Duplicate.45 Colt Black Powder Loads! Handloading the.26 Nosler New Life for the.300 Savage Hodgdon Titegroup: One Size Fits All 175 Loads for the Popular.40 S&W! October 2014 No. 292 Rifle Magazine Presents - HANDLOADER $5.99 10 7 25274 01240 4 Display until 11/22/14 Printed in USA $5.99 U.S./Canada
AMMUNITION RELOADING JOURNAL 8 Reader Correspondence Reloader s Press - Dave Scovill 12 14.357 SIG Bullets & Brass - Brian Pearce When Things Go Wrong Pistol Pointers - Charles E. Petty 16 Cartridge Oddities Mike s Shootin Shack - Mike Venturino 18 Page 38... 22 26 Ruger Redhawk.45 Colt Handloads From the Hip - Brian Pearce.318 Westley Richards Cartridge Board - Gil Sengel Norma 201 Propellant Profiles - R.H.VanDenburg, Jr. 30 38 October 2014 Volume 49, Number 5 ISSN 0017-7393 Issue No. 292.40 Smith & Wesson Loads for a Widely Popular Pistol Cartridge Brian Pearce Handloading the.26 Nosler A 6.5 That Outpaces the.264 Winchester Magnum John Barsness Page 16... 46 Savage s Forgotten Gem Breathing New Life into the.300 Savage Terry Wieland Page 46... 54 Hodgdon Titegroup Handloads for Almost Everything Charles E. Petty 4 Background Photo: 2014 Vic Schendel Handloader 292
On the cover... Glock handguns are used worldwide and the Model 22 was used to develop handloads for the.40 S&W cartridge. Photo by Charles E. Petty. 60 68 Page 68....45 Colt Black-Powder Duplication Loads Mike Venturino What s New in the Marketplace Inside Product News - Clair Rees 74 Measure-Shoot- Measure In Range - Terry Wieland Issue No. 292 October 2014 AMMUNITION RELOADING JOURNAL Publisher/President Don Polacek Publishing Consultant Mark Harris Editor in Chief Dave Scovill Associate Editor Lee J. Hoots Managing Editor Roberta Scovill Senior Art Director Gerald Hudson Production Director Becky Pinkley Contributing Editors John Haviland Ron Spomer Brian Pearce Stan Trzoniec Charles E. Petty R.H. VanDenburg, Jr. Clair Rees Mike Venturino Gil Sengel Ken Waters Terry Wieland Advertising Advertising Director - Tammy Rossi tammy@riflemag.com Advertising Representative - Tom Bowman bowman.t@sbcglobal.net Advertising Representative - James Dietsch jamesdietsch@cox.net Advertising Information: 1-800-899-7810 Circulation Circulation Manager Kendra Newell circ@riflemag.com Subscription Information: 1-800-899-7810 www.riflemagazine.com Handloader (ISSN 0017-7393) is published bimonthly by Polacek Publishing Corporation, dba Wolfe Publishing Company (Don Polacek, Pres ident), 2180 Gulfstream, Ste. A, Prescott, Arizona 86301 (also publisher of Rifle magazine). Tele phone: (928) 445-7810. Periodical Postage paid at Prescott, Arizona, and additional mailing offices. Subscription prices: U.S. possessions single issue, $5.99; 6 issues, $22.97; 12 issues, $39.00. Foreign and Canada single issue, $5.99; 6 issues $29.00; 12 issues, $51.00. Please allow 8-10 weeks for first issue. Advertising rates furnished on request. All rights reserved. Change of address: Please give six weeks notice. Send both the old and new address, plus mailing label if possible, to Circulation Dept., Handloader Magazine, 2180 Gulfstream, Ste. A, Prescott, Arizona 86301. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Handloader, 2180 Gulfstream, Ste. A, Prescott, Arizona 86301. Canadian returns: PM #40612608. Pitney Bowes, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Wolfe Publishing Co. 2180 Gulfstream, Ste. A Prescott, AZ 86301 Tel: (928) 445-7810 Fax: (928) 778-5124 Polacek Publishing Corporation Publisher of Handloader is not responsible for mishaps of any nature that might occur from use of published loading data or from recommendations by any member of The Staff. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Publisher assumes all North American Rights upon acceptance and payment for all manuscripts. Although all possible care is exercised, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for lost or mutilated manuscripts. 6 Background Photo: 2014 Vic Schendel Handloader 292
MIKE S SHOOTIN SHACK By no means am I a cartridge collector. Regardless, for my entire life I have found pleasure from digging about in boxes full of assorted old cartridges just to see what turns up. I ve even been known to buy an entire box of old rounds just so I could paw through it. Mostly what I am actually looking for are photo props. For instance, while writing Shooting World War II Small Arms, I encountered on an Internet website a small box holding one each of the cartridges Japan used in that war, excepting one. I bought it. What excited me wasn t so much the 6.5x50mm semirimmed or 7.7x58mm rimless rounds. While not common, those rounds can be found. I was excited to see the special 7.7x58mm semirimmed cartridge made especially for the Type 92 Nambu heavy machine gun. I m still looking for a sample of the 9mm used in Japan s Type 26 revolvers. Even without the dedication of a true cartridge collector, I ve still managed to come across some interesting oddballs. While in Arizona visiting with an extremely knowledgeable collector of World 16 www.handloadermagazine.com CARTRIDGE ODDITIES by Mike Venturino Here s a rare box of.276 Pedersen cartridges around which the M1 Garand was originally developed. A sample round is shown at left with a 6.5mm Carcano (center) and.30-06 (right) for comparison. War II memorabilia, he showed me a.276 Pedersen cartridge. I actually got excited, which is saying something for someone who has been delving into this stuff since childhood. In the 1920s great military minds in the U.S. determined that our army s standard infantry rifle should be of semiautomatic function. Two Springfield Armory employees, John C. Garand and J.D. Pedersen, were each set to de - signing such. Evidently Mr. Pedersen was the originator of the.276 round, because it bears his name. Anyway, both Garand and Peder- sen designed their new semiautomatic rifles around the.276. By the early 1930s, Mr. Garand s rifle won the competition, but there arose one snag. U.S. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur decreed that the army s new rifle had to remain.30 caliber. It was a logical decision. The government still had millions of rounds of.30-06 ammunition on hand plus other important infantry weapons, such as the Browning Model 1919A4 light machine gun and Model 1918 BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), that were.30 caliber. Redesigning to.276 or replacing them with new models would have been a logistical nightmare. Upon finding a.276 Pedersen round, I hesitantly asked my new friend if I could buy one of those rare cartridges. He generously re - plied, I can do better than that. He gave me an unopened box of them. As much as I hated to do it, that 1929-dated box could not remain unopened. I took out a round for measuring. First off, to my surprise, its bullet isn t.276 inch. It measures.283 inch at the cannelure. The case head is.445 inch compared to the.30-06 s.470 inch. Length is 2.02 inches compared to Handloader 292
This box of cartridges was for the unique Pedersen Device that was used to convert a special version of the 03 Springfield from bolt-action function to semiautomatic. A round is shown with a French 7.65mm Long, the case of which is identical dimensionally. me baffled. The roundnose, lead alloy bullet s diameter is.221 inch just ahead of the case mouth. The cartridge case is bottlenecked in shape with an uncommonly long neck. Rim diameter is.340 inch. Case length is.818 inch and priming is centerfire. There is no headstamp at all. I have not been able to find any reference to a cartridge such as this in any book. Does anyone out there know what it could be? the 06 s 2.494 inches. And this was a great surprise the.276 Pedersen, except for bullet diameter, is very close dimensionally to Italy s 6.5x50mm Carcano. I d like to know how much the.276 s spitzer FMJ bullet weighs but so far can t make myself pull one. Mr. Pedersen was a busy man in those first decades of the twentieth century. With the U.S. embroiled in Europe s trench warfare of 1917/1918, he also designed a device that could be fitted in slightly altered Model 1903 Springfield.30-caliber rifles that converted them from bolt actions to semiautomatics. (Those special 03s were then labeled Mark I.) However, instead of.30-06, the device used a very small.30-caliber pistol cartridge. World War I ended before those Mark I 03 rifles with Pedersen devices and ammunition got into combat. In the early 1930s with Mike has no idea what the cartridge at left is, except it is centerfire with a.221-inch diameter lead bullet. At right is a.45-caliber pinfire cartridge, most likely of French origin. plans for the soon-to-be new semiautomatic rifle to replace 03 Springfields, the government ordered Pedersen devices and stockpiles of its ammunition destroyed. As always some of each slipped through the cracks and still exist; I saw a Pedersen device displayed at a Las Vegas gun show. It was priced in the tens of thousands. This past winter, snowed in and spending too much time perus - ing Internet websites, I stumbled across a box of the.30 Pedersen cartridges for sale and nabbed them. The box is labeled 30 Auto. Pistol Ball Cartridges, Model of 1918. Case length is.776 inch with rim diameter of.331 inch and a case head diameter just ahead of the extractor groove of.333 inch. That case head measurement is close to the.32 Auto, which is a semirimmed case, whereas the.30 Pedersen is rimless. Interestingly, the.30 Auto Pistol/.30 Pedersen was the model used by the French in developing their 7.65mm Long, for which their Model 1935A pistol was chambered. Exterior case dimensions are identical. (A Model 1935A was the very first handgun I owned.) Sometimes friends, knowing of my need for photo prop cartridges, pass on to me their oddities. During this writing, a guy gave me a.45-caliber pinfire round, the only one I ve ever seen in person. Another cartridge I picked out of an assorted box at a gun show has October-November 2014 www.handloadermagazine.com 17
John Barsness Ever since the development of smokeless rifle powders in the 1880s, the emphasis has been toward longerrange performance. The first smokeless cartridges were all military and used heavy roundnosed bullets, apparently because they were used in black-powder cartridges. But soon the heavy, blunt bullets were replaced by lighter, faster pointed bullets, extending range considerably. A 6.5 That Outpaces the.264 Winchester Magnum One accident of this transition was the long-range performance of 6.5mm bullets. Early military 6.5mm rounds used roundnosed bullets in the 155- to 160- grain range, requiring a rifling twist of one turn in about eight inches. One of the oddities of the rifled bore is that as caliber shrinks, faster twists are required to stabilize long bullets, and when the transition to pointy bullets occurred, it was discovered the fast 6.5mm twist could stabilize spitzers of around 140 grains. These held onto velocity very well, making hits at longer ranges possible without a lot of recoil also an important factor. While a.30-caliber spitzer of 200+ grains is also a fine long-range performer, recoil is pretty stout, and accurate long-range shooting requires plenty of practice. This is why 6.5mm cartridges have become popular among what are known as long-range hunters, who consider 400 yards close. They may think their 6.5 Creedmoors and 6.5/.284s are cutting-edge, but Norway and Sweden discovered the virtues of long, sleek 6.5mm bullets over a century ago with the 6.5x55. 38 www.handloadermagazine.com Americans, however, admire sheer speed. We not only invented drag racing but also the.250-3000 Savage (the first commercial cartridge to reach 3,000 fps) and the.220 Swift (the first to reach 4,000 fps). Roy Weatherby developed an entire cartridge lineup with more muzzle velocity than any other commercial rifle rounds in the same calibers. The one caliber missing from the Weatherby magnums, however, is 6.5mm, probably because when Roy started wildcatting, American companies didn t make many 6.5mm bullets but the gap provided Winchester with an opportunity. In the 1950s major American rifle and ammunition makers were feeling considerable heat from Weatherby s success, and in 1958 Winchester split the difference between the.257 and.270 Weatherby Magnums with its.264 Winchester Magnum, the first commercial American 6.5mm cartridge since the.256 Newton 55 years earlier. While Winchester s promotion of the round mentioned the ballistic efficiency of 6.5mm bullets, the 140-grain Power-Point used in the factory load wasn t exceptionally sleek, since it lacked a boat-tail. While the Westerner Model 70 s 26-inch barrel produced as much speed as possible, given the hunting rifle prejudices of the day, the 3,200 fps claimed for the 140- grain load proved to be somewhat optimistic. As a result, most hunters found the.264 didn t do anything the.270 Winchester hadn t already done for decades. While a very few hunters understood how to use special reticles for range estimation and longer shots, out to the practical limit of 400+ yards, there wasn t any significant difference between the two rounds. Laser rangefinders changed all that, and the.264 Winchester Magnum has been revived by long-range hunters. However, even.264 fans have often found exceeding the original 3,200 fps with a 140 elusive in 26-inch barrels at the standard industry pressure of 65,000 psi. As more super-slow powders appeared for cartridges like the.338 Lapua Magnum, shooters started exper - imenting with 6.5s even faster than the.264, and eventually another commercial cartridge appeared, the.26 Nosler. Like the.264 Winchester Magnum, it s designed to work in a.30-06 length magazine, but the beltless case holds 11 percent more powder, resulting in 100 fps more velocity. Nosler also recently introduced an even sleeker Accu - Bond bullet called the AccuBond Long Range (ABLR). The 6.5mm ABLR weighs 129 grains, not 140, but even some long-range hunters have concluded a bullet of about 130 grains is more efficient at practical hunting ranges than a 140. Due to the extra velocity possible with a 130, the increased ballistic coefficient (BC) of a 140 only starts making a difference in wind drift beyond 800 yards. Wind drift is the major factor in longrange accuracy, and most long-range hunters don t Handloader 292
shoot beyond 800. (In fact, few shoot beyond 600, which might be termed the new 400. ) Most hunters, however, own laser rangefinders but haven t embraced twisting elevation turrets, and may not even use a multipoint reticle. Sheer velocity makes a major difference in shorter-range trajectory, and when sighted in dead-on at 350 yards, the.26 Nosler s factory load using a 129 ABLR at 3,400 fps allows holding right on the middle of a typical big-game animal s chest to 400 yards. As a result, the cartridge works both for hunters who don t want to fool with ballistic reticles or elevation turrets and more specialized hunters who shoot farther than 400 yards. Like the.264 Winchester Magnum (left), the.26 Nosler (right) is designed to fit in a.30-06 length magazine but holds about 11 percent more powder than the Winchester. Naturally, considerable speculation about the new round appeared immediately after Nosler s announcement in the fall of 2013. A couple of magazine articles about using a preproduction rifle on a pronghorn hunt appeared but failed to satisfy the Internet crowd, who ve grown used to instant answers about every subject on earth, even if the answers are wrong. Handloader s Dave Scovill suggested I try out a.26 Nosler production rifle, so early in 2014, I Handloading the.26 Nosler October-November 2014 39
Handloading the.26 Nosler contacted Nosler and was promised a rifle as soon as possible. The rifle appeared in May and some loading components and dies followed in June, just before loading data appeared on Nosler s website. They d provided enough predata information to collect the powders Nosler found to work best with 129-grain bullets, but when 140-grain data appeared a couple of weeks later, other powders were included, including two I d never seen in any store, anywhere. However, I did have a decent supply of the powder Nosler indicated shot 140-grain bullets fastest and most accurately, Hodgdon US 869. My supply of AccuBond Long Range 129s was limited, but a few years ago the shooting supply firm Nostalgia Enterprise Company (NECO, 108 Ardmore, Benicia CA 94510; 1-800-451-3550; www.neco nos.com) provided a big box of 130-grain Norma Diamond target bullets. The Normas were used for preliminary testing, saving some of the precious 129 ABLRs. (I assumed Nosler wouldn t be offended by this, since it has worked closely with Norma on many projects. In fact Norma makes the.26 Nosler brass, which proved to be excellent, with very consistent dimensions and weight.) The test rifle was Nosler s Patriot model, at $1,695, and is the lowest priced in the lineup, with a 26- inch medium-contour, one-in-8-inch twist Pac-Nor barrel. I mounted a 10x40 Leupold Mark 4 that s proven both tough and precise on The test rifle was Nosler s M48 Patriot, the company s least expensive model. many rifles over the past several years, in Seekins tactical mounts. With scope, the rifle weighed 9.25 pounds, but for hunting I d probably mount a 6x36 Leupold in Talley Lightweight rings, bringing the weight down to around 8 pounds. (Some people may think 6x isn t enough for long-range hunting, but it makes deer and elk at 600 yards appear 100 yards away.) Loads were worked up with the five powders listed by Nosler in its 129-grain data, using four-shot groups. Three-shot groups have become the standard for hunting rifles in the past several decades, but I ve come to distrust their re - liability. Mainly they re used because three is the smallest number that can be called a group (two shots is a pair), and they result in more one-hole braggers than groups including more shots. Plus, most hunters believe group Left, the bullets tested ranged from 129 to 156 grains. Below, standout powders were Ramshot Magnum with 129- and 130-grain bullets, and Hodgdon US 869 with heavier bullets; both are small-grained and temperature-resistant. 40 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 292
size increases after three shots because light barrels warp from built-up heat. In reality, a correctly made barrel does not walk when hot. Instead, the primary reason more shots result in larger groups is statistics: Three-shot groups aren t enough to show the maximum dispersion of any load. Fourshot groups are more reliable, without a lot more wear on the rifle or expense in components. They don t result in many one-hole groups but do provide a more realistic idea of a load s accuracy. The results varied a little from Nosler s. Many shooters claim this proves companies lie when publishing loading data, but it would be a major miracle if published data exactly matched the results in another rifle, due to variations in powder lots, chamber/bore dimensions and environmental conditions. Overall, Nosler s results were pretty much confirmed. Ramshot Magnum provided the highest velocities with the 130- grain Normas and was one of the two most accurate powders, and when I retried the top load with the 129-grain ABLRs, the results matched those with the Norma 130s. In fact, average velocity with the top Magnum charge of 82.0 grains only differed 5 fps between the two bullets, more than most loads vary when chronographing a five-shot string. (By the way, in independent testing by Bryan Litz, the listed BC for the 129 ABLR proved accurate but only in a one-in-8-inch twist, sufficient to totally stabilize the bullet. It may shoot accurately in a 9-inch twist, but long-range BC will be a little lower.) The first range sessions also provided a check on load development with other bullet weights and expansion of the new brass with already pressure-tested loads. Many handloaders believe that as long as brass doesn t show any distress during load work-up, pressures are normal or safe. This has been disproven many times, one example being the 7mm STW. When Remington decided to turn the 7mm STW into a factory round, the company tested a bunch of safe handloads worked up by different people, and all produced pressures from around 70,000 up to 75,000 psi. Modern rifles can certainly withstand such loads, but not always in all conditions, the reason no 7mm STW factory loads approach the velocities of early handloads, even in 26-inch barrels. October-November 2014 www.handloadermagazine.com 41
Handloading the.26 Nosler Left, the quality of the.26 Nosler brass is excellent. When fired with Nosler s pressure-tested data, it provided an extra pressure check. Above, the two most accurate powders with the 129-grain AccuBond Long Range were Alliant Reloder 33 and Ramshot Magnum, but Magnum produced higher muzzle velocities. The most accurate load with 129- grain ABLRs was the maximum 82.0 grains of Ramshot Magnum, at just over 3,400 fps. Alliant Re - loder 33 essentially matched Magnum s accuracy but was well behind in velocity, even when slightly exceeding Nosler s maximum load. Apparently my batch of RL-33 was a little slower, so more powder was added until case expansion matched the Magnum load, but.26 Nosler Handloads velocity was still almost 200 fps slower. The maximum load with Magnum was also tested with 130- grain Nosler AccuBonds. Their BC isn t as high as the 129 ABLR s, but they re somewhat stouter so retain more weight on close-range shots, and some hunters may actually use the.26 Nosler at less than 400 yards. The 130 Accu - overall loaded bullet powder charge length velocity group (grains) (grains) (inches) (fps) (inches) 129 Nosler ABLR Magnum 82.0 3.403 3,405.79 US 869 91.0 3,382 1.41 H-50BMG 86.0 3,163 1.12 RL-33 82.0 3,220.87 130 Nosler AB Magnum 80.5 3.365 3,398 1.06 140 Nosler Partition US 869 87.5 3.330 3,291.94 140 Nosler AccuBond 87.0 3.365 3,288 1.15 156 Norma Oryx 80.5 3.275 3,032 1.44 Notes: Velocity was recorded at 15 feet from the muzzle over an Oehler 35P chronograph. Group size is the average of four shots at 100 yards. CCI 250 primers were used thoughout. All range tests took place at 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Be Alert Publisher cannot accept responsibility for errors in published load data. Bonds shot almost as accurately with the same load, but pressures were a little high, reflected in a velocity of over 3,450 fps. Dropping the powder charge 1.5 grains reduced velocity to 3,400 fps and solved the problem. The 140-grain tests were limited, because only two of the powders listed in Nosler s data were available, Magnum and US 869, and since Magnum s top load was around 200 fps slower than US 869 s, I didn t bother trying it. The test was started with Nosler s Custom Competition hollowpoint boattail bullet, but it didn t shoot all that well with the maximum charge of US 869, 88.0 grains, perhaps because of the thin jacket. The 140-grain AccuBond and Partition required a slight drop in the powder charge but shot far more accurately. In fact, the 140 Partition grouped a little better than the AccuBond, which might surprise some people, but not me, since it s also very accurate in my 42 The.26 Nosler will excel in open-country hunting for pronghorn, mule deer and elk.
44 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloading the.26 Nosler Lilja-barreled 6.5x55 and E.R. Shaw 6.5-06. Some testing was also done with the Nosler 120-grain Ballistic Tip and Norma 156-grain Oryx, because some shooters will want to use bullets outside the 130- to 140- grain range, but the 120s proved to be a failure with both RL-33 and Magnum. In fact RL-33 resulted in a very loose group, so I didn t even bother listing the results. Velocities were over 100 fps higher with Magnum, as they had been with the 129 ABLRs, but apparently the 120s couldn t take it, scattering all over the paper. This is unusual for Ballistic Tips, due to their thick-based jackets and probably wouldn t have happened with Nosler s monolithic E-Tip 120-grain bullet, but there weren t any on hand. The 156-grain Oryx shot pretty well, but only a little over 3,000 fps was possible without cases expanding too much. This particular bullet tends to produce considerable pressure, probably due to the long bearing surface, and another bullet in the same weight range might go a little faster at safe pressures. Recoil felt about like a 7mm magnum with the same bullet weights, but felt recoil also varies with how well the stock fits an individual shooter. Let s just say the kick was noticeably less than any.300 magnum I ve fired with 180- to 200- grain bullets. It certainly wasn t bothersome during the 100+ shots fired from the bench during the tests. The number of shots also didn t bother the rifle. After the.26 Nosler was announced, some Internet experts solemnly declared it would burn out barrels within a couple hundred shots, so after the tests, I examined the throat with a Hawkeye borescope. Just a tiny hint of wear had appeared along the front corner of the chamber but a long way from the beginning of the rifling, and of course I hadn t fired more than four shots before cooling the barrel. The.26 Nosler isn t meant as a target cartridge, and my guess is a good barrel will last well over 1,000 rounds if not shot hot. From this example of one, the.26 Nosler is a very good cartridge, capable of cruising along at ve - locities pushing the capabilities of the.264 Winchester Magnum the reason I m thinking of selling my.264. Handloader 292
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