I have mentioned before that I was experimenting with some of my firearms. Today was a decent day so I went to the range to do the testing. One experiment was a solid installation of the scope on my T/C Contender. The previous two times out it shot loose quickly. Today, my careful installation paid off and the mount remained solid. Success number 1.

The second was getting reproducible muzzle velocity from my .30-30 loads. I had theorized that my powder measure was having a hard time metering the IMR 4895 powder. This is a stick powder and you can feel it sticking in the revolving metering drum. The experiment involved accurately weighing each powder charge before seating the bullet. Using that procedure I loaded ten rounds which you see with white tape in the photo today. I then went ahead and loaded the other ones in the normal manner. I set up the chronograph and conducted the experiment. The unweighed lot had an average of 1727 fps with a spread 294 and standard deviation 95. The weighed cartridges had an average of 1660 fps with a spread of 81 and standard deviation of 22. Much improved, just as John Cooper predicted. Next step is to use ball powder (Winchester 748) which meters more reproducibly and do the same experiment.