For the last couple years I have toyed with the idea of going lead free in my bullet choices for hunting, so I bought what I thought would be good bullets for some of my muzzies. Then the wind and rain set in along with a couple personal health disasters so I wasn’t really able to do any good shooting to assess the Barnes bullets I bought. I got Barnes Expanders in 250 grain for the Accura rifle and 225 grain XPBs for the Optima pistol. Yesterday was a primo shooting day so I hit the range. Here’s the results.
Starting with the target [tan/black print] with the two in one, this was shot at 100 yards with the Barnes pushed by 77 weighed grains [110 by volume] of BH209 powder and the black sabot supplied with the bullets. I knew where the gun shot 300 grain XTPs and made zero adjustments to the scope to get this group. I shot the Accura two times and got this. So…..I will be hunting this load this fall.
The site-in target was used with the pistol. I’ll not that the target is up-side down in the picture from how it hung on the frame. I had shot the Barnes a few times with the pistol carrying a red dot but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the grouping at 50 yards. I decided last week to put the 2X7 Leapers scope back on. At 50 yards the first three shots were taken using the 240 grain, .44 cal XTPs that the scope was last shot with and the zero pretty much held true. The three covered holes strung a bit horizontally but are in no way un-satisfactory for hunting accuracy. The next three shots were the 225 grain XPB, .44 cal, Barnes pills. Nothing was done to the scope. This group is roughly 3/4″ X 3/4″. I’ll consider the pistol deer woods ready. Both the XTP’s and the Barnes XPBs were shot with smooth green harvester sabots over 63 weighed grains [90 grains by volume] of BH209 powder.
Both guns shot used Winchester shot shell reloading primers in the blue box. Both guns were shot using converted factory breech plugs that use vent liners for the BH209 powder compatibility. While volume measuring the powder is fine, I prefer to weigh each charge simply to be rid of any of the variables that come with measuring using a powder measure. All of my charges are pre-weighed and kept in Lanes tubes to take to the range and woods. When hunting the bullet/sabot combos go into a long Lanes tube and primers go into yet another. I carry 6 charges and the bullets and primers in a zip lock the goes in a pocket and is about as handy as it gets in the woods.
There’s been so much squawk over the last three or four years about birds [think eagles] eating gut piles during and after the deer seasons and getting lead ingested and croaking that I think the push to be lead free will likely be coming so I thought I’d get ahead of the game by going to copper. My shots are not long with the rifle, usually under 50 yards and with the pistol they are generally under 25 yards and I wanted bullets that expand as they’re supposed to within the muzzle velocities of each gun. These 2 Barnes bullets start to expand at 800 fps so the 1650+ and 2010fps the two guns create should keep the bullets true to form inside the distances they are sighted for. For sure, they do not suffer on accuracy and I was surprised at how well they printed without making a single adjustment to either scope. I’m happy.
