I'd like the thoughts of my reader(s) on the following.

I have a .30 Herrett 14" barrel for my Contender. Modified with a Choate extension welded on to meet minimum barrel length requirements for use with the butt stock. Using the Sierra 110 gr. RNSP meant for the .30 Carbine, 23 gr. 2400 and the CCI 200 primer, I got this group for 20 shots! No, there aren't 20 shots in the picture. 4 shots are completely off the paper! The range? 50 yards!

It makes you wonder if the minor "problems" people say they have with .30 M1 Carbine accuracy might be traced back to the bullet design used in the .30 Carbine ammunition.

After the comments vis-a-vis the Encore slug barrels and benchresting slug guns I dug mine out for the range. I did not, as suggested, take a towel. I don't regret that, but will say that my cheek took a far worse beating than my shoulder. One thing that really got me was that I've not got any of the Brenneke loads I thought I had. So, will have to stock up. This is a good loaner gun.

The weather was not conducive to really good shooting. There was a very strong crosswind with gusts to 30 mph but normally blowing about 10 mph, right to left. Yeah, right! With those big slugs and at 50 yards that wind didn't have nothing to do with nothing.

First, I went to the 25 yard range. One shot with an old Winchester BRI sabot round, a Winchester Foster type slug and a Federal (now that one kicked!) proved that all were in the bull at that range. With all the complaining, I don't think that any of you will begrudge me not wasting good slugs at that range. However, I had along a box of those Aguila mini-shells. No, they don't feed through my Mossberg nor do they feed through my Winchester Ranger/1200/1300 (kinda like Johnny Cash's Cadillac!) but you can single load them fine. They don't kick much and also shot to point of aim at 25 yards. HOWEVER, I doubt they have enough power to do for deer in most people's world. I think that they are really an anti-personnel round, pure and simple.

I next moved to 50 yards and fired 5 Winchester BRI slugs. On target but giving a 6 inch "group". I actually did better with the foster type slugs putting one in the bull!

Although most shots would have taken a deer at 0-50 yards I don't think I'd like to try much longer ranges.

Another fellow was shooting a Mississippi Rifle at the 50 yard butt. For those in the dark that was a .54 caliber rifle used prior to and during the Civil War. The fellow's name is D. Greene and he makes target barrels for the NSSA fraternity. He was there testing a barrel. Shooting from a rest with a charge of 42 grains of GOEX FFFg he was shooting the center right out of that 50 foot slow fire pistol target. Same target I was using, at the same range but I was not doing as well as he was.

For those interested in how often one is supposed to clean, etc., Mr. Greene (who has built 491 "Kentucky" rifles) fired 15 shots on the one target with only one shot out of the bull (by about ½ inch and his first) and then another 15 shots with another type, lighter bullet. That bullet put them all together in the upper half of the bull with 3 shots out. That is 30 shots without cleaning and he stayed seated to load, thumbing each bullet into the muzzle to start it and only using 2 fingers and a thumb to push the bullet home. Mr. Greene is 74 years old, is a retired tool and die maker, and served in WWII as a navigation instructor.