Had a play with the 425 Express today...

[Badboymelvin]

Hey...

Was a bit bored so I thought I'd have a bit of a play with the 425 Express today.
It was a nice day with nothing else going on so I thought, why not?

Now I stress I was only doing this for my curiosity. I already have 2 loads that I use and am really happy with, but as both these loads showed no sign of excessive pressure I have always wondered what would happen if I bumped them up a couple of grains...

So today I did and thought I'd share the results.

Firstly, this is my 425 Express. It was built by Farmboy at NT Firearms Gove. It's a custom Zastava with a 24" barrel. With scope it weighs 8lb or 3.6kg. As you can see, nice light and trim with no frills.
Awesome

And the 2 loads that I use are, the Hornady DGX 400gn at 2300fps...

And the Australian made Atomic 29 360gn at just under 2500fps...

The Hornady DGX 400gn is pushed along by 71gn of AR2206H and the Atomic 29 360gn has 71.5gn of AR2206H. (AR 2206H is also known as H4895.)
I was out of both of these projectiles, but I did have a small amount of Australian made Bertram 400gn SP projectiles on hand.
So that's what I used.
I thought I'd start with the same load I used with the Hornady DGX, so I loaded 2 rounds with 71gn of AR2206H. Then 2 rounds more with 72gn AR2206H. Then 2 more again with 73gn of AR2206H.

With the 71gn load I got a velocity of 2302fps... identical to the Hornady DGX load. Great start.

With 72gns I only got an increase of 12fps for a velocity of 2314fps...

And finally with 73gns I got a velocity of 2359fps...

The last load of 73gn of AR2206H still showed no signs of excessive pressure and the case happily flicked out when ejected.
But despite that I'm going to continue to use my 71gn load for spot on 2300fps. I would rather be a couple of grains under and have more of a safety margin (like in really hot weather etc...), than an increase of 56fps.
And anyway, Phillip Massaro shot his bull Elephant with his 404 Jeffery (.423 same as mine) with a 400gn going 2280 fps - so I think I should be good at 2300fps

Here is a bit of a summary...

400gn Bertram SP... 400gn Bertram SP... 400gn Bertram SP
71gn AR2206H... 72gn AR2206H... 73gn AR2206H
MV - 2302fps... MV - 2314fps... MV - 2359fps
ME - 4707 ft/lbs... ME - 4757 ft/lbs... ME - 4943 ft/lbs
Recoil Energy - 64.5 ft/lbs... Recoil Energy - 65.5 ft/lbs... Recoil Energy - 67.89ft/lbs

Recoil with all these loads was snappy and unpleasant.
As stated earlier, my rifle only weighs 3.6kg or 8lb, so chronograph and sighting in sessions are not fun...
But despite that, recoil is not a problem in this rifle. Why I say that is because in the field I don't even think of it, nor do I flinch...
Recoil for me only becomes a problem when I think about it, instead of focusing on the game I'm trying to hunt.
I would much rather have a lighter, trimmer rifle - even if it means a bit more of an uncomfortable session at the range... I'll take that any day.

So, that was my day with the 425 Express.
6 shots fired, a sore shoulder and a few questions answered.
It was a good day!

Thanks for reading,

Russ