H ANDLOADER Ammunition Reloading Journal RIFLE S.280 Ross The First Big Seven! Loads for the.45 ACP 100-Yard Obsession! Winchester s New 572 Powder October 2017 No. 310 Sitek Arms Custom 1911 Display until 11/13/17 Printed in USA
6 10 14 18 22 24 Page 18... COLUMNS.45 Colt Myths Reloader s Press - Dave Scovill Long Range Shooting Part I: Cartridge Selection Factors Practical Handloading - Rick Jamison.270 WSM Bore Specifications Bullets & Brass - Brian Pearce.327 Federal Magnum Cartridge Board - Gil Sengel Accurate 2230 Propellant Profiles - R.H. VanDenburg, Jr. Sitek Arms Custom 1911.45 ACP From the Hip - Brian Pearce Page 48... On the cover... A pre-1914 Ross Model 10.280 Ross. Photo by Terry Wieland. Wilson Combat Protector.45 ACP and Sitek Arms custom 1911.45 ACP. Photos by Brian Pearce. 26 30 64 Page 34... Accurate 5744 Mike s Shootin Shack - Mike Venturino.300 H&H Ackley Improved (30 Degree) Wildcat Cartridges - John Haviland Ruger Mk IV.22 Long Rifle and Forster 3-1 Case Cutter Product Tests - FEATURES 34 Loading the.45 ACP Handloading for Flexibility and Accuracy Brian Pearce 42.280 Ross The First Big Seven and the Pursuit of Velocity Terry Wieland 48 100-Yard Obsession Testing Handloads at Nonstandard Distances John Barsness 54 58 Page 54... Winchester 572 Powder A New Powder for 20-, 16- and 12-Gauge Loads John Haviland Beginning Bullet Casting - Part IV Assembling Usable, Accurate Handloads Mike Venturino Page 10... Page 14... 70 Squeaky-Clean Brass In Range - Terry Wieland 4 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
Long Range Shooting Part I: Cartridge Selection Factors PRACTICAL HANDLOADING by Rick Jamison Shooting at long distances is becoming more popular in both competition and hunting. Shooters have heard about long shots made in the military and want to see how hard it is to make similar shots on paper or steel gongs with their own rifles. Hunters want to take game at even greater distances. Whatever the reason, shooters are finding out how much fun it is to shoot targets way out there. How long range is defined is dependent on the shooter and the application. This year, a sniper team of Canadian servicemen made a shot in Afghanistan with a.50 BMG rifle at an incredible 2.2 miles. In competition, the five-shot,.50-caliber group record at 1,000 yards has been hovering around 2 inches for quite a few years. Currently, the smallest 1,000-yard, five-shot group fired in a.50 Caliber Shooters Association match in 2009 by Lee Rasmussen measures 1.955 inches. That is.187 minutes of angle (MOA). The smallest six-target group aggregate is 5.177 inches, also fired by Rasmussen in 2013. It doesn t take a big.50 BMG to shoot at long range. Jim Richards fired a 2.69-inch, five-shot group in competition at 1,000 yards using the diminutive 6mm Dasher, a cartridge based on the 6mm BR case. These shots and competition records show us what is possible. While most of us will not become registered competitors, nor will we shoot at 2 miles, we can still get in on the target-shooting fun with our hunting rifles and increase our game-taking distance. I will not go into the ethics of taking game at long range, except to say that for me, shot placement is the key to making a clean kill. I do not seek out long shots, but sometimes it is the only way to take a specific trophy. I believe that a shooter should practice enough to know when he is capable of making a shot A bipod is just as good as a benchrest and can almost always be used from the prone position in canyon country. 1 2 3 4 5 These.30-caliber cartridges include the (1).308 Winchester, (2).30-06, (3).300 Winchester Magnum, (4).300 Winchester Short Magnum and the (5).300 Remington Ultra Mag. Handloaders can manipulate the order of their downrange effectiveness, which is why optimizing handloads is often more important than the cartridge chosen. at a given distance, with a specific rest and under the shooting conditions at hand, regardless of the range. Otherwise, he should not take the shot. Bad shots can be made at 50 yards. Paper targets are a good way to get a dead-on zeroed at multiple distances, and then steel gongs are fun and you do not have to continually go downrange. Practice is required to make firstshot hits consistently at distances beyond 400 or 500 yards. Equipment alone will not do it. Manufacturers encourage this growth of interest in precision shooting at long distance by offering products for specific tasks. Some of the new propellants are not as temperature sensitive, and hence produce more uniform velocities. Bullet makers are producing longer, more streamlined hunting bullets that carry velocity and energy even farther down- 10 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
range and perform at lower-impact velocities. Rifle companies offer specialty long-range rifles among their standard lines, and scopes are available with target turrets, long-range reticles and a choice of markings in inches or MOA. If serious about this type of shooting, you will probably end up purchasing a new rifle, scope and cartridges that lend themselves to long-range accuracy. So what does it take in the way of a cartridge? Some shooters automatically think of big cartridges when considering long range. However, today s competition shooters show us that big cartridges are not necessary to make precise hits, even at 1,000 yards (witness the 6mm Dasher record). In fact, people can shoot smaller cartridges with greater accuracy. A smaller cartridge with less recoil and blast is less likely to induce a flinch, and this makes shooting more fun. The more you shoot, the better you get, and smaller car- Paper targets offer a great way to tell exactly where shots impact and to get a precise zero at all distances. tridges are less expensive to load, and less powder makes a barrel last longer. Conversely, it is true that a higher muzzle velocity is an advantage, and it takes a certain amount of downrange bullet velocity and energy to take game cleanly. So how does one determine when a cartridge is enough but not too much? In this game, a handloader has holds all the cards. A handloader has the ability to mate a cartridge and components with the intended purpose to maximize velocity and energy downrange. Any cartridge is limited by, or made more effective by, the sum of its components. The truth is, a lot of popular hunting cartridges can be handloaded to be effective at distances greater than traditionally thought possible. With the right bullet and load, the.270 Winchester,.308 Winchester,.30-06 and others can be considered long-range rounds. They are not 1,000-yard elk cartridges, but they can all be optimized for the great- October-November 2017 www.handloadermagazine.com 11
To be conservative, let s stick with the old standards of 1,000 and 1,500 ft-lbs and see how a computer presents it. Software is not always the best source for practical ballistics, but it can be good for making comparisons. I use QuickLoad and its companion, QuickTarget, and sometimes Load From A Disk when at my desktop computer. For my smartphone I use isnipe and BulletDrop+ quite a lot. If a.30-06 carest distance by judicious handloading. Some of the most popular long-range hunting cartridges today include the.300 Winchester Magnum, 7mm Remington Magnum and 6.5-284 Norma. Based both on experience and what the computer indicates, I consider a.264-inch bullet diameter to be a minimum for taking deer and elk at longer distances. For many years, 1,000 foot-pounds (ft-lbs) of energy has been something of an arbitrary minimum energy standard for a deer cartridge, and 1,500 ft-lbs has been considered necessary for elk at the point of impact. These figures are for all-around hunting, not long-range shooting. Based on my experience with modern bullets, I would be inclined to place the figures closer to 700 ft-lbs on deer and 1,250 ft-lbs for elk. I have taken deer cleanly with good bullet performance at distances that put the energy level at 700 ft-lbs. Another reason for these lighter energy figures is because in long-range shooting, a hunter usually has a lot of time to set up prone with a bipod or good rest, accurately range the target, adjust his scope if necessary and calmly and deliberately take the shot. Seldom are quick shots taken at moving game at long distance as compared to shorter distances where game has been spooked, nor are long shots taken at a bad angle. Popular long-range hunting cartridges include (left to right): the 6.5-284 Norma,.270 WSM and 7mm Remington Magnum. All can be effective at great distances if handloads are developed for the purpose. tridge is loaded with a Hornady 165-grain spitzer flatbase bullet with a reported.387 ballistic coefficient (BC) to a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second (fps), the resulting load produces 1,500 ftlbs of energy at about 380 yards, and it carries 1,000 ft-lbs of energy to 595 yards. By comparison, if the same.30-06 is loaded with a Hornady 220-grain ELD-X bullet (with a very high quoted BC of.650) to a slower 2,400 fps, it carries 1,500 ft-lbs of energy to about 580 yards, and 1,000 ft-lbs to about 930 yards. It is easy to see how the handloader makes the difference regarding a long-range cartridge just by bullet and load selection. Unlike at shorter distances, where bullet shape and length is not critical, it makes a big difference farther downrange. There is perhaps more involved with a specific load recipe than with the size and shape of the cartridge. Of course, impact velocity is important as well, insofar as bullet expansion is concerned. In the latter instance, the bullet would be traveling at about 1,434 fps at 930 yards. Will it expand and transfer killing energy at this low velocity without punching through with little tissue damage? That is yet another aspect of developing a long-range handload, and the subject will be covered in a subsequent column. Nonoptimized (Average) Load Comparison with Traditional Bullets ballistic muzzle retained retained cartridge bullet coefficient velocity recoil 1,500 ft-lbs 1,000 ft-lbs (grains) (fps) (ft-lbs) (yards) (yards) 6.5-284 Norma 120 Barnes TSX.381 3,050 11.2 300 520.270 Winchester 130 Hornady InterLock SP.409 3,050 13.8 370 610.270 Winchester Short Magnum 130 Swift Scirocco II.450 3,200 18.2 480 740 7mm-08 Remington 140 Nosler Partition.456 2,850 12.4 350 590 7mm Remington Magnum 140 Sierra spitzer.377 3,150 20.3 420 640.308 Winchester 150 Barnes TSX.369 2,850 14.2 330 540.30-06 165 Speer SP.433 2,800 17.3 430 680.300 Winchester Magnum 165 Hornady InterLock SP.387 3,050 24.7 480 700.300 Winchester Short Magnum 165 Nosler Partition.410 3,050 23.3 510 740.300 Remington Ultra Mag 165 Barnes TSX.398 3,100 35.7 520 740.338 Winchester Magnum 225 Swift A-Frame.384 2,750 31.0 510 720.338 Remington Ultra Mag 250 Nosler Partition.473 2,850 47.9 750 1,010.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Hornady InterLock SP.431 2,850 47.8 690 920 Notes: This computer-generated data is an overview comparison that gives a rough idea where standard cartridges fit in the downrange energy spectrum with normal loads. Powder charge weights can vary, depending on powder type, and this affects recoil. Recoil figures are for an 8.5-pound rifle. If cartridges look out of order, it is because of muzzle velocity, bullet weight and ballistic coefficient. 12 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
.280 ROSS The First Big Seven and the Pursuit of Velocity Terry Wieland The Ross Model 1910 sporting rifle has one very strange feature: Its iron sights consist of a fine bead near the muzzle of its 28-inch barrel and one folding blade just forward of the action one blade only, cut with a midsized V notch. Engraved beside it is the number 500. To sell a hunting rifle with just one sight setting 500 yards would be outlandish today; in 1910, when the 42 M10 came on the scene, it was unbelievable and, for any other cartridge available in 1910, it would have been ridiculous. For the.280 Ross, however, it was merely highly optimistic. This was a cartridge that was truly accurate enough out to 500 yards to down a big-game animal. All it needed was a hunter who could shoot extremely well, judged range with uncanny accuracy and knew how to use that one lonely sight blade. www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
Facing page, after 1912,.280 Ross ammunition was produced by many different companies. Some continued to identify it as the.280 Ross; others, such as Kynoch, simply referred to it as the.280. Right, the Ross Model 1910.280 Ross was made as well as any bolt action from London of the pre-1914 era. Most of us would immediately jump up and shout that no cartridge, even the best ones available today, has a flat enough trajectory to hold on the same spot all the way out to 500 yards, and we would be right. That, however, is not how the sight was intended to be used. 1 2 3 4 The.280 Ross inspired cartridge development by other London gunmakers. Examples include the (1).280 Ross, (2).280 Magnum (Rimmed Ross), (3).275 Holland & Holland and the (4).275 H&H Rimmed. Read some books from that era and you ll come across references to taking a coarse bead or drawing a fine bead. If the hunter judged that his quarry was 500 yards away, he would place the bead in the center of the V notch a normal sight picture. If it was closer say, 200 yards the bead would be drawn down into the V, lowering the muzzle and trajectory; if it was farther, the bead was raised above the V, elevating the muzzle. Simple. An experienced hunter made range judgements instinctively, and soon got a feel for where the bead needed to be. It was called, quaintly, shooting skill, as opposed to reading a digital rangefinder, being whispered to by computers and adjusting a scope, all of which depend more on computer programming than on shooting ability. The Ross M10 straight-pull hunting rifle was a wonder of the age, and were it not for the untimely intervention of World War I (1914-18), it might have gone on to have quite a different career. As it was, the war sank the military version of the rifle and Ross Rifle Co. with it, leaving the.280 Ross an orphan in search of a home. Fortunately, it was a great cartridge and had no trouble finding one. In fact, it found several. Sir Charles Ross was a wealthy Scottish baronet who grew up stalking stags on his family estate near Inverness. He became interested in guns and determined to design the ultimate hunting rifle. Being an admirer of Ferdinand von Mannlicher, Ross leaned toward straight-pull designs. Being an aristocrat, he also had connections so formed an alliance with Charles Lancaster, the great London gunmaker, to produce rifles of his design. Ross had many virtues, but also many vices. He was brilliant and talented but impatient and intolerant. Having burned through the family s ready cash by his twenty-first birthday, he was land rich but cash
.280 ROSS The Ross M10 looks modern even today, 117 years after its introduction. It was highly effective and very ergonomic. poor. He raised money against the estate and invested in different businesses, among them a riflemaking company in Connecticut. During the Boer War, Ross commanded a machine gun company and armed his men with rifles of his own design. After that conflict, the British public became obsessed with target shooting with rifles, and the longer the range, the better. Suddenly, everyone was trying to design a better rifle and a better, faster, more accurate cartridge. It is impossible to completely disentangle the fortunes of the Ross rifle from the.280 Ross cartridge, and the two of them from the life and loves, conflicts and controversies of Sir Charles Ross himself. All are intertwined and interdependent. In 1902, Ross convinced the Canadian government that it needed a Canadianproduced military rifle to arm its militia and the North-West Mounted Police. He set up a manufacturing facility near Quebec City, moved skilled craftsmen north from his factory in Connecticut, and went into production. From the beginning, the Ross straight-pull designs were more like target rifles than military or hunting rifles. They were initially chambered for the.303 British, but Ross wanted to design the ultimate long-range cartridge. From studying von Mannlicher, he concluded that a 7mm cartridge was the answer. Around 1905, with the 7x57 Mauser (aka.275 Rigby) gaining in popularity, Ross decided to up the stakes. First, he designed what he called the.28/06, a 7mm designed in 1906. It resembled a.30-06 necked down, but there were dimensional differences and Ross cartridge was semirimmed. It did not deliver quite the velocity he wanted, so he decided to go bigger. At the time, Ross and his rifle were heavily involved in the annual military long-range matches held at Bisley, where rifle teams from all over the British Empire (including Canada) competed for trophies, medals and money. First, Ross designed a new bullet for the.303 British and began producing Although the.280 Ross achieved 3,000 fps with a 150-grain bullet, it was more commonly loaded with (left to right): the 140-grain, copper-tube bullet (prompting a patent infringement claim from Westley Richards), the Kynoch 160-grain HP and Ross own 180-grain match load. Modern bullets in.288-inch diameter are hard to come by. From left, these include a 140-grain cast bullet (Ideal mould 287377), a 150-grain bullet made for Huntington Die Specialties and an unidentified 152-grain spitzer boat-tail match bullet. Select.280 Ross Handloads bullet powder charge velocity (grains) (grains) (fps) 150 HDS* H-4831 60.0 2,750 65.0 (1) 3,072 140 Hayley cast** A-5744 25.0 (2) 1,814 * Huntington Die Specialties ** Ideal mould 287377 without gas check. Notes: All loads used Hayley Custom converted.300 RUM brass and Federal 215 Match Large Rifle Magnum primers. Further details regarding the above areas follows: 1. Maximum load with no pressure signs and a very low extreme spread of 14 fps. 2. Light load, calculated as 40 percent of case capacity to base of bullet. Three shots had an extreme spread of 89 fps, and extremely poor accuracy. There is room to increase the charge, but it is inadvisable to go over 2,000 fps to avoid leading. Be Alert Publisher cannot accept responsibility for errors in published load data. Listed loads are only valid in the test firearms used. Reduce initial powder charge by 10 percent and work up while watching for pressure signs. 44 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
match-quality.303 ammunition. This bullet was a heavy-for-caliber spitzer with a long ogive what today is known as an extra-low drag bullet. It dominated the Bisley matches. Ross colleague in designing ammunition was Frederick W. Jones, one of the foremost ballisticians and long-range shooters of the age. During his long career, Jones worked for the New Explosives Company, Eley Brothers, Nobel and the British government. In 1898, at the age of 31, he patented a process for coating smokeless powder to regulate burning rate. Col. Schultze (of Schultze Powder fame) called him the father of smokeless powder. He wasn t, of course, but his coating process made possible almost all the improvements that came later. Jones was more than a scientist. From 1908 until his death in 1939, he was a member of the British Elcho Shield team. The Elcho Shield is an annual team competition shot at 1,000, 1,100 and 1,200 yards; by comparison, the Palma Match is 800, 900 and 1,000 yards. Ross and Jones worked together closely for years. Jones testing of the.28/06 showed a velocity of 2,735 feet per second (fps) with a 150-grain bullet. This was good, and certainly better than the 7x57, but Ross wanted 2,800 fps. He lengthened the case, widened it at the base and gave it a pronounced taper. Since it was intended for use in a straight-pull rifle, the taper was a definite advantage. It also meant it fed out of box magazines beautifully. For reasons unexplained, he chose to use a.288-inch bullet diameter rather than the 7x57 s.284-inch diameter. The new cartridge was loaded with 58 grains of Neonite (not Cordite). Produced by the New Explosives Co., Neonite was a coated, guncotton-based powder The Ross Model 1910.280 Ross was the popular hunting rifle of its day. Manufactured in Quebec, Canada, it equaled the bolt actions of London in its quality and workmanship. Sir Charles Ross.280 actions were proofed to a level of 28 tons. in the form of black flakes. (Sir Charles Ross later persuaded Du- Pont to produce a new, slower powder called No. 10, for use in loading.280 Ross ammunition in America.) Jones testing showed a velocity of 3,047 fps with a 140-grain bullet. Eley Brothers agreed to produce ammunition, and in 1907 it was unveiled to the world as the.280 Ross-Eley. This nomenclature was OEHLER 35P IS BACK! Oehler is making a special, limited run of the Model 35 Proof Chronograph. Call or go online for more information. Phone: 512-327-6900 oehler-research.com retained until 1912, when other cartridge companies began producing ammunition. Since then, headstamps have read either.280 Ross, or simply.280. In 1907, F.W. Jones took a prototype.280 Ross target rifle to Bisley, not to compete, but simply to see how it performed. The Field magazine reported he made a number of possibles, and the Ross P.O. Box 9135 Austin, TX 78766 RESEARCH, INC. October-November 2017 www.handloadermagazine.com 45
Rifledjag.com The best barrel grooves cleaning tool It gets the corners Check out our website! DARDAS CAST BULLETS Dardas Shooter s Supply, Inc. 123 E. Hampton Rd. Essexville, MI 48732 Tel: 989-450-5396 Fax: 866-325-6525 Email: info@dardascastbullets.com www.dardascastbullets.com.302.338.375.416 Whispers are developments of SSK Industries. Custom barrels for Contenders, Encores, bolt guns and semi-autos as well as complete guns and the cans to keep them quiet are available. SSK chambers over 400 calibers. Wild wildcat ideas welcomed. SSK Industries 590 Woodvue Lane Wintersville, OH 43953 Tel: 740-264-0176 www.sskindustries.com VICKERMAN Inline Window Seating Die For Extremely Accurate Seating 100% Guarantee Dayton Machine Shop, LLC P.O. Box 25 Dayton, WA 99328 509-382-4159 vickermandies.com.280 ROSS team set about producing a real target rifle for the 1908 matches. According to Ross biographer Roger F. Phillips, the Ross match rifle had a heavy barrel with a special leade that allowed a push fit for the bullet, similar to that used in Schutzen rifles. The long bullet was positioned to enter the bore precisely. The.280 Ross-Eley match ammunition was loaded with a 180- grain spitzer FMJ bullet, also extra-low drag, with a muzzle velocity of 2,700 fps. Jones won five individual and aggregate longrange matches at Bisley in 1908. The British NRA (aka National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom) received a complaint from aggrieved competitors and found the Ross rifle barrel was a couple ounces too heavy. Jones returned the silverware, but the Ross rifle retained the glory. From that moment, the.280 Ross became the most influential cartridge in the world. Other makers began chambering it in both hunting and match rifles. King George V took a pair of.280 rifles on a hunting tour of India and reported them to be a great success. Less positively, George Grey (brother of the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey) was killed by a lion in Kenya in 1911, after wounding it with a.280 Ross and failing to stop its charge. On his deathbed, he acknowledged that it was his own fault for getting too close, but the.280 takes the blame to this day. Its more than 3,000 fps muzzle velocity inspired Charles Newton to design America s first 3,000- fps commercial cartridge, Savage s.250-3000. In the U.S., DuPont developed a special slow powder (DuPont No. 10) that allowed American commercial.280 ammunition to equal the British loads. Introduced in 1910, it was released for canister sale in 1912, and discontinued in 1915, but it made possible the.250-3000 and set the stage for a series of even slower- 46 www.handloadermagazine.com Handloader 310
burning powders in the IMR series. In London, Charles Lancaster & Co. chambered.280 Ross rifles with its famous oval bore and developed a rimmed version of the cartridge for use in double rifles and single shots. The War Office was so impressed, it commissioned a very similar military round, the.276 Enfield, intended to replace the.303, and a new Mauser-inspired rifle with an oversized action, the Enfield P-13, to accommodate it. It was never adopted, because war broke out in 1914, but it was adapted to the.303 as the P-14 and later the.30-06 (P-17). Both rifles saw use in both world wars. The Mauser company in Oberndorf offered its magnum Mauser commercial rifles in.280 Ross. Later, the German-American ballistic fraudster, Hermann Gerlich, took the unaltered Ross case, renamed it the.280 Halger and embarked on his straight-out-offiction attempt to persuade shooters on both sides of the Atlantic that he was getting impossible velocities. Although the Ross Rifle Co. closed before 1918 and new Ross rifles disappeared from the market, the cartridge (by its various names) became a standard of the English gun trade. Ammunition was manufactured on both sides of the Atlantic and stayed in production by Kynoch until 1967. There are two immediate problems with shooting a.280 Ross rifle. One is brass, the other is bullets. Although new factory brass is occasionally available, the key word is occasionally. When it can be found, it s expensive. Quality Cartridge (www.qual-cart.com) lists it, and Bob Hayley of Hayley s Custom Ammunition, 1-940-888-3352 in Seymour, Texas, makes.280 Ross brass by swaging down and resizing.300 Remington Ultra Mag cases, resulting in good, reusable brass. Bob can also supply cast lead 140-grain spitzers. Hayley s remanufactured brass costs about $3 per round. Given the amount of reworking necessary, annealing the case necks before shooting is a good idea to prevent splitting. Once annealed, it lasts almost indefinitely with sensible loads. Bullets are another matter. In the past, Huntington Die Specialties has offered a.288-inch diameter, 150-grain bullet that works well, but it no longer seems to be available. Hawk, Inc., makes a.286-inch diameter, 160-grain roundnose and will produce other weights on special order. Powders are no problem. Hodgdon s H-4831 is ideal for the Ross, and combined with Federal s 215M primers, it is possible to reach original velocities with no adverse pressure signs. The 4350s do not work as well in the roomy Ross case; in my rifle, I get flattened primers before I get to 3,000 fps. As for the 500-yard shots with the single folding blade, I m working on targets at 300 yards for now. It is certainly educational. October-November 2017 www.handloadermagazine.com 47