"Perfect" deer caliber/rifle...lol......

[Gatorbum]

Rocky,

I went to your site and low and behold I was stunned. You had the most elaborate testing of the old 256mag. I have ever seen!

I was delighted to say the least. I have been shooting the 256 in a Marlin 62 for over 35 years! The last factory ammo a buddy found for me was a gun show and cost me $75. I have tried a few of the commercially available custom loads with little success. I have loading dies and have loaded some myself however case head seperation was an issue. Seems you have to match the fired case to the specific gun (I had 2 rifles) and then neck size only. Creating cases out of nickled 357 brass made a very wicked looking load with some old Hornady 60 gr. spirepoints! Making the cases was a nightmare however. By annealing them in a cast iron frying pan on the stove and then quickly putting them through the full length die, I achieved reasonable sucess without crumpling them all.

I have quit loading my own but would give anything to find some great hunting load for my rifle. It is not overly accurate with the factory loads (Maybe11/2-2") but devastating on game. I have killed lots of deer with it and it does a fine job at close to moderate range. Kids have killed their first deer with it many times at 50-100 yards. I love it and would most likely never actually get rid of it but would surely like to know if Icould get better accuracy out of a great expanding hunting load.

Are you interested in playing with it?

Take care

Tony