the smoother feel of the press. After 25 rounds, I had to clean
the wax build-up off the die with some Kroil. At 50 rounds, I ran a bit of Mother’s metal polish on the inside with a Q-tip. Keeping the die clean reduced the pressure needed to seat the Stinger round and minimized the wax shaving off the bullets. During the sizing process, I used
the tight fit of the Stinger round to my advantage. After flattening the nose of the bullet in the die, I used the hollow- point punch to gently push the round out from the die. Just before it popped out, I switched to the concave punch and gave it a gentle push with the press to clean up the edge. The resulting bullet had a nicely flattened nose, clean look- ing hollow-point cavity, and smooth curve on the edge of the bullet. Forming the larger hollow-point
opening worked about the same way, but after starting with the hollow-point punch, I used the flat-point punch to push out the finished round. These new hollow-point openings looked spectacular and I was sure they would perform with explosive characteristics. The end result with the hollow-point punch increased the opening depth from 0.132 to 0.138 inch, a change of little consequence, but the change in the opening width from 0.045 to 0.084 inch was considerable. Because the change of depth was minimal, I wasn’t sure if there was going to be much of a difference in actual depth of penetra- tion between the factory and modified hollow-point. Chances are good that both hollow-point bullets will have the openings peel back and shear off, leav- ing the lead base to continue on. The change should be in the surface impact, with the larger hollow-point resulting in a more pronounced splash. Something I did a bit differently
with the two newly formed bullets was to add a little wax lubrication to the outside of the bullet. On some of the bul- lets, the wax was completely removed, causing some concern about excessive leading in the barrels. I used a wax called SPL (you can find it online at the Woodchuck Den), similar to a firm paste wax, to lightly coat the bullets using my fingertips. To keep things as even as pos- sible, I coated the unmodified bullets as well, in an effort to not add in the lube as a variable. There are many different
formulas on the Internet for re-lubing rimfire bullets, and a simple search will give you a few hours of reading. CCi stingeR ACCuRACy And teRminAl PeRfoRmAnCe
Like mentioned before, the ac-
curacy of the Stinger round has always been hit or miss from rifle to rifle, and out at the 50-yard line, the short bar- rel produced a pair of ten-shot groups averaging just above the one-inch mark when shooting the factory ammunition. This is about what I had expected and have seen in the past from the majority of rifles in which I’ve used this ammuni- tion. A one-inch group size is accurate enough for small ground squirrels at 50 yards, but may make connecting out near 100 yards a little tough. Switching over to the modified
hollow-point, the groups shrank no- ticeably — in fact, they were cut in half! Both of the ten-shot groups had much less vertical dispersion between shots, and also kept a good number of the bullet holes touching. There was no point-of-impact difference between the factory rounds and the modified hollow- point bullets. Finishing up the testing with the
modified flat-nose design, I was pleased to see the groups shrink, but they were not as tight as the hollow-point bullets. I noticed that the flat-nose bullets seemed to have a more sensitive reaction to any wind changes, and I had to really keep an eye on the wind flags while I shot. Even with wind flags, there were times when I was changing the point of aim for each shot just to keep the groups from stringing left to right. It’s my guess that the flat nose of the bullet pushes hard into the wind because of the high velocity, and changes direction more so than a more aerodynamic shape when the wind shifts. Back to the range on the second
day, when tested in the long barrel the factory ammunition groups improved enough to drop under the one-inch mark for both ten-shot groups. There still was some vertical dispersion dominating the groups, but it wasn’t as pronounced. It was apparent to me that the longer bar- rel fitted with a tuner was indeed better for accuracy. Trying out the modified hollow-
point ammunition, the improvement in accuracy was similar to the short barrel performance. Both ten-shot groups were
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just above the half-inch mark — excel- lent results for any sporting ammuni- tion, let alone a hyper-velocity load. Ending the testing session with
the Stinger flat-nose modification, the resulting pair of ten-shot groups were quite puzzling. After the initial POI check group, I found that there would be random fliers that would drift out from the main group. They were so far out that I took an extra shot (resulting in an 11-shot group) to see if it would fol- low, and both times the following shot landed back into the main group. It’s my guess that, like before, the flat nose on a hyper-velocity bullet is extremely wind sensitive. CCi stingeRmedium testing On the third day, I was very much
looking forward to seeing the modified bullets work their magic in the wax me- dium, and when it came time to shoot the Stingers, I wasn’t disappointed. The first batch of factory rounds
did a nice job punching into the wax me- dium and blowing a nifty little surface crater around the bullet’s entry hole. The average depth of penetration for the fac- tory round was right at four inches, and each time the bullet expanded quickly but didn’t shed the hollow-point ring as it drove through the target. I believe this is because the thickness of the lead that makes up the hollow point is somewhat thin and folds back against the lead body of the bullet before it can tear off. I also think that the tiny opening takes long enough to open and expand that the bullet has lost enough velocity in the medium by that point, preventing
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