Well,not such exceptional shooting, I would say exceptional gun, bullet construction, powder hand load, and luck, plus something sacrilegious, we have a special pivot mount produced in Germany specific for the Hollenbeck drilling, Im embarrassed to say it is named for me, it is what was used to mount my Zeiss scope on number 35 Hollenbeck drilling, therefore, on number 236 Hollenbeck drilling, I plan to have the same mounting system placed by Tobi Nisse, my German gunSmith/gun dealer/partner,on one of his visits to Alabama, in the meantime, I had my Robertsdale Alabama gunSmith, the gifted Daniel Resmondo,cut the rib in precisely the place the pivot mount will go,but temporarily placed a Picatinny rail, that allowed me to mount my ATN x sight II day and night vision electronic scope, which then allowed me to shoot a group of three shots from my Hollenbeck drilling #236 with 32-40 Winchester handloads,within 1 inch at 100yards, in other words, I did not use iron sights! Would be glad to share a picture of this ridiculous set up of old and new, along with my target and the text from a 1908 Three Barrel Gun Company catelog , recommending high power charge giving 2065 ft./s . Caution, of course, I began the loads with only 25 grains of leverevolution powder and gradually worked up all the way to 35 grains, as I approached the higher loads, I Had the permission of the two gunSmiths who had examined my gun, and I used a micrometer to measure case expansion and I also measured velocity, the sweet spot was 34.5 grains that gave an average velocity of slightly over 2073 ft./s and with those five measured shots, from the minimum velocity to the maximum velocity spread was only 30 ft./s, I suggest that every gun is different and anyone considering a high power charge like this should Be sure the gun was originally rated for this, as was the Hollenbeck drilling, start slowly, working up, measuring carefully for pressure, I am just giving my own results!
Many of the older guns in 32-40 Winchester were not made with the strength of the Hollenbeck drilling and this high power cartridge was discontinued, in part, because of fear of injury and damage should these high power loads be used in the older weapons, never meant for this high pressure. BE CAREFUL!
However, Im pretty fired up to hunt with this load, which is accurate and plenty strong enough to take a deer or pigs to 200 yards with a very reasonable trajectory.
