Marlin 1894 in .44 Mag keyholeing

by Hoot , Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 10:08 (4519 days ago)

A buddy called up the other day. He was out trying some of his reloads (he's very much a newbie) and wasn't hitting a fairly large sheet of cardboard at 25 yards. Moving much closer, he started punching holes in random locations.......very much sideways.

He was using a commercial 200gr LRNFP which double-checked at .430" diameter, which was what he bought...so that's good. The bore is "clean enough" meaning, not smooth with lead or inhabited by small critters---a small amount of powder residue/whatnot a fella might expect upon looking into a fired gun.

My assumption is that the Micro-Groove rifling doesn't like that bullet design. To test that theory, he's going to load up some jacketed fodder and see what difference that makes. Assuming this works, he'll either stick with jackets or we may try out some other designs.

Any other theories?

Thanks as always.