Lil Gun, it's a weird powder

[joelomunro]

I finally got around to bedding my Sportco Hornet and floating the barrel recently, and decided to try working up a load with some 30gr Calhoon HPs which I was given by Stinkitup. I've played around a bit with Lil Gun powder in this rifle with some mixed results, some of which I can probably attribute to the unbedded and unfloated action and barrel previously, but also getting some stuck cases which had to be knocked out with a cleaning rod. I had been lead to believe, mostly through forum research on some US forums, that you couldn't get enough Lil Gun into a Hornet case to get into trouble pressure wise, however I had the stuck cases and slightly flattening primers to disprove that notion.
Anyhow, on to this past weekends results...
Starting with 12.2gr and working up to 12.8gr in .2gr increments I loaded three of each weight with the 30gr Calhoon seated to an OAL of 1.72" and tried them out at home at 50m on my short range that I built. Scope is a 6x Zeiss Diatal with #1 reticle, hence the target dot with the white section to give me a bit more precise aiming mark.
Now here is where it gets a bit odd, at least to me... The lighter loads gave me a lot of vertical stringing and some pretty extreme velocity spreads, in the order of 150fps or so. I had two cases of the 12.6gr load stick in the chamber and require knocking out, all of which didn't inspire a lot of confidence for the 12.8gr loads. I decided to fire them off as they were crimped with a Lee crimp die, and if I had to knock out 3 more cases and go away to scratch my head and ponder what to do next, so be it.
Anyhow, cue surprised look on my face as the three 12.8gr loads went into a group about 3/8" along with the velocity spread settling right down to an E.S. of 33fps and SD of 17fps. This group averaged 3154fps also, which I'm pretty impressed with. I wasn't 100% convinced, so I wandered back to the shed and reloaded the three cases that I had just fired and shot them at the same target. The resultant 6 shot group measures bang on 1/2" and the second three shots averaged 3135fps. Best of all, no pressure signs or pressure spikes and no stuck cases. I'm guessing the higher load density did the trick with setting down the powder burn rate and smoothing things out.
The Calhoon projectiles are made in Montana, and I gather from Ryan that he got them from Johno originally, so I'm thinking I'll have to see if they will post them across the border to where I used to live in Saskatchewan, and if so I'll pick them up in 5 weeks and bring them back with me after a trip back to the farm. I'm keen to test these on some bunnies and foxes, but since they were made specifically for nailing prairie dogs I'd be willing to bet that they'll do the business.

Cheers

Joel

[Branxhunter]

Looking really good there Joel. Very pleasing to see it all come together.

Marcus

[Camel]

Nah humbug, sportco, hornet, you will never get it to shoot, no plastic stocks, no stainless, and I bet you haven’t even got milrads on your scope, no clicky windy turrets. Dunno what you could expect with an old piece of junk like that

[joelomunro]

Pretty much on the money there Mark, and it's not even an 'improved' case at that. I'm pretty happy with it all, considering it was brought as a junker and gunsmithing experiment to see if it could be resurrected. Sorting out the trigger is next on the list and then I'll call it pretty much done.

Cheers

Joel

[johno1]

They will be vintage Calhoon's mate

James does'nt have a problem posting to Australia "copper coated pellets" Give a ring i'm sure he will post over to you, his bullets are fantastic and ive used up to the 50 grn in the 222 rem and all were great killers and deadly accurate

Johno

[joelomunro]

Johno, is there any other method for contacting him other than phone, I went looking for an email but couldn't track one down? I'll be in Canada at the end of June so was thinking it'd be just as easy to get some sent to my friends there and bring them back with a B709. If I could be bothered with a border crossing I might even venture down to pick them up directly from him.

Joel

[Tony Z]

A lot of forum posts i have read show LilGun to be rather batch sensitive. Some say wonderful, some say garden fertilizer.
My experience is mixed. OK accuracy but at the expense of case life. CFE BLK is not batch sensitive and in my Hornet produced the best accuracy by a very long way with no sign of case stress in comparison to LilGun, Win 296 and 2205. Accuracy in the sub half inch area with 40 grain BTs at a 100 yds netting a 2700 fps velocity with very low pressure signs comparative to the other powders.
LilGun from various sources is said to be more suitable to small bottle neck cartridges like the 17 HH where outside of that it is said to spike wildly producing slingers high and well out of the group. My experience is exactly that plus temperature sensitivity made it unusable up here with dramatic POI shifts.

I think i have said this here before. Most Hornets are built on relatively flimsy and modified rimfire actions. As such if there is high pressure and a variation in that high pressure the action flexes accordingly where the groups, and far more importantly, the POI alters.

[johno1]

Its a great powder Tony the CFE BLK, don't have a hornet anymore but its almost tempting to grab one now I have rusty dies Its looking really good in the 221 fireball and is magic in the 7.62x39.

Joel phone is the best way, he's very old school mate like some old codgers but very easy to deal with, I think your making hard work of it by doing it that way, just order and send him a US bank draft or cash get a B 709 and they will come through the post no problem

Johno

[Gunnie]

I have several Hornets and have used AR2205, LilGun & Win 296. Can't say that I've worked enough test loads to date to quantify which is better.
That said though, I was always told by the 'older' reloaders I knew, that IMR4227 was the duck's nuts for the Hornet case. I managed to source an unopened tin a few years back and have run a few reloads for my 17Ackley Hornet with it and it produced sub .5" groups at 100M with Hornady Z-max pills.

I believe that IMR 4227 is available again. So it might be worth chasing another tin up and a tin of CFE BLK to run some comparison loads.

[Con]

4227 always seemed a bit too slow, like 2205. My best has come from W296, and older W680. Ive been inspired elsewhere to get the Browning Hornet out this school holidays. I give the Hornet every chance to shoot by using inline dies to reload with. Sensitive little shit, but just so rewarding when it works!!
Cheers...
Con

[lee_enfield223]

been using 11grs of Lilgun in my martini sportco hornet with 40gr nosler ballistic tips and getting groups of about 3/4 inch at 100m , any higher load makes the cases stick with the martini action. never had an issue with over pressure loads but a mate with a walther 22 hornet has had issues with 12.5 gr loads using 40gr pills.