My wife has never actually gotten to shoot a real rifle for fun before, and the only long guns she has shot were an M14 and 12 ga shotgun(she worked in a corrections facility), which were way too much for her to handle.



So, I wanted to put together a fun light recoiling plinker for her. Bonus points if it's inexpensive. I have a scoped Ruger No. 1 in .300 H&H, so deciding which rifle to load for was an easy choice.



I settled on Hornady's 150 grain FMJ bullets, and Trail Boss. Using IMR's formula, I found that my max charge was 24.5 grains, and my starting charge was 17.2 grains. I'm using Remington 9 1/2M primers, and Remington brass, trimmed to 2.840". I loaded 15 rounds with the starting charge of 17.2 grains, and seated the bullets to 3.500" OAL, which is a few thousands off the lands for this rifle.



I took the rifle and the ammo to the local indoor range, and tried them at 30 yards. The recoil was very very mild, almost like shooting an AR15. The report wasn't like a typical rifle shot, sounding much like a cork on a champagne bottle popping. I don't think this load was even supersonic.



The rifle was zeroed at 200 yards with a full power 180 grain load, but at 30 yards, was shooting about 6 inches low. I should have expected that. I think .40 S&W has better ballistics than this load does.



The cases were barely warm when ejected, and it seemed like no matter how fast I shot the gun, the barrel didn't heat up like it normally would.



Here are the results:



 



10 rounds. The flier wasn't mine. A local class III collector shot that one, and let me shoot his full auto BAR in exchange. I could probably shoot it better. The bench there wasn't really practical for rifle shooting.



 



This was the second group I shot. This is five rounds. Again, the best I could shoot.



As easy shooting as this rifle is, I probably should have picked up a box of 110 grain bullets to try.

That is a beautiful rifle, in more ways than one.

that gives you a reason to get a 12lb highwall repro in 45/70 and down load a lead 405gr bullet around 1000fps, recoil would be about like a red rider with a full load of copperheads on board.

It likes to hang out next to this rifle.

Or try these...

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/6533

yeah man, but why spend nearly $.40/bullet for mild loaded rounds when you could cast your own bullets for pennies

Because my wife gave me a spare bedroom in exchange for the garage. She has her limits, and dripping lead all over her laundry room is one of them.

 My reloading setup is also in a spare bedroom, so I sympathize.  Makes reloading during Southern Nevada Summers a lot more... humane.


This settles it, I'm loading up some 45/70 Plinkers for my favorite stick:



I'm a-think'in some 350gr. plated FP at 1,000 fps might be a hell of a lot of fun...

How did you like the reduced loads for .450-400 and .300 H&H today?