Part 3 can be found here
Finally got to my club today to do some testing of reloads for the Nagant revolver. Circled above is the last group I fired with the 115gr RN lead "cowboys" bullets over 3.5gr of Trail Boss. That's two-handed, resting my arms on my shooting bag, at 50 feet. Not the steadiest rest.
The first load, which used 98gr plated DEWC bullets from Graf over 3.2gr of Trail Boss was pretty accurate, too, but didn't seem to be as consistent, and the last shot I fired made a quieter-than-expected "pop." Being the cautious type I pulled the cylinder and ran a cleaning rod down the barrel... where it encountered the slug halfway down the barrel. This generally means a primer-only load, which surprised me as I did those on a non-turret press, checking each load visually... or so I thought.
The 115gr bullet over the same load (3.2gr) gave significantly more recoil, which made sense; heavier bullet, higher pressure, faster burn. But there also seemed to be a lot of variability shot-to-shot with all my loads. I used my RCBS Little Dandy for all these loads, and weighed a half-dozen before I even started and a few after each group of 21, but I'm wondering if the Little Dandy might not be the best measure for Trail Boss. I plan on doing more tests, and next time at the range I'm going to bring my chronograph and see what kind of variance I get in velocity.
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