Winchester XPR Sporter Part II

Steady rain today. Good day for Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away”.

Writing tends to send me off in directions not always consistent with my personal interests. However, I recognize that there is more to the job than doing as I please. Example? Why not?

I have, fundamentally, circumvented the globe of firearms over the most recent 25 years, the duration of Real Guns®. Rifles, handguns, shotguns… the latter not so much. The light and the fast, the huge and the lumbering, the budget special, and the ego on display. It’s been fun to learn, experience and report back. Still…

Firearms, to me, are about personal security, hunting suitability, handloading, and ballistics. I has spent a good deal of time thinking through personal self defense choices, and what suits my applications. Now I don’t. The guns, the ammo, the logistics chosen are effective, so the project is marked “complete”, as I have concluded there is nothing more I want or need.

I love handloading. Particularly the developmental part, as there is constant change in components and potential, and I can work ballistics for solely ballistics’ sake. Improvements could probably alter the outcome of a hunt, or the results of a range outing to a more than small degree… Tuned accuracy of a firearms more than major strides in velocity or trajectory.

How many cartridges and firearms over the years? Sometimes I go through the shelves of reloading and forming dies, to see if I can recall the associated project and rifle/handgun that pertains. Have not been stumped, as yet, but sometimes it takes me much longer to recall.

There are major savings to be had in handloading. People who challenge that precept always point to sale priced 223 Remington ammo. They tend to skip over $50 – $100 / box everything else. Ammo assembled below, was done so at a cost less than 25% the price at retail for comparable ammunition, and there are significant performance gains to be found in the handloads.

Five hunting handloads; varmints to big game

The components used are anything but specialized. In fact, with the exception of the Barnes concession to politically motivated hunting laws, the bullets are moderately priced, as is the powder… if either could still be framed as moderately priced.

Warning: Bullet selections are specific, and loads are not valid with substitutions of different bullets of the same weight. Variations in bullet length will alter net case capacity, pressure and velocity. Primer selection is specific and primer types are not interchangeable. These are maximum loads in my firearms and may be excessive in others. All loads should be reduced by 5% as a starting point for development where cartridges have greater than 40 grains in capacity and 10% for cartridges with less than 40 grain capacity following safe handloading practices as represented in established mainstream reloading manuals. Presentation of these loads does not constitute a solicitation for their use, nor a recommendation.

The Winchester XPR and 270 Winchester worked out to be a really good combination, in regard to both price and performance. Handloading was very straight forward, following normal case prep and assembly conventions.

I think no further elaboration is required as the table has the detail, and handloading methodology is covered in depth in the first couple of chapters of any mainstream reloading manual… and I am kind of busy listening to Dobie Gray… In Crowd at the moment.

No I’m really not that lazy. It’s just that I so often see people, new to handloading, begin their exploration with social media, asking critical task handling questions of anonymous participants, of unknown skill levels, when the best information is readily available directly from the people that make the components.