AFRICA HUNTER QUEST©    

     Chapter 22 - THE PILGRIM’S AMMO EVOLUTION    

     Donny went online to order the 180-grain ammo. The first well-known site he accessed didn’t carry it; the second site he accessed was out. On the third site, he ordered the last box in stock. He could find no other sites that even carried it. Disturbingly, everyone seemed to be out of any ammo except 9-millimeter pistol and 5.56x45 NATO.    

     Concerned, Donny accessed his favorite source for the 130-grain, 270 Winchester ammo. They were out of all 270 Winchester ammo! Concern quickly morphed into panic to the point he forced himself to consider handloading the 180-grainer.    

     Donny frantically researched sources for the 180-grain bullet, as necessity had, in fact, become the mother of invention. A major online site was out. No other major sites even carried it. He found a source on the left coast that appeared to have some in stock. In full-on DEFCON 5, he called and actually got a person, a very nice and accommodating lady. She wasn’t sure if they still had any left in stock, but she would go back to the warehouse to check.    

     Donny was put on hold. He apparently hadn’t been livin’ right, and he was steeling himself for what he believed would be the inevitable response of “We’re out”.     

     The wait dragged on. The nice lady came back on line and said “I found nine boxes. How many boxes do you want?” Donny instantaneously replied “All of them.” He gave the lady his address and card number, then contemplated his spectacular results. He hadn’t realized how bad the ammo and reloading component shortage was.     

     Both his dad and father-in-law had asked him to save his spent brass so they could adapt it to their chamberings. He went down into his shop and counted 96 pieces. That implied he only had four left loaded with his 130-grainer. Sure enough, his last box was almost depleted. He rummaged around trying to find other boxes of different ammo, but he knew it would be hopeless. He was sure he had given it all away several years ago when he had settled on his current load. “Powder and primers,” he thought. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”    

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     Sure enough, no one had any primers. Although he didn’t know what powder he was going to use, the fly-bys he gave to online vendors that sold powder revealed the same supply issue: the shelves were bare. He had to adapt, innovate, and overcome.     

     His friends that reloaded could likely be of some limited help. A couple of pounds of powder here, a box of 100 primers there. He knew his dad and father-in-law kept tens of pounds of powder and thousands of primers for the loads they had ginned. Regardless of who he asked for help, he now needed to know exactly what powder and what primer to ask for.    

     He went online and found a website with load data that included a 180-grainer. He was disappointed when the referenced maximum muzzle velocities were only in the range of 2400 to 2500 fps, considerably less than the referenced muzzle velocity from the ammunition manufacturer.    

     Donny next cruised the hunting forms for load data. He only found one load reference that indicated a powder charge and primer. However, no muzzle velocity was given. Not only that, it was very apparent no one had ever used the 180-grainer to actually take game. About three-quarters of the posts had responses that fell into the Robert McNamara school of political no-speak: answer the question you wish had been asked instead of the one that was. These folks wanted to tell about their hunting achievements with lighter-weight bullets, completely ignoring the IP’s question.     

     Donny found himself noting that key details were customarily omitted. These details either limited or eliminated any reasonable interpretation of the hows and whys associated with what the postsperts claimed for each bullet’s terminal performance. He had automatically begun to focus on such key data as muzzle velocity, shot distance, bullet impact point on the animal, shot angle, distance the animal traveled after the shot, and bullet retention or pass-through. He did note that grousing by the postsperts about meat damage and poor bullet weight retention seemed to go hand in hand.    

     As he scanned through countless posts, Donny marveled at his transition from hope to irritation to frustration. In a flash of cosmic enlightenment, he recognized he was trying to check the boxes associated with GG’s hunting definition outline in order to apply terminal performance concepts the Old Man had labored to teach him. The enlightenment also cast a glaring light on his attitude and reactions throughout

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the process. The light was particularly harsh and unflattering as it spotlighted his last childish and petulant moments with the Old Man: he had figuratively shot the Messenger.    

     “What’s done is done,” thought Donny. He moved on.    

     About 20% of the respondents just spewed. Baseless conjecture being dispensed as informed opinion. When GG had speculated, at least he said so. The one notable difference between GG and the postsperts was at least the Old Man had taken the time to research true experts or run tests to put himself in the right stadium to play the right game. Some of the posts he read indicated those boys weren’t even in the right universe.     

     Then there was the 5% or so that had good field data for 150-grainers. So good, in fact, he began to seriously question whether he needed to go through the aggravation of using a 180-grain bullet for the animals he intended to hunt. That was partially dismissed when he read one ol’ boy with direct Africa experience admit that he may have beaten the odds on his hunt by using his 150-grainer.    

             In contrast, the actual market reality of the 180-grainer was tough to ignore. “Folks don’t offer and continue to successfully sell anything unless there is sufficient demand,” thought Donny. The fact that 180-grain bullets were available was compelling, regardless of the loaded ammo stunner. “There’s an untold story somewhere,” thought Donny. “Folks don’t continue to buy stuff unless it works.”      

              Finally, Donny reluctantly recognized that if he wanted to use his 270 Winchester, there was no palatable alternative to reloading his own ammo. Finding any other bullets or any loaded 270 Winchester ammo would be problematic, at best. He understood he had been granted divine intervention by scoring at least one box of 180-grain ammo and 450 bullets. He would take it and run as fast and as far as he could.    

     Donny knew his dad had an extensive reloading manual library, as he had done considerable background research on bullets and chamberings before finally deciding on his 30-06 Ackley. Not only that, his dad had done load development with various powders. Donny knew his dad still had a considerable inventory of powders that he had tried. Maybe his dad had enough surplus of an acceptable powder for a load.    

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     He called his dad and explained what he was trying to accomplish. Donny was grateful for his dad’s simple response of “Sounds reasonable”. He was in no mood for a “This is what I would do” response. While he was on the phone, his dad rummaged through the half dozen or so reloading manuals he had, looking for data on a .277, 180-grain bullet. In the 26th edition of a powder manufacturer’s manual, his dad found the mother lode: actual data for a 180-grain bullet that indicated a maximum velocity of over 2600 fps from a 26-inch barrel. Not only that, he could spare 8 pounds of a referenced faster burning powder he used in his Ackley, and the remaining 14 pounds of a referenced slower burning powder that he decided not to use. His dad could also easily spare 1000 large rifle primers.    

     The conversation with his dad had resulted in nothing short of a harmonic convergence. Data and components were now about 1200 miles away. Donny felt like he needed to go out and buy a lottery ticket.    

     There was still time available before spring planting. Donny decided to drive out to Colorado to see his dad for a reloading tutorial as well as collect his powder and primers. His dad told him to bring his rifle, his box of 180-grain ammo, some 270 Winchester reloading dies, and the brass he had saved. His dad had a spare reloading press and offered to help Donny set up the dies to obtain a strategic resize of his once-fired brass.    

     Donny’s incredible string of good luck continued to hold. He found an online vendor that had a 270 Winchester full-length resizing die and bullet seater still available. He had the vendor ship them to his dad’s address in Colorado.    

     Donny attended Reloading 101 in his dad’s heated shop. His dad was a woodworking freak and used the move to construct a dedicated woodworking shop adjacent to the house. One corner of the shop area was allocated to reloading, with a sturdy 4-foot by 8-foot reloading bench and integrated lower drawers that housed his reloading equipment. He had positioned the bench so he could access all four of its sides. Donny could see he had assembled various tools and equipment for the reloading tutorial, not the least of which was a stout-looking reloading press lying on the table’s surface.     

     Dad: Folks make this reloading thing out to be more complicated than it needs to be. About the only thing you really need to pay attention to is how you set up your resizing die. Bumping the case shoulder back just a fuzz helps accuracy and improves case life. It’s also safer, because what I am about to show you reduces the prospect of a case head separating from the case body.    

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     His dad took Donny’s rifle and secured it in a gun vise that he had clamped to the bench. He then took a firing pin removal tool and quickly removed the firing pin assembly from Donny’s bolt. He greased the bolt’s locking lugs and slipped the bolt into the action. The bolt handle flopped down, meeting no resistance. His dad then opened the bolt and inserted one of the spent cases Donny had brought.    

     Dad:  Try closing the bolt on this case.    

     Donny eased the case into the chamber and then tried to close the bolt. He could close it, but with some difficulty.     

     D: Tough to close. Unexpected.     

     Dad: Right. The brass has expanded from the pressure released by cooking off a round. In order to get the brass to smoothly chamber, you have to use the resizing die to massage down the case diameter and bump the shoulder back a fuzz, in this instance 0.001 to 0.002 inches. The die also reduces the neck diameter so the case can again properly grip another bullet.    

     His dad then extracted the case and took a measurement with an electronic caliper. The caliper had a cylindrical plug with an open-orifice screw-clamped to one of its jaws. The orifice had a diameter big enough so that the plug’s open surface rested just above the shoulder of a case.    

     Dad: 2.051 inches. After resizing this case, I want this reading to be 2.050 or 2.049 inches.    

     His dad then securely clamped the spare reloading press to the bench. He inserted a shell holder onto the base of the press’s ram, then fully extended the ram. He then thoroughly cleaned Donny’s die with solvent, finishing off with a spray-on rust preventative. He screwed the die into the press until the die body touched the shell holder. He lowered the ram, then adjusted the die about one-eighth of a turn so that the die extended slightly lower in the press. He cinched down the die’s lock ring so it was finger tight. He cycled the ram back up until it contacted the die, then continued the stroke until the ram handle seemed to cam over. His dad made minute adjustments to the die until the cam-over force ‘felt’ right.    

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     Dad: What I’m trying to do is strike a happy medium between getting the linkage slop out of the system while at the same time avoiding needless wear and tear on the ram and linkage. Try it.    

     Donny cycled the ram and felt the slight resistance from the camming over of the linkage. The force felt ‘good’ but not excessive. “Goldilocks strikes again,” he thought. His dad then firmly cinched down the lock ring and secured the set screw embedded in the lock ring.    

     His dad reached into one of his cabinet drawers underneath the bench and produced a case-lube pad. He rolled the case back and forth several times on the pad.    

     Dad: Never put a case into a resize die without lubing it first. You are gonna need one of these. You can have this one.     

     Positioning the case in the shell holder, his dad forced it up into the die, brought it back down, removed it, and took a caliper measurement.    

     Dad: Unchanged from 2.051 inches.     

     He removed the shell holder from the ram and showed it to Donny.     

     Dad: This shell holder is the first one of a five-piece set. Subsequent shell holders are strategically machined to allow a progressive 0.002-inch reduction in resize length. The shell holder set potentially allows a total of 0.008 inches in resized case-length reduction from the initial reading. Since we haven’t bumped the case back any, we need to insert the next smaller shell holder to see if its use reduces the case length.    

     D: But have the case body diameter and neck diameter been reduced?    

     Dad: Yes. All we’re trying to do now is bump the shoulder back a tad so there is a no-interference fit of the case in the rifle’s chamber.    

     His dad selected the next smaller shell holder and inserted it into the ram. He relubed the case and cycled it through the die. He picked up the calipers and remeasured.     

     Dad: 2.050. One-thousandths of an inch less. Let’s check it in your rifle.    

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     His Dad used a can of spray solvent and a paper towel to remove the lube from the resized case. He put the case back into the chamber of Donny’s rifle and closed the bolt.    

     Dad: Perfect. You try it.    

     Donny cycled the bolt up and down to cam-lock the case in the chamber. He felt modest resistance that almost imperceptibly increased with the last downward movement of the bolt handle. “Goldilocks,” thought Donny.    

     Dad: You need to get yourself a set of these shell holders.     

     His dad again reached into one of the drawers beneath the cabinet and produced what looked like a poor man’s mini-lathe that he clamped to the bench.    

     Dad: Time to trim and chamfer the case. This trimmer is set up for my 30-06 Ackley. I checked my manuals and my trim length is about 0.050 too short for your 270 Winchester case. We need to adjust it so you are at least close to the recommended 2.530-inch length.    

     His dad fiddled with the trimmer’s adjustments. Each time he adjusted the trimmer, he attempted to shave off some brass from the neck of the resized case. After several trials, he snuck up on a 2.528-inch reading on his calipers.    

     Dad: Close enough. The important thing is that all the resized brass gets trimmed to the same length.    

     His dad once again dived into one of the drawers beneath the bench and produced an oddly-shaped metal plug. The plug looked almost like a miniature Flash Gordon rocket ship.     

     Dad: This is a case chamfer tool. We need to make sure that the outside periphery of the case is eased so that the case mouth slips easily into the neck portion of the die. We also need to make sure that the inside periphery of the case mouth is eased to accommodate a smooth seating of the bullet.    

     His dad did a few quick licks with the fin portion of the tool on the outside of the case mouth, and a few quick licks with the nose-cone portion of the tool on the inside of the case mouth.     

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     “Doesn’t look like much of a chamfer to me,” thought Donny. “More of a debur than anything close to a chamfer.” But he knew it was politically expedient to let the comment slide. The multiple elk mounts on the walls of his dad’s den were testimony that his reloading procedures were successful enough.     

     Dad: By the way, the manufacturer of your die has a carbide expander ball to replace the one that came standard with the die. I would suggest you opt to get one. You then don’t have to lube the interior of the neck, which is a pain to clean. No matter how well you polish the stock expander ball, it will micro-gall the brass and eventually degrade the consistency of the neck tension.    

     Donny then prepped 25 cases for the load-trial strategy his dad had suggested based on the powders he was going to give Donny. The faster powder was the one his dad used in his Ackley, and he felt that it would ultimately prove to produce the better accuracy. He wanted Donny to load up 15 rounds, sufficient enough to get on paper and shoot at least one, 5-shot trial group. He wanted Donny to load up 10 more with the slower powder, allowing 5 to adjust the zero and 5 for a trial group.     

     His dad recommended that the powder charge used for both powders be one-half grain less than the maximum as shown in the manual. If he got even the slightest indication of a difficult bolt lift after firing the first shot of either load, his dad told him to abandon the load and to reduce the powder charge by another half grain. His Dad showed him a kinetic bullet puller and how to use it so he could salvage his components without buggering his brass or the bullets.    

     Donny counted out 24 additional cases and proceeded to resize, then clean lube from each. After he was done resizing and cleaning lube, he trimmed and chamfered them like his dad had shown him. His dad gave him a 50-case capacity plastic ammo box to hold the prepped cases.    

     Dad: Now that the brass is prepped, we can prime it and load it with powder.    

     His dad produced a small square plastic tray and dumped 25 primers on its serrated bottom half. He gently shook the tray back and forth so that the primers oriented themselves face up.     

     He opened another drawer beneath his bench and fished out a small cylinder with an external hand lever pinned to its bottom. Donny looked at the top of the cylinder and saw that there was a shell holder housed within its periphery. The shell holder had a hole in its center to accommodate a small cup exposed at its base. The

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diameter and depth of the cup accommodated placement of a primer so that its upper surface was flush with the base of shell holder’s surface.     

     His dad picked up a primer from the tray and placed it in the cup in the cylinder. He slipped a case into the shell holder, cinched it down, then squeezed the lever pinned to the bottom. Squeezing the lever actuated a small, spring-loaded piston that forced the primer up into the brass case.    

     His dad squeezed, then released the lever arm. He then slipped the case out of the cylinder. Like magic, a primer was now firmly embedded in the primer pocket of the case.     

     Dad:       With this primer seating tool, you can feel when the primer bottoms out in the case. That is where you want to put it, where it just touches. You try it.    

     Donny replicated his dad’s procedural steps. Sure enough, he could feel when the primer bottomed out on the base of the case. He primed the remaining 24 cases and placed them in the plastic ammo box.     

     Dad:       We are now ready to load powder. The first question, of course, is how much. You don’t want to over-stress the brass by putting in too much, but you want enough to give you good velocity and accuracy.    

     His dad pulled out a powder manufacturer’s reloading manual. Donny could see printed on the spine of the book that it was Edition 26, likely the one he had consulted while he was talking on the phone. His dad thumbed through the manual until he found information on the 270 Winchester.    

     Dad: Like I said, we are going to reduce these maximum powder charges for a 180-grain bullet by ½ grain. I don’t know whether the bullet they used was either a flat base or a boat tail. A flat-base bullet is going to have more of a bullet-to-barrel contact surface area than a boat tail, and will thus generate more pressure for the same powder charge. Besides, your chamber and barrel bore may be slightly smaller than the test barrel they used, and yours could produce unsafe pressure with their maximum powder charge. After all, we are really constructing an IED.     

     Donny’s dad pointed to the two powders of interest.     

     Dad: Now let’s load up these cases with ½ grain less than the maximum charges shown.  

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     He then produced a small electronic balance and a click-style powder measure from one of the bench drawers. He plugged the balance into a receptacle on the bench’s side and clamped the powder measure to the bench. He dosed the bottle- shaped powder measure reservoir with powder from an 8-pound keg, visually enough for about 50 cases. He then adjusted the powder feed orifice at the base of the measure to a setting where the weight of powder thrown would be close to the target weight they had identified.    

     Dad: I don’t weigh each charge. Takes too long. Since I only have one load, I use the electronic balance to calibrate the metering orifice so that it throws powder within 0.2 of a grain either way. This is how short-range benchresters do it.     

     The electronic balance had a tare button that zeroed out the weight of the case and allowed a direct weight read-out of the powder. After Donny had tared out the weight of his first case, he actuated the lever that dispensed the powder from the measure and filled the first case with powder. He placed it on the balance and read the result.     

     Dad: Too much.     

     His dad then fiddled with the orifice metering adjustment to reduce the amount of powder that the measure dispensed. After about 5 minutes of repeated evaluation and powder measurement adjustments based on the weights obtained, his dad was finally satisfied. Donny then filled 15 cases with the faster of the two powders.    

     Donny placed the filled cases back into the ammo box. His dad then placed a 180-grain bullet into the case, nose down, indicating that the case was ready for actually seating a bullet.     

     Dad: Capping the cases with a bullet keeps powder from flying out if you inadvertently bump the box.     

     The way his dad said it indicated that he had learned that little tidbit the hard way.     

     Once 15 cases were filled with the faster powder and loosely capped with an upside-down bullet, his dad emptied the powder left in the measure and funneled it back into the keg. He then filled the measure with the slower burning powder and had Donny recalibrate the measure.    

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     When his dad was satisfied with the orifice setting, Donny filled 10 cases with the slower burning powder. They were also placed in the ammo box and capped with an upside-down bullet.    

     Dad: We are now ready to seat bullets. Reloading manuals typically reference what is called a cartridge overall length, or COAL. That is the length from the base of the brass case to the tip of the bullet. It’s used as a basis for seating the bullets to the same specification as was used in obtaining the maximum pressures referenced in the manual. Unfortunately, this particular manual does not reference such a cartridge overall length. That is why I asked you to bring your box of off-the-shelf ammo so we could take measurements of those seating lengths and replicate them with our hand-loaded ammunition.    

     His dad recommended that Donny measure the cartridge overall lengths of all 20 of his boxed ammo. He could then take the average and seat his bullets for the trial ammo to that average.    

     Donny then began to measure the cartridge overall length of his off-the-shelf ammo. To facilitate that measurement, his dad produced a small-diameter flat disk that clamped to one jaw of the dial calipers. He called it an anvil. Its use made measuring the total cartridge length at the bullet tip way easier. Even with the anvil, he measured a maximum variation of 0.019 inches. That seemed like a lot, but it didn’t seem to concern his dad.    

     Once Donny calculated the average overall cartridge length of his off-the-shelf ammo, his dad helped him set up the bullet seating die. As with the full-length resizing die, he first cleaned it will solvent, then sprayed it down with a thin film of corrosion protectant. His dad fully extended the ram’s press and screwed the die down until its face contacted the shell holder on the top of the ram. Then his dad backed off the die from the ram about one-quarter of a turn and cinched down the lock ring.    

     Dad: That’s the easy part. The real fun starts in adjusting the seater stem length. But the good news is once you set up your seater die, you never need to change it. By the way, always use the same shell holder as you did in setting up your die to seat all of your production rounds.    

     A trick to setting up the seater die is to sneak up on the setting you want. Set the bullet long and progressively adjust the stem length to shorten the overall length

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until you get the measurement you want. If you over-shoot your target measurement, use the kinetic bullet puller to lightly tap the bullet back a few thousandths of an inch. Readjust the seater stem, and try again.    

     It was a pain. Donny went through 8 trials before he was satisfied with the measurement. After he tightened down the seater stem, he seated a bullet in a different case. He was within 0.002 thousandths of his target measurement.    

     Dad: Good enough.     

     Donny seated the remaining rounds, then stared at his handiwork. “Easy enough,” he thought. He had gotten the impression from his friends that reloading was some sort of ritualistic ordeal, approaching a never-ending saga. Although GG never said otherwise, all you had to do was look at the reloading equipment he brought to the range and the Old Man’s intense focus to suspect that the accuracy he had referenced as his 3-shot criterion at 200 yards was not easy to come by, possibly requiring way more steps and anal measurements than his dad had shown him.    

     D: What kind of accuracy can I expect from the ammo I just loaded?    

     Dad: Should be pretty good. We have actual manual powder data and an overall cartridge seating length based on available ammo. I got five shots to group a tad less than an inch at 100 yards from the git-go. Round group. Same reloading steps that I showed you. I’ve never had to change a thing.    

     Donny contemplated his plastic ‘box of chocolates’. Like Forest Gump, he wondered what he was going to get.     

     Daytime temperatures in Colorado for the foreseeable future were forecast to be only in the low to mid-teens. Periodic snow showers were forecast as well, weather conditions really not conducive for shooting evaluation groups. Donny decided to spend the next few days visiting with his dad, then make his way back home to South Carolina for actual trial testing at this own range. As far as he was concerned, he was way ahead of the preparation curve. He could afford to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach.    

     When he got back to South Carolina, Donny selected an afternoon when the temperatures were in the upper-40s to find out how his ammo would do. He had the additional benefits of modest wind and an overcast sky to cut down on mirage. “No excuses,” he thought.     

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     Donny knew that zeroing his rifle could be a pain. He had found out the hard way that he needed to start at a 25-yard target frame to prevent a saga of ‘go fish’ to find the zero. He had several little-used cardboard backers that measured a full 3x3 feet square. He stapled the cardboard to the frame, then positioned and stapled a 12-inch by 12-inch target in the center of the cardboard. The target had a large, 3-inch orange bullseye in the center. There were several bullet holes in the cardboard not covered by the paper target, so he covered them with circular white pasters about ½ inch in diameter.    

     When the range was declared hot, he sat down at his bench and adjusted his scope to its lowest power. He then positioned his rifle on a bull bag so he was relatively comfortable with sighting on his target. He didn’t have a rear bag, and it took a while to position his left hand to get a steady hold on the target’s orange bullseye.     

     He slipped in one of the hand loads with the faster powder. He noted with satisfaction that the bolt closed with no drama. He repositioned himself and squeezed off the shot.     

     He was anxious to know if there was any hint of difficult bolt lift, indicative of excessive chamber pressure. He cycled open the bolt and was relieved at the ease with which it lifted. No apparent excessive chamber pressure.    

     The recoil had knocked the rifle from its shot position so he had to reposition it to see the bullet impact. Way low and left, almost off the cardboard. Donny muttered “Thank You, Lord, I’m on paper.”    

     Donny was reaching for the scope adjustment knobs to adjust the POI when the ‘duh’ suddenly hit him. He hadn’t recorded the scope readings that defined his 130-grain zero. “Epic disaster avoided,” thought Donny. He rummaged around in his truck and found a pen and literally the back of an envelope to record the scope settings, then adjusted the turret knobs to bring the POI up and to the right. He knew he would not get it precisely correct, and reckoned that it would take at least three, maybe four shots, to get the POI reasonably close to the orange bullseye.    

     And so it went. It took him five total shots to get his POI within spittin’ distance of about an inch directly below the orange bullseye. He was now ready to set targets at 100 yards, as past experience had shown him that a POI about 1 inch low at 25 yards produced a POI pretty much dead on at 100 yards. He again noted

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with satisfaction that there had been no difficulty in opening or closing the bolt with any of the five rounds he had shot.     

     He rigged his cardboard backer and three of his orange bullseye targets on a 100-yard target frame. He then laboriously positioned his Doplar chronograph on the bench in order to obtain muzzle velocity. When Donny was satisfied with its alignment, he positioned himself behind the rifle. He cranked the scope up to its full 18 power. He carefully centered his reticle’s aiming dot in the center of the orange bull and squeezed off the shot.    

     When he looked through his scope and reacquired the target, he was disappointed to find the impact up and off to the right about 1 o’clock, not even touching the orange of the bullseye. Had there been a gust of wind? He didn’t think so. His hold and trigger squeeze had been good, at least good enough that he hadn’t called a flier.     

     He looked at his chronograph to see if it had recorded a velocity. It was good news/bad news. He had indeed recorded the velocity, but it was only 2559 fps. Not encouraging.

     Donny slipped another round into the chamber, closed the bolt and surveyed the wind conditions. There was a slight north wind blowing on his face, with likely a limited left-to-right component. He again acquired his sight picture, consciously reminding himself to slowly squeeze the trigger while maintaining his hold. “Look the bullet into the bullseye,” he told himself.    

     He broke the shot and it felt good. He looked into his scope and saw that the second impact was dead center in the bull, right where he had aimed. “First shot must have been a yank,” he muttered to himself.    

     Donny smoothly extracted his spent brass and inserted another round into the chamber, then closed the bolt. He repositioned his rifle onto the second target and prepared to shoot a five-shot proof group. As he did so, he was aware of two shooters three benches away having a very loud conversation about the cost of 308 Winchester ammo. One had a booming voice that was near-impossible to throttle back in a regular conversation, let alone one with both participants wearing ear protection. Donny found himself becoming distracted and irritated, trying to shut out the conversation but not coming close. He noted in passing that neither of the two talked about the accuracy of the ammo they had tried, only its cost.    

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     Donny hunkered down as best he could, focusing on wind and technique each time he shot. What showed up on paper was totally less than satisfactory. No shots had impacted in the orange bullseye. His first two shots had defined north and south. His third shot was at 9 o’clock to his first shot, at least 1 inch beyond the periphery of the bullseye. His fourth shot was at 3 o’clock, at least 2 inches off the bullseye, and his fifth shot was at 5 o’clock, at least 2 inches off the bull. Although the group was somewhat circular, it looked more like a shotgun pattern than a group shot with a customized hunting rifle with a match-grade barrel. In short, the group sucked. It was at least 6 inches in diameter, likely more.     

     Donny had been so focused on the shots and trying to block out the adjacent conversation that he had paid no attention to the velocity tally displayed on his chronograph’s screen. The velocities had ranged from 2570 to 2545 fps. He estimated that the average was about 2560 fps. “Nuts,”, he thought. “The velocities stink. Horrible accuracy with this powder.”    

     As far as Donny was concerned, his ace in the hole had been trumped. His premonition of doom grew exponentially.    

     Donny clenched his teeth and soldiered on. He selected, then chambered a round of the hand load with the slow powder and shifted the rifle to his third target. He checked the wind, still trying to block out the inane conversation three benches down. When he was satisfied with the conditions and his sight picture, he broke the shot.     

     Upon raising the bolt, he easily extracted the spent brass. Donny peered through his scope and audibly groaned. The shot was at 12 o’clock and at least 2 inches above the orange bullseye. He checked his chronograph’s display: “2601 fps. Ballpark,” he thought. He chambered a second round and again went through a ritual of checking conditions and assessing his hold. He broke the shot, then reacquired the target. “$#!+,” he said out loud. The second shot was at 6 o’clock in the orange bullseye, but had almost dropped out of the orange. Disgusted, he went through the motions with his third, fourth, and fifth shots. His resultant group was almost perfectly vertical, with the last three shots unequally spaced between the first two. In terms of actual group size, he figured this one was slightly smaller than the first, on the order of at least 5 inches. The only redemption, and a poor one at that, was that velocities ranged from 2600 to 2623 fps.     

     Donny was so disappointed and disgusted that he just wanted to $#!+-can hand loading his 180-grain bullets. It was obvious that getting excellent accuracy by

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hand loading was not to be. He knew he needed to come up with a Plan B. What? He would have to chew on it.     

     Donny sat at the bench and pondered the target results. What had gone wrong? What was responsible for the train wreck 100 yards away? Was there something wrong with the reloads? “Not likely,” he thought. His dad, a successful hand loader, had supervised the entire process. Not only that, the rounds were loaded using the same strategy that produced excellent accuracy for his dad.     

     Had something gone haywire with his rifle? Not that he knew of. The only reasonable possibility was that his scope had crapped out on him, a very unpleasant prospect given its cost.    

     Donny reached up and tried to wiggle then twist the scope to see if it moved. Rock solid. Had the internals been buggered? He didn’t see how. The scope had been used for less than 500 rounds and had never been jarred or abused.    

     Donny swallowed hard. “Is it me?” he thought. “Have I somehow lost my shooting skill to the point where I am no longer capable of hitting the side of a barn?”    

     Donny considered all these potential possibilities, but assessed a scope issue was the only reasonable explanation. The problem then became how to identify if his scope had a shot-to-shot zero shift.     

     Donny stared at the box of off-the-shelf ammo, as yet unopened to shoot a group. He had never had a manufacturer’s ammo shoot as bad as what had just shown up on his targets. He decided that if the ammo he was staring at shot as bad or worse than what had occurred on his two previous targets, the scope was buggered and needed repair. Using ammo of unknown accuracy to identify a potential scope malfunction was pretty sketchy, but it beat all the other scope-frisking alternatives that came to mind. If the ammo should actually group well, he would then know that the hand loads were truly crap.     

     Donny went down range and retrieved all of his targets and replaced them with a new one. When he was back at the firing line, he shifted his rifle to align it on this new target. He noted that the shooters talking ammo cost had left. He now had the range to himself. He liked it. “Zero defects,” thought Donny as he chambered a round. He assessed conditions, then focused on his hold and trigger squeeze. He broke the shot, knowing it was good. He repositioned the rifle and saw he was on

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the orange bullseye. He eagerly lifted the bolt and noted a slight resistance. He looked at the case rim but could see no circular burnishing from his extractor pin. Such burnishing was a positive indicator of excessive pressure. “Load’s a tad hot,” he thought. He looked at his chronograph’s display and saw 2666 fps. Way faster than either hand load.     

     Donny chambered his second round and went through his now pre-shot ritual. He broke the shot, knowing he had done his job correctly. When he checked his target again, he was thrilled to see his second shot had also impacted on the orange bullseye, about 1½ inches from the first. Same slight difficulty in bolt lift as before.     

     The subsequent third, fourth, and fifth shots filled out an oval group. The long axis of the oval was vertical. Donny judged the group size to be well less than 2 inches. He breathed a sigh of relief, as his scope appeared to be functioning properly.    

     He checked his chronograph’s display. Velocities ranged from 2649 to 2671 fps. As far as he was concerned, this was the ammo he should be taking to Africa. To hell with hand loading.     

     Donny’s defiance ebbed away as he considered his reality. The odds of scoring ten boxes of this ammunition for both practice and a trip to Africa were way worse than slim to none. If he wanted to go to Africa in June, he needed to borrow a rifle, convert his rifle into a switch-barrel, or gin a hand load for the 180-grainer.    

     Borrowing a rifle was simply out of the question. Experience indicated he had insufficient lead time for a switch-barrel conversion. Whether he liked it or not, ginning some manner of 180-grain hand load for his 270 Winchester was really the only feasible solution if he wanted to hunt in Africa this year.    

     What to do? Donny sensed that his dad had likely been granted a gift with his load. What he had just witnessed on the two targets shot with his hand loads and what he had inferred by watching GG indicated there was likely uncommon method to this apparent and very graphic madness. His dad might be able to help some, but probably not to the extent that was implied by his two train-wreck targets.    

     He had a couple of friends that hand loaded, but not a 270 Winchester. Their three-shot groups weren’t all that better than the five-shot group his 130-grainer factory ammo had produced. His friends were ate up with maximum velocity and limiting velocity extreme spread rather than accuracy. He hesitated to call what had

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shown up on his two targets accuracy, but that is what needed to be radically improved.     

     “Damn,” thought Donny. “Got to go see the Geezer. Likely more drinkin’ from a fire hose. The question is, will the Ol’ Boy be willing to open the hydrant?”   

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