Not too shabby….

I spent some time at the gun club the other day with a friend who was sighting in his 20 gauge Savage shotgun with slugs. I took my .50 cal inline Optima pistol for the heck of it. I’d already shot all the muzzies and knew where they put bullets with the pistol planting 3-5 shots cleanly in the bull at 50 yards. I wanted to see what the pistol would do at 75 which was the range my friend was set up for so we hung two targets.

The pistol was shooting a .44 cal, 225 grain XPB Barnes bullet in a green crush rib sabot ahead of 63 weighed grains [90 by volume] of BH209 powder. The primer was a Winchester shot shell primer [blue box]. This load will yield 7/8″ groups at 25 yards, and inch at 50 but I’d never shot it beyond the fifty yard mark. I guess I can if I want to, eh? This is three shots.

I’ve taken 4 deer with this gun: 2 does at roughly 40 yards, another doe at about 27, and a nine point buck at between 13-15 yards. The does dropped on the spot, the buck did the death walk about thirty yards. I’ll have the pistol with the rifle each day this season but at least this year I now know that its good for a slightly longer shot.

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I don’t shoot’em that tight with a scoped 30-06 rifle on a lead sled. Nice work.

Its the bullets. I had been shooting .44 call 240 grain XTPs and getting about an inch at 25, slightly more at 50 but they really opened up down range. I don’t shoot much beyond 40-50 yards with the pistol and really like shots under 25 yards. I hadn’t shot the Barnes bullets at any more than 50 and took advantage of the opportunity to do so and I’m glad I did. The Barnes bullets jumped up in velocity to just a hair under 1700 fps [5 shot average] from 1640 [5 shot average] with the XTP’s. Real happy with the accuracy of all the Barnes bullets I shoot, not only in the pistol but in two of my inline rifles I hunt as well. The 249 grain XTPs would have been out to around 3″ at 75 yards so this is a huge improvement.