I bought a ton of .458 350 grain hornady round nose bullets to use for plinking in my .500/450. I went out to Cal's today to take the punishment from some full power 4 bore loads and try to find a reduced recoil load for my 350gr bullets, so I can work on trigger control. I started at my accuracy charge for my 480 Woodleighs of 102.5grs of IMR 4831. I loaded 102.5, 95, and 90 grains. 102.5 was certainly passable. 95 was slightly better. 90 opened up too much. Because I was looking for reduced recoil load I decided to work around the 95 grain load. I next tried 96, 95, and 94 grains. 96 grains gave me a 1.5" group. 95 grains gave me 1.75" group. 94 grains began to open up. Here's a picture of my 96 grain target:



Cal also had his .450 No.2 out shooting some 400 grain Barnes bullets he picked up at a gun show. Good guess on the loads. This was suppose to be a 6 shot group, but the powder was compromised in one of the cartridges, so it ended up being a 5 shot group. Here's his target:



We also shot some high end loads out of Cal's 4 bore. We shot 10, 12, 14, and 16 drams of black powder with a 1400 grain round ball. We then shot 10, 12, and 14 drams of black powder with a 1943 grain conical bullet. The 14 dram 1943 grain conical bullet in Cal's 22lbs 4 bore double rifle produces 257ftlbs of recoil at 27fps. Ouch! Here's pictures of Cal and I shooting his 4 bore:





Injoy!

Brett

Hmmmmm.... Picture problems. I'll see what I can do.

Brett

Looks like a great time. I'm sorry I missed it.

I love all of that smoke!

Bob