Slightly OT

[drewh]

I went to the range this weekend with a new to me number one in .218 Bee ( finally ), and was surprised by a couple of things. The throats on these things is really long, so rather than trying to get close to the lands like I usually do, I set the seating depth to the same as a factory loaded 46gr HP and loaded up some test rounds. By the time I got to the upper end of my test loads it shot a couple of pretty good groups, even with a bunch of jump. In the top picture to the left is what factory 46 gr HP ammo does in that rifle. The pictures should have been rotated 90 degrees right the spread is vertical.

Drew

[Intel6]

I was able to get to the lands on my #1B in .22 Hornet with a 40 gr Vmax. I used a Sierra 77 gr BTHPM bullet to find the leads in my #1B and my Cooper 38 in .218 Mashburn Bee.

in Have you tried a longer plastic tipped bullet like the 40 gr. which is longer to reach the rifling but still light enough for the smaller cased rounds?

Neal in AZ

[GLWenzl]

Nice work Drew, that's looking good!

For reaching the lands the 45 gr Hornady Bee bullet would probably be among the best.

I shot the 40 gr Vmax and just wasn't concerned about reaching the lands. My #1 started out vertical stringing also.

What powder you using?

[drewh]

At this point reaching the lands is less important to me, just surprised it shot as well as it did with the jump. I understand a lot of the .204 Ruger chambers are that way.
Drew

[Daryl]

My .218Bee Ruger #1 is/was the same. The rifle now has over 8,000rounds through it and it is now my buddy's favourite rifle.
Mine also had a long chamber neck length. I fired 14shots from each case and never needed to trim them to length - never reached the end of the chamber & got only .005" longer than when new.

I used LG with stiff loads - Very accurate with all the plastic and HP 40gr. as well as 45gr. Barnes X, 50 Hornady SXSP's and even the 55gr. Vmax shot into sub inch groups @ 100 meters with LG making 3,055fps.
Amazing rifles.

[GLWenzl]

Yes Drew, that 204 Ruger taught me a good lesson! Factory rifle shooting four 5-shot groups at 100 yards with factory ammo and averaging .4" was a real eye opener for me.

Of course at that time everyone including myself was bad mouthing the king throat. Sad to say I only shot 40 rounds through that barrel and had it chopped off... Don't get me wrong I'd still build them with little or no throat but I'll never bad mouth a long one ever again (unless it won't shot lol).

Glad to see you got yourself a #1 Bee! As much as I like mine it seems a little bit boring setting along side that #1 17-Killer Bee I got from ML. Someday would sure like to fill in the gap with a 20 Killer Bee

[pwdrbrn]

Picked up a Mashburn #1 that the owner had used only 50 gr nos in so as to reach the rifling. I didn't have any, so tried some 40 gr Sierra hp varminters ,which definitely don't reach the rifling, loaded base of bullet to base of neck. Probably 1/4"or more of jump, but shot better than the 50's. Go figure.

[drewh]

Gary, I agree about the 17 KB, still my favorite. I expected this to be a donor barrel, but happy to be surprised. Thought hard about a 20 Killer Bee, but a 20 Viper got the nod instead and is in the works.

Drew

[GLWenzl]

Originally Posted by drewh

Gary, I agree about the 17 KB, still my favorite. I expected this to be a donor barrel, but happy to be surprised. Thought hard about a 20 Killer Bee, but a 20 Viper got the nod instead and is in the works.

Drew

Nice to see someone is still building some really cool small calibers!

[philip]

Originally Posted by GLWenzl

Nice to see someone is still building some really cool small calibers!

I`ve got a couple of really cool pieces of brass here on the shelf that came from Drew`s different adventures.

Proof that wildcats are indeed still alive and kicking.......


Phil.