Tag: IMR 4166

ExNotes Product Review: 4×12 Bushnell Banner Scope

By Joe Berk

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.

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More Mosin Loads

I used to not think too much of Mosin Nagant rifles.  They looked cheap, they were crusted with cosmoline, and how good could a rifle be if it was made in Russia and sold at Big 5 for under a hundred bucks?  (That under a hundred bucks thing, incidentally, is no more…prices on these rifles have climbed substantially.)

It was a grand day on the range with two old warhorses…a Mosin Nagant and a 1903 Springfield. It’s hard to say which one I like more.

Then one day after I taught an engineering creativity class at Cal Poly, one of my students approached me to ask if I was a shooter.  He had noticed the 1909 Mauser on my book.

A Modelo 1909 Argentinean Mauser on the cover of Unleashing Engineering Creativity. Don’t wait for the movie. Buy the book!

I told him I was and we talked about the Mauser a bit.  He told me that he and his father had recently purchased a Mosin Nagant and they were having a lot of fun with it.  That got my attention for a couple of reasons.  The first reason was that prior to that, I hadn’t spoken with anybody who owned a Mosin.  The second reason was that I always like hearing from young folks who enjoy shooting.  This was a young man who was enjoying the Mosin he and his dad owned.  You don’t hear that too much these days, and I enjoyed the discussion and this young engineering student’s enthusiasm.

The next time I was in a gun store….well, you can guess where this story is going.  I pulled the trigger, and 10 days later, I bought my first Mosin home.

20 rounds from my Mosin at 100 yards with my accuracy load: 43.7 grains of IMR 4320 and the Hornady 150-grain jacketed bullet. I shot this in one of our informal West Gun Club Milsurp matches two or three years ago. The shots crept up as the barrel heated.  Still, that’s not a bad 100-yard group from an 80-year-old combat infantryman’s rifle.

The first time I went to the range with the Mosin, my opinion changed completely.  The rifle was reliable, it was fun to shoot, and wow, it was accurate.  Don’t let a Mosin’s appearance and price fool you.  Trust me on this:  The Russians knew what they were doing.  These are fine rifles.

My Mosin was made in the Soviet Union’s Tula arsenal in 1940 and it has matching serial numbers on the receiver, the butt plate, and the bolt.  The trigger guard/magazine is what we call a forced match.  That means it had a different serial number, but Ivan struck through it and stamped a new serial  number to match the others.  That didn’t concern me at all.  What I worry about are the serial numbers on the bolt and the receiver.  If they match, the headspace is most likely good.  If they don’t, you’ll want to make the seller show you with headspace gages that the headspace is within spec.

I’ve done a bit of work to my Mosin…glass bedding, a trigger job, and a TruOil refinish.  I’ve also done a fair amount of load development (the last time my Mosin saw factory ammo it was in the hands of a Russian soldier; I’ve never shot factory ammo in my Mosin).

Note the star signifying Tula Arsenal production, and the 2339 serial number. Mosins will have another serial number on the side of the receiver stamped there by the importer, but that’s not the one you need to worry about.
The bolt serial number matches the receiver serial number on my rifle, and that’s good. If the serial numbers in these two locations don’t match, you should always check that the headspace is within specification.
Note that the butt plate serial number also matches. That’s cool, but it’s not necessary from a headspace or functionality perspective.
A forced match. Ivan grabbed a trigger guard (the trigger guard and the magazine floorplate are a subassembly) that wasn’t on the rifle when it was originally manufactured at the Tula Arsenal in 1940.  Nyet problemski thought the arsenal rebuild crew; we’ll just strike through the old serial number and add the new one.

My 7.62x54R ammo “go to” accuracy load is 43.7 grains of IMR 4320 under a Hornady 150-grain jacketed bullet.  That load groups exceedingly well at 100 yards.   But that’s when I can find the components I want, and that’s a tough thing to do these days.  IMR 4320 is no longer made and it’s hard to find bullets, primers, and brass.

Fortunately, I have always tended to overbuy components and when I spot a good deal on something I think I can use, I scoop it up.  When the pandemic and civil unrest shortages emerged a couple of years ago, I didn’t feel the impact from a components perspective.  I had plenty of 7.62x54R PRVI brass, I had primers, and I had bullets.  That was two years ago, though, and this is now.  I shot up a lot of what I had, including my Hornady .312-inch diameter jacketed bullets.  But when components were available back in those good old pre-pandemic, pre-Portland-anarchy days, I had spotted a couple of bags of PRVI Partizan 150-grain jacketed bullets.  Being the curious pack rat sort of fellow I am, I bought them.

PRVI Partizan (or PPU) 150-grain jacketed softpoint bullets. If you see these, buy them. They’re good. If you see these and don’t buy them, let me know and I will.

Most recently, my components dealer had a few powders on the shelves, and I picked up some new propellants.  I wanted to see if I could work up a good load with the PRVI bullets for my Mosin.  One propellant was IMR 4166, which is a powder designed to prevent copper fouling.  I’ve already tried it in a couple of 30 06 loads and I was happy with the results, and I wanted to see how it would do in the Mosin.  Another was Ballsy 2 (that powder is designated BL(C)2, but everybody calls it Ballsy 2).  IMR 4166 is a relatively new powder.  Ballsy 2 has been around for decades, but I had never used it.  When I saw it, I grabbed a couple of bottles.  The time to buy components is when you see them, especially these days.

Ballsy 2 is a spherical powder. It meters through the powder dispenser well.
IMR 4166 is an extruded rod powder that looks a lot like 4320 and 4064. It doesn’t meter as well as Ballsy 2, but it meters well enough.

I also wanted to try my previous accuracy load (43.7 grains of IMR 4320) with the PPU bullets first.  It didn’t take long to load the ammo I wanted…my previous accuracy load with IMR 4320, two load levels of Ballsy 2, and two load levels of IMR 4166.

Seating the PPU bullets in my RCBS Rockchucker press.

After charging the cases and seating the PPU bullets, I then labeled the ammo and it was off to the range.

7.62x54R reloaded ammunition. It looks good. It shoots well, too.

That labeling thing is important.  I always label my ammo as soon as I finish loading it.  I can’t rely on my memory to know what I loaded.

Loaded and labeled. Reloading is as much fun as shooting, I think.

I shot all of my targets at 50 yards as a first look, and I had 10 rounds each.  The first target I shot printed a little low, so I raised the rear sight a couple of notches and that put me in the black.  The Mosin has great sights.

The rear sight on a Mosin Nagant. You slide the slider forward to raise the rear sight.
The Mosin has a crisp, easy to use front sight post. I actually prefer the sights on the Mosin to most modern rifles (I’m not a brass bead fan). Simple is better, and because the Mosin’s length, it’s very easy to get a crisp front sight picture.

How did I do and what loads worked well?  Here are the targets:

The bullseye on the left was shot with a 1903 Springfield (covered in another blog). The other four bullseyes were Mosin targets with IMR 4320 propellant.
Mosin results with two levels of BL(C)2 propellant.
Mosin groups with IMR 4166 propellant. Everything shot well in the Mosin.

The results from the targets shown here are tabulated below.

The bottom line is that my former accuracy load (with Hornady 150-grain jacketed soft point bullets) didn’t do as well with the PRVI Partizan bullets, but the PRVI bullets shot very well with BL(C)2 and IMR 4166.   That’s good because even though I have a good stash of IMR 4320, it’s no longer in production and the other powders (BL(C)2 and IMR 4166) are available and they are accurate with the PPU bullets.  Good times.

About now you might be wondering…how can I get a Mosin-Nagant rifle?  It’s not as easy as it used to be.  We’re not importing them from Russia like we used to, and you can’t pick them up for cheap at places like Big 5 any more.  I felt they were exceptional bargains at those earlier price levels and I bought several (none are for sale), including a sniper Mosin I’ll write about one of these days.   I checked on Gunbroker.com and you can still find Mosins, but they seem to be starting north of $300 now, and going up sharply from there.  I think they’re still a bargain, even at those prices.

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IMR 4166: A quick look

Necessity is the mother of invention, or something like that.  When I heard that IMR 4320 was discontinued (on top of the ammo and components shortage), I was not a happy camper.  IMR 4320 was my go to powder for several cartridges, and now what I have left is all there is (and it’s almost gone).  But it really doesn’t matter, because we can’t hardly find propellants of any flavor. That notwithstanding, I made the trek to my local components supplier a couple of weeks ago, and he had only three propellants left:  IMR 4166, 8208, and BLC2.  I’ve never used any of these, although I had heard of Ballsy 2.  The 4166 seemed interesting…it matched my motorcycle jacket, but none of my reloading manuals had any data for it (it’s that new).  I bought all three.

I went online and found data published by the manufacturer, so I worked with that for my 30 06.  IMR 4166 is an extruded stick powder.  It will flow through a dispenser, but the dispenser throw variability was about 0.2 grain, and that’s enough when loading for rifle accuracy that I’ll weigh every charge with my scale and trickle it in with my RCBS powder trickler.N Would 0.2 grains make an accuracy difference?  I don’t know (and someday I’ll test to find out).  I suspect not, but weighing every charge only takes a few seconds more, and it seems like the right thing to do.

IMR 4166 is a stick powder that looks like any other stick powder. It’s in a powder trickler in this photo. Yeah, I weigh the powder for every cartridge.

On the IMR website, it said that Enduron IMR 4166 is one of a new class of propellant that offers four adventages:

Copper fouling reduction.  These powders contain an additive that drastically reduces copper fouling in the gun barrel. Copper fouling should be minimal, allowing shooters to spend more time shooting and less time cleaning a rifle to retain accuracy.   Hmm, that might be interesting.  We’ll see how it does, I thought to myself as I read this.

Temperature change stability.  The Enduron line is insensitive to temperature changes. Whether a rifle is sighted in during the heat of summer, hunted in a November snowstorm or hunting multiple locations with drastic temperature swings, point of impact with ammunition loaded with Enduron technology will be very consistent.  In the old days, I might have dismissed this as a solution looking for a problem, but I’ve experienced what can happen in a temperature sensitive powder.  I had a max load for my 7mm Weatherby that was fairly accurate that I took out to the range one day when it was 107 degreees.  I fired one shot and had great difficulty getting the bolt open.  It’s a real issue if you develop a load at one temperature and then shoot it at an elevated temperature.  If IMR 4166 is free from that characteristic, that’s a good thing.

Optimal load density.  Enduron powders provide optimal load density, assisting in maintaining low standard deviations in velocity and pressure, a key feature for top accuracy.   Eh, we’ll see how it does on paper.  I have some loads that are low density (i.e., they occupy well under 100% of the case volume) and they shoot superbly well.   I’m interested in how the load groups.  The target doesn’t give extra credit if an inaccurate load has a low standard deviation.

Environmentally friendly.  Enduron technology is environmentally friendly, crafted using raw materials that are not harmful to the environment.  Okay, Al Gore.  Gotcha.  Now go back to inventing the Internet.

My test bed for the new powder would be a Model 700 Euro in 30 06, a 27-year-old rifle I bought new about 10 years ago.  I had just refinished it with TruOil and glass bedded the action (a story a future blog, to be sure), and I hung a cheapie straight 4X Bushnell scope just to get a feel for how everything might perform.

The Model 700 Euro had a tung oil finish. The rifle was only offered in 1993 and 1994. The tung finish didn’t do it for me, so I did my usual TruOil finish. That’s an old Bushnell 4X economy scope up top.

My load was to be a 180-grain Remington Core-Lokt jacketed soft point bullet and 47 grains of the IMR 4166, all lit off by a CCI 200 primer.  If you’re interested, I was using Remington brass, too.  The cartridges were not crimped.

Loaded 30 06 ammo with the Remington 180-grain jacketed soft point bullet.

Wow, those 180-grain bullets pack a punch.  Recoil was fierce, and I probably felt it more because the Model 700 doesn’t have a recoil pad.

Okay, that’s enough about my heroics.  Let’s take a quick look at how the propellant performed.   With regard to the reduction in copper fouling claim, I’d have to say that’s an accurate claim.  After 20 rounds (the very first through this rifle), I ran a single patch with Hoppes No. 9 though the bore, followed by a clean patch, just to remove the powder fouling.  There was a very modest amount of copper fouling, way less than I would have seen with any other propellant.  Ordinarily, at this point in the cleaning process (i.e., removing the soot) I would normally see a bright copper accent on top of each land.  With 4166, there was only a minimal amount of copper present (as you can see below).   After a second patch with Hoppes No. 9, the copper was gone.  I guess this copper fouling eliminator business is the real deal.

This is a brand new rifle even though it’s nearly 30 years old. Check out the machinings inside the bore. Remington, for shame!

With regard to accuracy, 4166 has potential.  I shot five targets that afternoon, and this was the best.  It’s a 0.590-inch group at 100 yards, and that ain’t too shabby.

Sometimes you just get lucky. Other times you rely on careful load development, glass bedding, and a steady trigger squeeze.

The bottom line for me is that IMR 4166 is a viable powder.  Now, like everyone else, I need to find more.  That’s going to be a challenge.  But at least I know that my IMR 4320 has a decent replacement.