Lessons learned; reloading and that whole Front sight, press! really does work

Shooting is an activity that demands constant attention.  Sure, you can go and buy a box of .22 lr shells and blast holes in paper for an afternoon to have fun.  Loading your own formula of ammunition allows you to tailor a load to your guns unique characteristics. For example I shoot a 125 gr Rainier copper coated lead FMJ slug.  I use CCI small pistol primers igniting 4.2 grains of Bullseye, loaded to an overall length of 1.15 inches.  As shown below, the middle of the target shows my first three magazines.  At this point I was feeling pretty good about what I had done.



Notice though the difference with the orange target circles, particularly the upper right one.  This was my first three magazines at one of the orange circles.   They allowed me to focus on a particular spot and tighten up my groups.  At this point I am still shooting 4.2 grain loads.  A drawback to this load was a lot of stovepipes and jams with the gun. 

It wasn't until my last six magazines that I began shooting a load consisting of 4.3 grains of Bullseye.  I had only one stove pipe and I chalk that up to a gun that had something like 500 + rounds through it since it's last cleaning. The gun ran reliably  What changed besides upping my powder load by 1/10th of a grain of powder? Tune in tomorrow and find out. 

Moving on to