Thread: Cast bullet Varminting / Medium game Project

following this thread with interest. What alloy are you using?

cast some of these today . . 197s i expect to be borderline in 1-12 but they may work at 1600fps, worth a try

next time your coming thru @Joe_90 grab some of these . . i will be interested to see how they go in your 300 Blk. & your project

from left 197grn.RCBS, very accurate in the .308 & .30/30 at sub and super speeds, drops Deer/Goats with ease.
212grn. Lyman, borderline stability at sub speed but still accurate, holes in paper are a little oval all the wat out to 300 but groups around 1 -1.5 MOAish . . performance is better on animals with a deep hollow point.

change of plans with the scope . . it makes more sense to stick with a 6.5-20 luepold with TMR reticle for the testing, its a known scope thats sitting around doing nothing

Originally Posted by Driverman

following this thread with interest. What alloy are you using?

good question . . i can't give you an exact answer, i run a few pots with different mixes.

Originally Posted by T.FOYE

fillers, they're a bad idea according to quite a few people who've 'ringed' a barrel and stuffed it.

i knew when i mentioned i use fillers someone might comment that theyre a bad idea . . cheers @T.FOYE i am always interested in others ideas.
What i will say is they work for me . . have done for years without a problem & i expect if i am carefull as you should be when reloading i will continue to get exceptable results.
The name E. H. Harrison probably won't mean anything to you but to older rascals like myself and reloaders in my age group or older he and a bunch of his friends in the US NRA were responsible for the rival of the bullet casting as a science and an art back in the day . . till they came along the knowledge had mostly been lost and the molds etc that were available were of poor design.
They used fillers without blowing up guns, firing thousands of shots in their testing . . but someone will find a way to wreck firearms if they try hard enough.

https://biblio.co.nz/book/cast-bulle...h/d/1296081271

i wanted to show the difference between molds . . left is a RCBS - right a Lyman.
to me the RCBS is the rolls royce of molds, theyre big, cast superbly with well designed bullets, grab one if you get the chance, theyre worth every penny

Originally Posted by rossi.45

cast some of these today . . 197s i expect to be borderline in 1-12 but they may work at 1600fps, worth a try

next time your coming thru @Joe_90 grab some of these . . i will be interested to see how they go in your 300 Blk. & your project

from left 197grn.RCBS, very accurate in the .308 & .30/30 at sub and super speeds, drops Deer/Goats with ease.
212grn. Lyman, borderline stability at sub speed but still accurate, holes in paper are a little oval all the wat out to 300 but groups around 1 -1.5 MOAish . . performance is better on animals with a deep hollow point.

Will let you know next time I'm coming through with a bit of time up my sleeve. Got some wheel weight ingots for you too. Only about 6kg, will have to go round the local tyre shops with blankets and muskets to trade.

Originally Posted by rossi.45

i knew when i mentioned i use fillers someone might comment that theyre a bad idea . . cheers @T.FOYE i am always interested in others ideas.
What i will say is they work for me . . have done for years without a problem & i expect if i am carefull as you should be when reloading i will continue to get exceptable results.
The name E. H. Harrison probably won't mean anything to you but to older rascals like myself and reloaders in my age group or older he and a bunch of his friends in the US NRA were responsible for the rival of the bullet casting as a science and an art back in the day . . till they came along the knowledge had mostly been lost and the molds etc that were available were of poor design.
They used fillers without blowing up guns, firing thousands of shots in their testing . . but someone will find a way to wreck firearms if they try hard enough.



https://biblio.co.nz/book/cast-bulle...h/d/1296081271

Dacron is the best stuff that is readily available to use as a filler it vaporises on ignition and does not leave crap in the barrel that is an urban myth like so much written about cast bullets
The best filler I have used was the wool wads that were sold on TM by The cast bullet kid, He no longer sells them, But Dacron is almost as good you only need about a pea sized ball of it
in a .308 case
The guys ringing barrels were using shit like cotton wool and tissue paper some even tried Kapoc and toilet paper, Then along came Trail boss and saved hundreds of barrels from the idiots
Trail boss is the easiest to use for sub loads, It may not be the most accurate powder but it is less work and no fillers required.

a day of surprises . . got some range time but weather wasnt flash, strong wind and light drizzle so reduced the range to 50 yards to get the targets under some trees to keep the paper targets from falling apart, i stayed in the drizzle so you could see some targets, not sure if i will do that again

1st surprise was after i finnished reading Larry Gibsons thread on RPM threshold again this morning . . so when i picked up this rifle back in the day i was told its a 1-12 twist .308 bore which was neither here or there coz i was going to change the barrel anyway. But i started thinking i better check anyway, i had meant to but being a lazy beggar in a hurry to take a few shots i just hadnt . . and what a surprise its a 1-14 with a 307 bore which makes sense if its an ex NRA or Deerstalkers target rifle.
so i pulled some of the 190grn. bullets that were sized to .310 and replaced them with 170grn. Lymans sized to .308 but kept a few wider heavier bullets to see how theyd go, wasnt expecting much which proved to be the case, groups were over twice the size of the lighter bullets.

group No.1 197grn sized .310

group No.2 first shots with 170grn. sized .308

group No.3 170s second shots to get closer to aim mark

group No.4 170s moved over to get on the vertical line



so i can see some promise here with the lighter bullets and thinking i should try the bullets closer to 150grns.
there were a couple of shots that made a bang instead of a wosh so speed is a bit quick, maybe drop the charge 0.5 grain of powder.

i will load 20 rounds next time and shoot a few 5 shot groups at 100 yards with the 170s and see how we go

i have a cunning plan . . . looking at the 170grn. Lyman round nose and measuring the bore riding nose and pushing the nose into the bore, i see its just on .301 and leaves slight engraving, maybe you can see the 2 faint lines halfway up the nose of the bullet to the left of the loaded cartridge.
if i crimp on the groove below the crimp groove i dont have any of the bullet hanging below the .308s short neck while fully supporting the bullet into the rifling when its chambered, very desireable from an accuracy standpoint . . we shall see
2 grooves with lube should be enough at the low pressures i will be at . . but i will also add a small amout to the base of the gas check on some to see . . having a filler is a bonus that i wont contaminate the powder

a small amount of lube on the base of the bullet . . you'd think it would leave a coating on the bore that the next bullet would run into and cause problems . . but it doesn'nt, i've never had problems even with much larger amounts on the base and on the bore riding nose of bullets

weather permitting i should be able to test these tomorrow

hopefully i dont have to explain i am not going to seat the bullet upside down . . its like this so i can a pic

No need to grease the bottom of the projectile there is more that enough lube in the in the grooves, you are over thinking this.

Originally Posted by S.E.G

No need to grease the bottom of the projectile there is more that enough lube in the in the grooves, you are over thinking this.

cheers @S.E.G. what's your experience with cast rifle bullets ? ( any subsonic ) always happy to hear from anyone with different ideas, especially if its about Hunting with cast out to longer range than the the usual 100 yards.

so why do i add some lube on some loads . . its not just because i might not have enough, with the right amount behind the bullet it can add to accuracy, E H Harrison did a lot of work on the subject and i can say in my tests it does have an effect sometimes, so well worth trying ( to me ) but others will have different ideas.

I have done a lot of work shooting cast in pistols as well as rifles both sub and supersonic.

I found over size bullets work best, generally 2 to 3 thousandth over bore diameter, and that had more effect on performance and reducing leading than alloy and hardness of the lead.

I never bothered with Dacron or other fillers even when using fast pistol and shotgun powders in rifle calibres that only filled the case to 20 to 30 percent of its capacity.

I have made up a gas check punch to make gas checks from copper sheet, and found that the aluminium deodorant cans are the right gauge for gas checks and perform well and not cost to me other than time.