Cool Rod-----Hot Day!

[Richard]

If you wanted to shoot your muzzleloader today, you definitely needed your cool rod ;D And work??? They most certainly do........even though there are some "naysayers "
92* in the sun............86* in the shade.
Group #1 a Triplex with a different main charge...........Did not work that well
Group #2............A duplex that I had not tried before.......Now it shot fairly well (for hot weather?)
Group #3.......same load at 300.............. ---managed the first three in 4.2" then #4 went out and I scrubbed the fifth shot.
#4 was a 300 gr. SST with a sub base and veggie wad over 60 gr. of H-4198 at 100 yards.............
#5...a 300 gr. XTP with no sub base and only a veggie wad....
#6.......OK so the 200 gr. Nosler, smooth Harvester over a 15/61 Duplex of 4759/H-335 Ball powder. Here is a ten shot group fired in under 25 minutes using the COOL rod for about 30 to 45 sec. between shots and my usual two patch regiment. NO blown sabots. The first five went into 1.5" and I had five shots left so I dumped them into the group. So when I hear that you can't shoot good groups in hot weather, I tend to roll my eyes
The way I look at it is like this: If the interior of the barrel is cool.........not cold, just not hot! I can't see how the bullet/sabot knows if it is summer or winter? Yes, maybe the humidity is a little different.........which might slightly effect the powder, but all else aside, I think it is the barrel temperature that decides how the combination shoots. You can see from my first group that the gun did not like it..........but moving right to the second group, it tightened right up. Barrel staying the same temperature.
By the way Dennis..........Herman shot those loads at 300 and you will note, he did not post his targets
Richard

[shooter]

Richard,I think Herman had a great group out at 300 Yrds with the 195 Barnes and 10gr 4759 and 50gr h-4198.I no i would be tickled to death with a group like that.
BTW Nice shooting with 10 shots

[tar12]

Richard shoot group 6 again when the temps are in the upper 20s/low 30s with out a cool rod..as matter of fact take your best cool rod groups and repeat them in the temps mentioned and compare group sizes.You will see a difference.No one has said that I can remember that the cool rod does not work in hot ambient temps. It has to work...but it is a contrived/artificial/summer method in temps/conditions that can not be replicated in winter conditions...try it in the winter not setting in your climate controlled shack and you will see the difference. You will find your that compones react very differently.

[Deleted]

Richard,
You do shoot the groups and you do have YOUR opinion on things just like many here but, if your load is not "temp" r mental
then you might have found a jem. Thank you for sharing your efforts because You really didn't have to.
Greenhorn

[deadeye]

as a load developer i would take some notice@ #1 load, more @#2 & especially #6(10-shots) for fine tuning or repeatability. i really like when i see a circle formation starting for accuracy terms to refine vs. staggering.

imo #2 & #6 could possibly be there or almost there depending on more distance(200-300yds) needed to verify imo! good work

[herman]

Sorry I didn't get around to posting yesterday.Had planned on doing it this morning,since I didn't have anything great I'll just ad to richards post.
We have a 600 yd shoot next saturday and I worked on reloading all evening after I got home yesterday.Thought I had loads that I was going to shoot but found out yesterday that one was a little to hot so had to go back to the drawing board so next tuesday will be the only time I can try another one.
By the time I got around to shooting the savage one of the targets had fell of the cardboard backer and by the time I got home another one had come off so all I had besides the target with the 195's was a piece of blank cardboard with holes in it.
I shot the I4759=10grs--H4198=50 grs at 300 yds.
The 195's was the best I had ever got them to shoot at 300,had three that went 3.4 in.
The 200 xtp the first 2 went allmost touching but don't know where the third one went.
Tried some 180 rem that shooter had sent me to try and they really surprised me getting all three on the target backer.They were strung vertical around 7or 8 inches.
These have a very big hollow point,maybe a good bullet for deer or varmits with a tweaked load out to 200 yds.
These are from memory when shooting them,I really couldn't say for sure which hole was which by looking at the cardboard.

[Richard]

Herman........as I recall, when we looked at the 300 yard targets I asked specifically if there were any good groups and what you pointed out were two here and two there with maybe three of four good but not "three in a row"? That is why I mentioned that. Anytime I say: Three shot group? It is three in a row. If I happen to have a good cluster, I might say.......best three out of five or whatever. Sorry..........I tend to be specific ;D I like to report the facts "un sugar coated"
Tar........So why is it you always preach that you have to shoot in cool weather? It makes new shooters think they are stuck shooting only four months of the year? It would be better if indicated that "using the cool rod would get you pretty good results.......but you might want to look at your loads again in November, as they could improve with the colder weather?" Thats all I'm saying. Instead all I hear you say is: "and wait at least 15 minutes between shots?" We want to encourage new SML shooter to get out and shoot their guns.......not discourage it by telling them they will only get good results in cold weather..........because that is not so!
Richard

[deadon]

Thanks Richard, good report as usual.

[tar12]

No negativity intended on my part. Reality is intended.The difference between groups is very clear to me from winter to summer.The point I stress is this fact. I think all agree that a cooling rod will allow shooting in hot weather with decent results but dont expect the same when Nov. rolls around as you stated. Have you compared summer/winter loads with and with out the rod? I have with the .50 and thats why I parked the cooling rod.It was a waste of time,energy and money for ME seeing that the results were so different. They may be slightly different with the .45.But I doubt it with the sabot in the equation. I am gathering data with the .45 to compare. Preliminary results are mimicing the .50 results but it to soon for a definitive answer.Results will be posted for the naysayers. ;D More hot weather shooting needed.. There aint nothing like a 85-90 degree day to get you excited about shooting! ;D

[jeremylong]

Last night I got thinking about this whole temperature shooting thing, well it made me question what is the temp in November on my opening day. A little googling later gave me something to think about. I realize I probably wont shoot at the exact time of a record high but I dang sure dont want to be blowing sabots at 70F.
Nov11 average high 58°F low 38°F record high 80°F (1999) record low 23°F (1979)
Nov12 average high 57°F low 37°F record high 85°F (1989) record low 15°F (1976)
Nov13 average high 57°F low 37°F record high 73°F (1989) record low 9°F (1986)

[Savage Shooter]

Jun 29, 2011 5:29:14 GMT -5 herman said:

Had planned on doing it this morning,since I didn't have anything great I'll just ad to richards post.

I shot the I4759=10grs--H4198=50 grs at 300 yds.
The 195's was the best I had ever got them to shoot at 300,had three that went 3.4 in.

Said you had nothing "great" but said is was best you ever got with 195bx @ 300, I must be missing something.

I thought 195bx shot 3 shots at 300 into 3.4 inch group.

Was that not 3 in a row?

AND if 3 in a row was that not about a 1.15 moa group at 300 with 195bx?

[dennis31]

Nice shooting and report. While i did shoot a good group with the 10/50 4759/H4198 with SST's that load with the noslers was poor. Will try again with Barnes and SST again in cooler weather.

[Richard]

Tar..........All I know is that pretty decent results can be obtained using the cool rod under high heat conditions. There are only about maybe three months during the middle of our winters where I do not bring the cooler to the range.........(note: I did not say the cool rod) During the winter as the barrel warms a little I take the cool rod which I let hang out under one of the windows and still use it to lower the temperature. So for me? Its an all year deal. I just can't see wasting a whole spring, summer and fall not shooting because of a little heat? If the groups improve a little in colder weather for you or others, thats great!
I just went back thru some of the stuff I shot during the winter months and nothing really jumps out as being so much better? Of course I shoot so many different combinations that it gets hard to really compare apples to apples. Plus, you will practically never get the same wind conditions along with the sun, clouds humidity ........anything that can effect a group? I did find a ten shot group I shot on March 1, of this year using a triplex that works well. It had 10 shots in 1.9" . The temperature that day was 45 to 65*,sunny with a little right to left wind. So yesterday it was 92* and the 10 shots grouped in 2.1" with a different load (a duplex I had never shot before) and a different bullet? So..............not really a valid comparrison.....still, 2/10" difference? I seem to have as many good groups in warm weather as in cold weather. I think, partly because I do use the cool rod all year and try to maintain a similar temperature in my barrel all year. Like I indicated..........The sabot does not know what season it is or what the outside temperature is..........only what the temperature is inside the bore which may soften the sabot a cause some degree of failure.
Apparently Edge has thought it was a good idea and I am thankful he turned me on to it. I am just surprised he never really promoted it to the board until I started complaining about the long wait times that y'all had indicated was necessary to shoot good groups (back when I was struggling with my $%#@% .50!) Little by little, a few other members began to see the light and the rest is history. New ML shooters need to be made aware that there IS an alternative to waiting so long in between shot so they do not get discouraged......as was happening to me.

Richard

[wilmsmeyer]

For everyday target shooters, the cool rod probably at least helps you not blow sabots and keeps the hopes up for continued blasting away. Can't fault anyone for that. As for establishing something to hunt with...it may be a starting point. There are probably several times more hunters then paper pokers here

Being a hunter and having done 99% of any experimenting I may do, all my loads are shot in real life, real temp conditions these days. From experience dating back to BP loads/guns NOTHING that does well in the summer can be counted on to do the same thing in the fall/winter.

The strongest example I can give is the summer of 2000. I used a knight disc on several dozen woodchucks using a load of 140 FFg and a .429 300 gr XTP. Once a week I would confirm zero, shoot a group and go kill about everything I shot at under 200 yds. Groups were un-godly good. We're talking 1/2 inch clover leafs all summer @ 100 yds. I WAS READY for deer season...so I thought. October rolled around and I was hard pressed to shoot this load better the 3 inches and an occational tumbler. No changes in loading procedure or components. So a great warm weather load got worse in cold weather.

That year I ended up using 150 gr FFFg and a 452 Nosler 250 gr partition and salvaged consistent 1 1/2 groups and went hunting.

No substitute for the real world for a hunter. I agree 100% that the paper punchers are benefitting from shooting a lot more....but I don't put much weight into the results from a hunters perspective.....the guy who shots 100 shots a year or less for instance.

Just one mans perspective.....do what you want

[ET]

Richard

No question or doubts about the effectiveness of a cooling rod in aiding to bring down the bore temperature a lot quicker.

It appears that the 200gr Nosler is really performing well.



Ed

[herman]

I guess I should have taken time to put a pic up.So I put the target back up this morning and took a pic.
The bottom target is the 195's.Actually the first shot hit the dirt beside the board.So the next shot I moved the cross hairs over about 2 inches.I didn't count the first shot because I moved the scope,shot again and hit little low on right side of dot.
Bill was looking through his spotting scope and asked where I hit.Told him it was right side of dot.he watched through the spotting scope while I shot the other 2 and said it was a 3 in group.So actually those are shots 2,3 and 4 in the target.Was pretty excited because that was the best the 195's had done past 100yds.So had to go look through bills spotting scope for a closer look.
Before I started shooting the muzzleloader the middle target had fallen off,so I shot at the piece of tape,the one with the black dot in it next to the middle target the last three groups.
The top target was the first 200 xtp group I shot at the black dot,2 are in the target and one is about 8 in at 5 o'clock to the right.
Next shooting at the piece of tape was the 180's verticle line allmost straight down.
Next was another group with the 200 xtp's.One shot is under the paper target that I put back on to take the pic.
The last group again was with the 200 xtp's.If you look at the black target you can see 2 touching,where the third one went don't know but it looks like only 2 shots there.
I had enough pre measured viles for 16 shots,all are accounted for except the one we couldn't find.
When I got to the 300yds to take the target down Richard you were allready there and said the 195 group was a little over 3 in.So now I am only interested in the 180's and the 200 xtps.I remember pointing out the 2 in the top target and the 2 in the black target.I guess we were on 2 different brain waves???