brass with Winchester large rifle primers.
So there you have it: Two great 6.5 Creedmoor loads for the Browning maple Medallion.
2. Put the die in a well-padded vise and knock the pin down with a brass or hard plastic mallet. The brass mallet or brass punch works best.
