Hornady .257 60gr bullet, anyone use it?

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Fox

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I am curious as to the expansion at low velocity, like 1400fps.

I have a project ongoing, I am curious as to what velocity this bullet would still expand, I am hoping to rear 1200fps at the muzzle for this project.

Thanks
 
It would be helpful if they would include a velocity range in the information. The website talks about the Traditional line of bullets being thicker jacketed than the competition.

Black powder loads and lighter smokeless using the 60gr are in the 1400-1500fps range. More modern ones are about 2000fps.
My guess would be that they would work reasonably well at 1400fps but that's a guess. More so, my thought is that the kind of small game one would go after with such a light caliber mostly wouldn't care as long as shot placement was good. Might start to be more important on animals like beaver or coyote but then you would probably want to load hotter too.

At only 1200fps soft lead such as 30-1 lead-tin should work quite well. It will stand up to that velocity and mushroom well.

Curious about the project you have in mind.
 
vagrantviking said:
It would be helpful if they would include a velocity range in the information. The website talks about the Traditional line of bullets being thicker jacketed than the competition.

Black powder loads and lighter smokeless using the 60gr are in the 1400-1500fps range. More modern ones are about 2000fps.
My guess would be that they would work reasonably well at 1400fps but that's a guess. More so, my thought is that the kind of small game one would go after with such a light caliber mostly wouldn't care as long as shot placement was good. Might start to be more important on animals like beaver or coyote but then you would probably want to load hotter too.

At only 1200fps soft lead such as 30-1 lead-tin should work quite well. It will stand up to that velocity and mushroom well.

Curious about the project you have in mind.
Click to expand...

It will be for close range and small game for sure.

The project is a 25 Stevens project. I am trying to get as close to 65gr as possible, soft lead cast 65gr .257 bullets come out at 72gr, 25 ACP cast are 50gr. I have a sizer to bring down .257 bullets to .251, that is how I have been sizing .257 cast bullets but it can be used for jacketed with lube as well I am sure.

I am taking 17 WSM cases and cutting the shoulder off, have been loading FFFg BP but looking into loading a 25 ACP starting load to see if I can make a safe cleaner load than using BP in a 25 cal bore.

The factory 65gr bullet is rated at 1180fps, comes out of my bore around 1100fps, hoping to be close to this with a 60gr bullet.

The rifle is a Cooey Canuck, people have converted these to 25 ACP, which has a pressure maximum around the same as the 22LR, I think 1000PSI more, so I thought a start load would be good.
 
I remember you talking about this a while ago. Neat gun!

This is a link to bullets that are available but trying to find some in Canada might be a real trick. They should expand well at about 1000fps.
https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/category/categoryId/552

Something people sometimes do to reduce the weight that a mold throws is to remove the sprue plate and have it milled down to remove the gas check shank or to the next groove.

Or go to special order molds. http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/index.php?cPath=554&osCsid=ag3kdbla49e3pfl5gptiufdtb1
 
Oh it is an interesting ongoing project.

With BP my volume is low and I am only getting 700-750fps with a 50gr soft lead bullet, not acceptable and not even close to full pressure, hence my thought to use smokeless based around the 25 ACP loads.

I got an email back from Hornady, they are saying 1600fps to open, but a 25 cal FN bullet for small game should work well anyway, even without any expansion.

I have thought about a modified mold but do not really want to spend too much until I have a legit plan of attack and idea of cost, so all the cheap and easy things get worked out first.
 
Just thinking about this and had a few thoughts.

Might not want to shoot too many jacketed bullets in such a vintage barrel. Wear is probably minimal but it is sometimes mentioned with the old irons.

Sizing a jacketed bullet 5 thou might be enough that the jacket springs back differently than the core and separates from the lead. That's not going to help matters if it happens.

The 50gr bullets that you already have should be fine at smokeless velocities of 1000 or 1200fps if they are a good fit. Do some test loads and see what you get maybe...
 
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