Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
I was going to post, unless you're hunting flies and mosquitos, your caliber had better start with a 5. But I see you're on board!
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Yup. Think if I go larger it will be a smoothbore though... Hit the range with it again today, prior to going and helping my son work on my darn truck clutch/trans issue (we're replacing master/slave cylinders, fighting 30 years of rust has not been fun, finally after 18 hours got the last bolt out and the trans still won't move... argh)
A .530 230ish grain round ball wrapped in a .012 patch over 50ish gr of 3Fg powder (a full 308 case, so somewhere between 53 and 55gr water capacity, subtract 3% or so for BP grains-equivalents) is a pussy cat to shoot, relatively. Upping that to a 100ish grain hunting charge (ie, two 308 cases full of powder) and it still isn't too bad but you know you are shooting a .54. The 425 maxi with a 50ish gr load is about like a 12ga shotgun shooting high brass or buckshot or slugs. With a 90gr load (3 223 cases full) I can only shoot 2 or 3, and my recoil loving son will shoot one or two more than me just to prove a point. Neither of us have gone to the max load of 120gr and don't really see any benefit in doing so.
Before I got this I didn't realize just how much I really wanted a front stuffer rifle, and while I thought that one would suffice I find myself lusting after a different one than I have now (the synthetic stock is not bad, just extremely light and so the rifle has no balance to it) in probably 50 caliber (more variety of bullet choices, about only cal big box stores and even some online vendors carry). After burning 3/4 of a pound of powder I also think I need a small caliber rifle - .36 or .31/32 - and a smoothbore somewhere between .62 and .75 (20ga to 10ga), though for the shotgun I've got a possible plan to convert a old single shot cartridge gun
