It was a nice 73 degree day here in South Texas, so off to the range I went with my Browning 95 in 30-40 beside me. It now wears an Ashley/XS set of sights. IMHO the Winchester 95 was the best levergun ever designed. They never cease to fascinate me. I bought this rifle NIB about six months ago and this was it first time out with the new sights..big improvment!!

For a powder charge I selected 49/WC872 which has proven to be almost magic in every 30 cal rifle I have tried it in. In the .308 the bullet give light compression. In the 30-06 I add 1cc of grex to give compression and in the 30-40 I add .3cc of grex to give compression.

My rifle has .308X3015 bore specs. I have never measured the throat, but a .311 bullet chokes in the throat, and a .310 bullet is a nice easy fit, so I figure the throat must be .310. How about that for deductive logic? The chamber is cut to U.S. Govt. specs which means a very long throat. Just like the Krag rifle.

I used five different bullets over the magic powder charge. They are all cast from lyman No. 2 and sized .310. Shooting was done at 50 yards. I loaded ten rounds of each and stapled 10 targets to the backboard.

1) RCBS 165-SIL..This bullet has a short body and will fit into the neck of the .308 case. The bullet was seated to just cover the top lube groove. In my .308s and 03A3 this bullet is super accurate over the same magic charge. The nose of this bullet is .301 to which I attribute much of it's accuracy. I shot two nice round 3" groups. Oh X$%*! A failure of the magic load and magic bullet. Not a good way to start the morning.

2) Cramer 46..This is a very short body bullet with a sharp tapered nose (a la 311413) that weights 150 grains and was designed for the short necked .300 Savage case. The biggest part of the nose, next to the body is .301. In my 03A3 this bullet will shot just as good as the RCBS 165Sil. The 03A3 has a bore of .299. The his bullet when insterted into the muzzle of the Browning 95 makes contact nowhere on the nose. Twist it..twirl it..no contact! This time I got two nice round 6" groups. Things are not looking up.

I let the rifle cool and put on my thinking cap. These bullets habr a hell of a jump before they engage the rear of the lands and grooves due to the very long throat. The RCBS bullet is supported by the lands and the Cramer is not. That is what is going on..I decide..no wonder such rotton groups. So far this is just a theory!

3. Lyman 311291 - I have several moulds for this bullet and I selected one that cast .315 on the body and .302 on the nose. That means I had to size more than .003! But what the heck..I did it anyway. I steated this bullet way out with the crimp groove hanging way out in the air and the top lube groove barely covered. This gave a very long .310 body to go in the chamber throat. The last 1/2 inch of the lever closing took a hair more pressure and you could feel that .302 nose engraving on the lands. Felt real good. I got two nice round 1" groups. Things are looking up. Little or no jump to hit the rifling and a well supported nose.

4. Lyman 311334 - Seated this bullet out to cover the top lube groove which made it too long to feed through the magazine, so I did it single shot. The nose on this bullet is .300 and while seated out more than the RCBS and Cramer, it did not have the body length sticking out as much as 311291. I got two round 1.5" groups. Not to bad, but not too good either. Some jump to hit the rifling and an unsupported nose.

5. Hensley & Gibbs 210 RN - This is a very blunt round nose (like 311291) bullet that weighs out 210 grains. The body is similiar to 311284 but has a longer base band and a funky gas check shank that is U shaped instead of square. The nose runs .300 - .301 depending on where you put the mike. It has three lube grooves plus the gas check shank which holds some lube. I only lubed the bottom two and gas check shank. I seated the bullet to just cover the last full groove which gave alot of .310 body sticking out of the case. Looks to be the same as 311291 above. I got two nice 1" groups. No jump and a semi-supported nose.

All of this proved nothing that we did not already know. Bullet jump and unsupported noses degrade accuracy even with otherwise good bullets. However it is nice the know that the laws of physics has not changed without me being informed.

Next step is to ditch the grex and add a couple of extra grains powder to give compression and see if the accuracy holds up. I am guessing that so loaded the lighter 170 grain load will give 2.1 -2.2k in velocity and the heavier 210 grain bullet will vie 2.0-2.1 fps. The lighter bullet should be all that is needed on deer and such with the heavier being Ok for larger game. The nice thing is both of the bullets shoot to the same point of impact.

With the right bullet fit..it does seem that 49/WC872 is still magic!

Casting season is about here and I will degrease my 311467 and 311284. No more short body bullet in this rifle for me. I have relearned my lesson.