I just sighted in my new Marlin .38-55 with Buffalo Bore ammo, the 250gr jacketed flat nose at an advertised 1950fps.

These rounds are HOT in my rifle. I only fired 5 of them (at $1.75 each my Scottish ancestors want me to save them for hogs) but all of them but one were difficult to extract. And one was particularly hard.

I had it sighted in with Win Factory loads and they are hundreds of feet slower than these rounds, so these shot over a foot higher at 100 yds. At any rate, 3 shots and I made the final adjustments, fired 2 that were about an inch apart which is pretty good for my shooting on a windy day (15 to 20) and called it done. So.....I'm happy with them and will be interested to see how they perform on pigs but if I was loading them, they'd be about a 100fps slower.

Sounds like a good excuse to start reloading. That ought to appeal to your ancestors and let you do more shooting.

C.A:

I've been reloading for about 30 years, and I have got the dies and some more brass in, however, like many other people, I've got too many demands on my time to reload for every rifle I shoot. So......factory, even Buffalo Bores are pretty cheap when I compare it to the time to reload an equivalent amount of rounds.

Don't get me wrong, I like reloading, it just consumes more time than I sometimes have.

As for shooting more, I hunt at least 200 days a year, have my own silhouette range and shoot at least a few thousand rounds of something a year, so I probably get my share of shooting done.

I got to get the hell out of Illinois. Hunt 200 days a year! I am so jealous. I understand and if I could hunt that much, I'd be reloading less too.

C.A.

Let me clarify, I don't hunt all day, 200 days a year, I hunt many mornings and most evenings for a hour or two for hogs all year, or birds in Sept. My evening hunts, which is by far the best time for hogs, are kind of my way of winding down from the pressures of the day. Killing a hog is just a bonus. However, we have quite a few of them around so I wind up killing probably 15 to 40 a year. I probably could get a few more, but if I've got a friend coming over, I lay off of them and just scout them out for them. It is a big thrill for some people who haven't shot that many of them. Not to mention the meat is usually exceptionally good. We have a lot of wild hog barbeques at the ranch. Ummm, Ummmm, good. The dead of summer is pretty slow and pretty well taken by the heat and the hordes of mosquitos, not to mention Mr. No Shoulders so my hunting then is pretty minimal. That's when I try to go somewhere else such as South America or Africa at least every other year or so. In addition I am what is known as a Level 3 Tx Parks and Wildlife Game Managed Ranch and my GUN (and bow, of course, but I'm not an archer) deer season runs from roughly the first of October until February 28 this year. I hunt deer pretty seriously during most of that time, killing hogs when they're around. Just to be clear, I am not high fenced, matter of fact, some of my fences are hardly fences at all.

At any rate, if you're ever down this way, give me a call and I'll show you around.

It only takes one "too hot" load to develope permenent headspace in that nice lever gun..for what its worth...You been lucky so far why push your luck...

I used some Buffalo Bore rounds in 45-70 that were really hot too. They load a 350 grain load that was almost opening the action on my Marlin, that's to hot me thinks!