I shot my 470 today, starting load 110gr h4831
nf cup points. She is a beast. It came with a hard butt plate,I had a limbsaver slip on. what a waste of time, the gun would slip out of the pad, and catch my shooting hand. Ouch!!!!
Next came the past shoulder pad,could not get a good shoulder weld,the gun would not stay put.
The load was not crossing at 50 yrd. I was shooting off hand,and right barrel printed,straight up and down,the left was almost as good.Each about a inch and a half off center. The two shots I called dead on landed a 1" apart at six o'clock. The up and down was me.The file comes out in the morning and I will fix that rear sight(I need more light around the front post).I will add one more grain of powder, to the load and see if I can get them a little closer. There will be a recoil pad on it in the am. Then back to the dance we go.

JD

Why would you shoot a Merkel w/o installing a recoil pad?

Can you buy a Merkel with a pad installed?

No, it's shipped with the shitty plastic butt-plate. It's so that you can install a pad to suit your LOP. Hell, you've got to do that anyway. Some time ago, I called RSI and bitched about that shit and the sights and basically, it was a big shoulder shrug. With an attitude like that, I'll NEVER buy a merkel ever again.

475guy
I have never been shy of recoil. I can take my 375 and 416 rem out, and shoot 40 rounds with each and not have any problems long as I shoot off hand. The 416 gets bother some after 10 or so from the bench. Both guns fit me well.
I just put a 1.5 " pad on the 470,I now know It was too short for me. I haven't done any big bore shooting or weight training since Katrina blew through. Being in shape makes a big differance on how much punishment you can take!!!! Twenty five years ago I was training and teaching the martials arts 18 hours a week, plus weight training 3 times a week. Back then I could take a licken and keep on ticken. 7 shots with a little pop gun I am ready for a hot bath and bed. I am just gettin old.

To answer your question ( I just could't wait )I felt like a kid on Christmass morning.

JD

I hear you, getting older and softer ain't that much fun. In my job, I've gained a few pounds because I can't have my meal break before all deliveries are done and the stores will squawk like mad. Every dojo I've checked have their classes while I'm still working. PM at you.

Great Balls of Fire!

Install a good recoil pad. I can shoot a 416 Rigby all day, but the 470 deserves a little respect.

Try the extra grain, but you will probably be back down to what you started with. That load is a good width. And with a good pad, you should hold the vertical.


Remember, you need a tight grip. Or it will bite you.

Step 1. Get Graeme Wright's Shooting the British Double Rifle.
Step 2 Turn to page 167 and look at the ballistics of The 470. You will see that the ballistics call for 75 cordite 500 grain bullet @ 2125fps out of a 31 inch barrel .
step 3. Read some of the reports of the people that have used the 470 in it's original ballistics. Nothing but glowing reports!
Step 4. calculate recoil with the load you are shooting which is around 80 foot pounds by quick load.
Step 5. calculate recoil with 82-87 of reloader 15 which will match or exceed original ballistics. This is about 60 ft lbs recoil which is not friendly but is exhilarating and will not hurt you.
step 6. put a good recoil pad on your merkle.
step 7. load up with RL 15. Go to the range and have fun.
Step 8. use this load to put big wind sucking blood squirting holes in any animal that you shoot with it.
step 9. when you feel the need to be abused violated and hurt a) have an 8 lb 458 lott built and shoot that
or b) cheaper just put your past recoil pad on and have the wife or friend hit you with a baseball bat as hard as they can while calling you names. continue this until you can't take it anymore or wise up a little.

Tone that load down!!!

I use IMR 4831 @ 106 grains and that's plenty...2200 FPS with pressure signs beginning to show...

110 gr. sounds pretty stout!

Did your rifle regulate with that loading?

JW

I'll just add that you should grip the rifle firmly with your support hand. Don't try and finger the forearm go ahead and wrap your fingers around the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Wemmer:
Tone that load down!!!

I use IMR 4831 @ 106 grains and that's plenty...2200 FPS with pressure signs beginning to show...

110 gr. sounds pretty stout!Did your rifle regulate with that loading?

JW

Jeff, I assume you are not useing North Fork bullets with your load! The NFs take more powder to get the same speed because they develope less pressure with the same load, and less resistance to engraving by the rifleing.

JD,congratulations, that load is perfect, if the left barrel is printing to the left, and the right barrel is printing to the right,in a 1" comp group, you have found it!

Merkel simply sees no sense in makeing you pay for something you are going to change anyway. The butt plate is simply there to protect the wood till you install a recoil pad to the proper length for you! Sounds like good thinking to me!

quote:

Jeff, I assume you are not useing North Fork bullets with your load! The NFs take more powder to get the same speed because they develope less resistance to engraving by the rifleing.

You are correct....didn't realize that made a big difference - appreciate the correction.

JW

BTW,JD, go to http://www.african-hunter.com/ and you'll find an article on using cast bullets in a 470 NE.

Jeff,

H-4831 is slower burning than IMR-4831. I get the same velocity and better regulation in my Searcy 470 using 110 grains of H-4831 than with the regulation load of 106 grains of IMR-4831.

465H&H

Mine came with the new recoil pad and it was sweet shooting, shoulder was a tad sore the next day but nothing really bad. It wasn't sore walking around just when I shouldered a few shotguns. Being young does have some advantages......

The .470 kicks, plain and simple, there is no escape from that, so get used to it, the recoil pad is not a cure all, in fact some say it gives a .470 a one inch run at your shoulder (Jack Belk)...

I loaded my .470 down to 2020 FPS and it jap slapped buffalo down like the hammer of Thor with woodleigh softs, Northfork cup points. Recoil was greatly reduced.

There is no getting away from recoil of a big bore rifle, but a good recoil pad, and the fit of the rifle greatly moderates the effect. In fact, in the field, with a buffalo, or elephant looking you in the eye, and seemingly not ready to flee, the recoil is the farthest thing form your mind, I assure you!

It is my firm believe is, that once a load is found, and sights are right, one should never sit at a bence again. However all practice should be done with the loads you are going to use on that buffalo, but by stump shooting, and/or shooting deer, and wild hogs. For quick shooting by instinct, a fine targets are Jackrabbits. Jump shooting at jacks is the best practice one can get to learn your rifle, for quick, instictive practice. It makes little difference whether you hit the rabbit or not, as long as you get very close. a close shot on a jumped jack will be a boiler room shot on a buffalo!
To cut cost, you can use bullets like Hawk, or cast wheel weight with 2% antimony, of the same weight as you hunting ammo. Practice builds muscle memory, that takes over when things happen real fast, in close quarters, but stay off that damn bench, it only teaches flinch!

Thanks for all the support. I think with a proper pad,the experience would not have been bad at all. The slip on pad was the problem, the rifle would slip out of it,and get a running start at my hand. The shoulder was not a problem. What I did not like was the sights.They just did not work for me. I did some file work on the main express blade,I can now see the front sight, and opened up the 100yd blade just a little. I am having a peep made. Mojo makes a replacement peep for sks and aks out of steel, I will cut it short and drill two mounting holes through it, it is .510 wide-the rib is .500. It has windage built in, I will mill a slot in the 1/4 rib for the sight,and control vertical by how deep we machine the slot, and by the front sight. I passed by my jeweler to see about a diamond in the front post. I have two questions? Is the quarter rib soild, How do you get the front sight out. I will also work up some loads with RL15 and filler,they should kick less.

JD

quote:

Originally posted by J D:
Thanks for all the support. I think with a proper pad,the experience would not have been bad at all. The slip on pad was the problem, the rifle would slip out of it,and get a running start at my hand. The shoulder was not a problem. What I did not like was the sights.They just did not work for me. I did some file work on the main express blade,I can now see the front sight, and opened up the 100yd blade just a little. I am having a peep made. Mojo makes a replacement peep for sks and aks out of steel, I will cut it short and drill two mounting holes through it, it is .510 wide-the rib is .500. It has windage built in, I will mill a slot in the 1/4 rib for the sight,and control vertical by how deep we machine the slot, and by the front sight. I passed by my jeweler to see about a diamond in the front post. I have two questions? Is the quarter rib soild, How do you get the front sight out. I will also work up some loads with RL15 and filler,they should kick less.

JD

JD are you from Louisiana? The phrase I colored red in you post is what makes me think that. My wife is from Lafayette,LA, and that is the only place I've ever heard that phrase "PASSED MY JEWELER" used!

My wife has a bunch of relatives in LA, and I spend a lot of time there, I'm a Cajun at heart!

Please don't tell me a southern lady of fine breeding married a Texan. I am guilty as charged,I have lived my whole life between the Mississippi river and lake. I eat red beans and rice on Mondays, whitebeans on Thurdsday and seafood on Fridays. I can cook things you coinsider vermin or bugs,that taste so good
you may be tempted to slap your Mom and them for not knowing how. If I am allowed to make the coffee at the up comeing DRSS hunt don't spill none on your gun stocks it will take off the finish.I am as guilty as I can be.

JD

quote:

step 9. when you feel the need to be abused violated and hurt a) have an 8 lb 458 lott built and shoot that
or b) cheaper just put your past recoil pad on and have the wife or friend hit you with a baseball bat as hard as they can while calling you names. continue this until you can't take it anymore or wise up a little

You crack me up, Ernie!

JD -

Thankfully, you will not have to make coffee.

As for your comment

quote:

I eat red beans and rice on Mondays, whitebeans on Thurdsday

it should be interesting seeing the bunk arrangements....

quote:

Originally posted by J D:
Please don't tell me a southern lady of fine breeding married a Texan. I am guilty as charged,I have lived my whole life between the Mississippi river and lake. I eat red beans and rice on Mondays, whitebeans on Thurdsday and seafood on Fridays. I can cook things you coinsider vermin or bugs,that taste so good
you may be tempted to slap your Mom and them for not knowing how. If I am allowed to make the coffee at the up comeing DRSS hunt don't spill none on your gun stocks it will take off the finish.I am as guilty as I can be.

JD

Anything you can cook I can eat! We couldn't get good coffee in the D/FW area for years, so i had to drive to LA to get the old Mello Joy, and now Community. I bitched so much around here they started stocking community coffee in the store here! NOW! if I could get them to stock some good andouille, I'd be a happy man!

Elmer Keith introduced me to Bill Jordan once upon a time, and he came up from Louisiana to hunt some Rockchucks a few times. Bill was from Shreveport and one day we're sitting at portable benches shooting 'chucks and he asks me "Richard, do you know the difference between a Coon Ass and a Horse's Ass?". I say "Nossir, what is the difference?". (One of life's great joys is sitting around a couple of spry oldsters and hearing all those old stories.) So Mr Jordan says "The Sabine River!".

I can't add anything to that...

Rich
DRSS

He was a wise man,and not wsome one you would pick a fight with!

JD

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Elmer Keith introduced me to Bill Jordan once upon a time, and he came up from Louisiana to hunt some Rockchucks a few times. Bill was from Shreveport and one day we're sitting at portable benches shooting 'chucks and he asks me "Richard, do you know the difference between a Coon Ass and a Horse's Ass?". I say "Nossir, what is the difference?". (One of life's great joys is sitting around a couple of spry oldsters and hearing all those old stories.) So Mr Jordan says "The Sabine River!".

I can't add anything to that...

Rich


DRSS

I can! He got it backwards!

Mac you can across the river to snag your bride.
It can't be all that bad on this side of the river.

JD

okay Mac,

I'm primed, now tell me the Mississippi River runs from N'awluns UP to St Louis!!

I was born at night, but it wasn't last night!


Rich DRSS

quote:

Originally posted by J D:
Mac you can across the river to snag your bride.
It can't be all that bad on this side of the river.

JD

JD she's the one crossing the river, not me! Got it backwards again! Hell, she had to imporve the blood line some way!

Just so we understand what is happening here let me say, If I could, I would live half of the year in Texas, and the other half in Louisiana, around Henderson, on the Atchafalaya Basin! Good fishing in there, and better duck hunting! When my part of Texas was frozen in a coat of ice, I'd be fishing in the basin, in shorts!

Unless you live in Botswana, why not 7x57R or x65R? You know, something you can actually take hunting.

Paola
I have a 3-260's 3-308's a 30-06 a 9.3-74r o/u, 300 H&H,375 H&H, a 416 rem mag,458 win mag, 50 cal ML. I am set up to hunt everything from mice to pacaderms. I am a shooter first a hunter second. I have mastered the little guns, and the medium bores, The 470 with open sights is just the next level to master. I have dreams of one more trip to africa for cape buff. My last trip I shot a blue wildebeest through the heart with a 350gr .416 tsx @ 270 yards It ran 150 yards or so blowing blood 6' foot out of each side. I wanted a true stopper,and a classic double.

JD