Small Bore ammo switching

[boats]

My standard advice on Ram knock down is don’t worry about it, most shooters are better off hitting all targets than adjusting loads to insure “reliable” ram KD.

However thinking about making a change. Match the other day I went 48/60 but hit 50 about my average score. Two low belly hit rams did not fall. I would like to bump up to master class = 53 and our club matches 85 % is generally the winning rate, loose a couple of rams it will lose you the match and hard to shoot 53 giving targets away. As it was I was 2nd and the rams made no difference, winner went 54/60

In a pre micro grove 39A am using RWS Pistol match. It shoots good, use it in a Winchester Low Wall Schuetzen rifle too, all on paper were you can see the performance. It’s very good. It does not hit rams very hard. Been fooling with some Winchester Super X HS and CCI SGB’s Both are acceptable on paper Rams not as tight grouping as the RWS, but good enough, shoot about 1 moa flatter too.

Thing that I don’t know is will the Marlin act up on Chickens going back to match ammo after completing Rams using the High Speed stuff. I am not satisfied with groups shot on Paper chickens with either HS ammo. This is not an easy thing to test so.

Anybody switch for Rams successfully?

Boats

[cslcAl]

Boats, I shoot on a few ranges where rhe rams are hard to knock down. I do switch to HV ammo on these ranges. I haven't had any problems going back an forth between SV and HV, but I use ammo from the same manufacturer that has the same lube on each. If you switch to another brand that has different lube it may take a few shots to re condition your barrel to the different lube.
At the nationals this year when the wind got real bad I broke out the HV ammo for both the turkeys and rams resulting in 6 birds and 7 rams. I considered that a major feat in those conditions. I hope this helps.

Al Foust

[boats]

Al Agree on the lube and years ago when shooting Smallbore prone used to swith between Cheap Eley and Expensive Eley depending on the match with no noticible settle down period between. I just don't know of any wax lubed HV ammo, Is there any out there ?

Boats

[CZforlife]

At the nationals this year when the wind got real bad I broke out the HV ammo for both the turkeys and rams resulting in 6 birds and 7 rams. I considered that a major feat in those conditions. I hope this helps.

Al Foust

Never thought about that, but that doesn't sound like a bad idea. I suppose you know your click adjustment for HV going into the match ahead of time too?

[boats]

Read off my Lyman 66 Rams using Pistol Match are 32 moa Winchester Super X HV is 29 moa. Few times I have used RWS R 50 in that rifle Rams are 31 Moa. Close enough that day to day changes could counter any settings difference, still the HV is just a bit flatter shooting. Figure 2 moa you won't be too far off.

Boats

[cslcAl]

Boats, Just because I am a nice guy I'll tell you what ammo I am using. You have to promise me you won't tell any one else. I use SK Std. Plus and when called for I use SK HV. They make two versions; a solid 40 gr. and a HP. I use the HP's as they have a higher listed velosity.
I just take eight clicks off my ram setting when using the HV's. They also shoot real well in my guns. Remember MUM'S the word.

Al

[CZforlife]

I may try to sneak these in our range on the extra windy days for smallbore lol

[boats]

Thanks Al,

Am going to the range next week and prove the ram settings exact with HS. Couple of us are driving up to Penn for your States, don't want to get caught out on Rams.

CZ am looking for knock down with the HS ammo. It's going to have more wind drift than Standard. Not logical I know but High Speed drifts more than Standard. Drift is not a real big issue on Rams they are plenty wide.

Boats

[w30wcf]

Boats,
Looking forward to meeting you at the states. Hope you get the Ram ammunition worked out.
I'll be the one shooting .38 Special black powder ammunition.

w30wcf

[Innocent]

Baby Huey,
They are talking much larger and heavier gauge targets for the smallbore here. Don't try HV on the cast targets you have at Hollywood, it will damage them.

Mary

[CZforlife]

At the Rams though it would be tempting!

[cslcAl]

BH, We used to shoot SB every week during the summer months, so in a seasons time we put down a lot of animals. We were having problems with the rams horns being shot off. We discovered there were two shooters who shot together that were using HV Winchester ammo. I was running a shoot off and the one guy was shooting and had a miss fire. I had him eject the round in my hands to inspect and low and behold it was a hollow point. We do not allow HV ammo at our SB matches, but he said it got mixed in by mistake. Two matches later we did a random check of these guys ammo and they had HV Super X ammo in T-22 boxes. They had to mend their ways or not shoot. We stopped having damage on our rams as a result. Al

[Bob259]

At the Rams though it would be tempting!

I thought Hammy taught you better.....

[Jason]

At the Rams though it would be tempting!

Unless you're shooting smallbore cowboy silhouette, there's no point to shooting high velocity ammo. The high velocity ammo will give both worse accuracy and more wind drift than standard velocity ammo, and the 1/5 scale smallbore rams don't need the extra velocity on impact like smallbore cowboy rams sometimes do. If you really want the deeper info on why the ballistic coefficient is worse, I can explain it to you, but essentially it's because the bullet starts out supersonic and goes subsonic before it reaches the target. That transition is not a gentle one.

[CZforlife]

We do shoot lever action iron sight silhouette at our club to though. Anyway it's good to know.