NEF 357 mag handi rifle

jackpine

New member
Picked up a 22" heavy barreled 357 mag NEF handi rifle that included a 20 guage rifled barrel as well. The scope I had on hand is a simmons 2X shotgun scope and a set of millet rings. Burned up 5 rounds getting on target (didn't bore site) and the next 25 rounds made me smile. I fired 5 rounds then bore snaked the barrel 3 times. With a cold barrel first shot was dead on and shots 2 to 5 would be 1 inch low in a tight group and if I let the barrel heat up too much the shots would walk up back to the X ring but a little horizontal spread. The above wandering on the target will be fixed ASAP with some light file work on the fore end and the addition of an O ring on the barrel shank.

I also tried 5 rounds of my 357 practice loads that have a 158 grain round nose hornady swaged bullet and a pinch of tight group. Those folks that tell you lead loads and micro groove rifling don't mix are right 4"X5" 5 shot "group' and lead skids half way down the pipe. I'll try hard cast lead in the future and we'll see what shakes.
 
Slug your barrel first and make sure that the bullet is 0.001 over the groove diameter. That will help. When you say "a pinch of titegroup" how much is a pinch? A lead bullet needs enough pressure behind it to obturate the bullet into the grooves and sometimes very light loads lead worse than heavier loads. The secret to good lead bullet shooting is proper size and proper pressure.

While microgroove barrels present a challenge to cast bullet shooter, lots of us have found that they provide fine accuracy with just a little special handling.
 
I said pinch because my load data isn't in front of me. I rolled those 158 LRN's for my revolver and they work great there. I think I'm at 3.4 grains of titegroup I was looking to match the velocity to those soft swaged bullets.
 
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