The 257 Haley, getting it to shoot

This is the first day I have had to really concentrate on alloys, fill pressures, shooting technique and bullets with the .257 Haley.

It has rained and blown all day, as a result my shooting was confined to shooting off the Mercedes, casting bullets from 4 different alloys, shooting those bullets sized to .258 and shooting them as cast.

I shot off the Mercedes just holding the rifle in my hands without bags to start with until I saw a vast improvement that needed bags to wring out the full potential.

I also switched to a different pair of scope rings, the clamping design of cheapie chinese ones would not allow the mounting of my Dyotat side focus parallax wheel, so I had ordered some Leupold split rings from Midway and they came in today so I installed them.

I have two differnet molds I am using, the Lyman 257420 and the RCBS Cowboy mold.

Before I sent the rifle off to Jack Haley to try different springs, the RCBS bullet was the best, but today and yesterday I had trouble with the RCBS bullets. In retrospect I think it is having issues with my muzzle break before I sent it to Jack I did not shoot it with the Muzzle brake because it was clipping, maybe because it is longer.

I started off using 4400 PSI for all fills, with pure lead and both bullets. The Lyman bullets shot inch 3 shot groups at the 40 yard or so range I have and the RCBS bullet shot all over and demonstrated tipping with oblong holes.

I also found with pure lead I was only getting around 20 shots before needing a scrubbing with a bronze brush and bronze wool.

I then tried 40-1, both sized and unsized and nothing really changed,groups were the same and velocity was the same with the Lyman going 1135 and the RCBS moving at 1060.

That load also leaded badly, so after cleaning I started lubing with ATF.

Then I exchanged a few pmg’s with Cedric over some HPed 257420 Lyman bullets he had sent me that seem to be lost in the mail. Cedric brought up the subject of leading and he had also posted about it on one of my threads, so I decided to take Cedric’s advice and go for a harder alloy. Pure lead had worked fine in my TSSS at up to 900 FPS, but pushing along at 1135 FPS, the Haley .257 definately does lead.

Next I tried Lyman #2 alloy. That is regarded as being a little hard for airgun use. The Lyman bullets dropped out at .260-261 and weighed 4 grains less at 70.5, I only cast a few of the tipping RCBS bullets and did not weigh them.

The harder bullets shot the same velocity as the softer ones despite being lighter, I think because it is harder to push them down the bore, but the 257420 went into .80 of an inch, the RCBS bullets still tipped.

After that I decided to try a custom blend of alloy. I came up with 97.5% lead, 1.25% tin and 1.25 % Antimony. Cast of this alloy the 257420 weighs 72.3 average and is .259 when it drops from the mold. I sized them to .258 and shot them with a 4400 PSI fill, and but this time I tried 5 shot groups just to see how they grouped.

I got a .90 inch 5 shot groups with this alloy wuthout bags, I then set up the bags and got serious.

Problem was I was running out of air, so I only filled to 4000 PSI for my next group. Instantly my group went to .53 for 5 shots. The next 5 shot group I topped off at 4400 PSI with a fresh tank, that group was .75 inches for 5 shots. The last group of the day I tried 4000 PSI again and that group was a nice .47 inches for 5 shots. One of those .50 groups started with 3 shots in one small hole, if I had elected to stop at three shots, they would have been in the teens, the other group had the first threee shots going into 1/4 inch.

It was getting dark so I did not chrony this alloy and I was tired tired, but I also feel damn good about what I learned today about my rifle and that was:

It needs bags of course to get the best accuracy,

It likes a harder alloy, harder alloy and ATF has given me close to 75 shots without cleaning so far,

It likes a 4000 PSI fill,

The last thing is I am really liking this Haley.

Even with a 4000 PSI fill you have to consider that over 1000 FPE combined went thru these 5, 25 caliber holes.

Regards,

Roachcreek