Kicked around the notion of a lighter bullet in our .444's on the http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ website and had a few interested but it never took off enough to have a group buy done so I had one made up from Mountain Molds for myself and a couple of people on this board. Here is the report I did on the other site.
I finally received my 2 cavity mold from Mountain Molds and by coincidence I also received the 434-207GC bullet from GLL a group buy rerun from a while ago. These bullets just plain work in the .444 Marlin. So I had a little fun the last couple of days loading them with 5 different powders and in .444 Marlin they were singing a happy tune.
I melted some hard shot and added a little bit of tin for cast-ability and they cast just beautifully, almost jumping out of the 6 cavity mold and with my Mountain Mold I had to persuade them a bit until the metal mold was up to temperature. All were water dropped right from the mold. I sized all the .444 Marlin bullets to .432 and lubed them with LAR's Red which has always worked great in my rifle bullets. All the same Remington Brass and were all sparked with Winchester Large Rifle primers.
Bob's (45 2.1) 434-207GC group buy bullets weighed in at 211 grn lubed/sized/checked and the Mountain Molds bullets were slightly less at 205 lubed/sized/checked.
Here we see the best group for the 434-207GC bullet with H322 powder, didn't like IMR3031 or H4198, H335, Benchmark.
Mountain Mold 433-200GC bullet loves IMR3031 but none of the other 4.
Here with a little more IMR3031, notice the point of impact change.
With all the groups I fired, and there were 7 different weights of each of the 5 powders with 5 shots fired at each target, none were any worse than factory 240 GN .444 Marlin Ammo. Worst one was on the order of 3.5" which is what my rifle will do with Remington factory 240gn ammo.
Point of impact was moving all over the place depending on the powder and load, as much as 4 inches difference .
As you can see Pandora was with me for the customary flier from no where. I shot one 5 shot string at the target, then waited 10 minutes for the rifle to cool down after which I ran a bore snake down the barrel in between each firing to clean out any residual powder. Never found any signs of leading and no pressure signs on the brass at all. Very pleasant to shoot considering I shot 350 rounds. All were done at 100 meters.
Santa was supposed to bring me a Chronograph last Christmas but some how he missed the house, not sure how fast they were traveling but I would imagine about 1900-2200fps somewhere in there.
I would like to find some Lino and heat treat some to see if I can push them even harder basically to say I can. This mold that I designed on Mountain Molds website has been sent off to be hollow pointed and when it gets back I will do some follow up penetration tests. This should work wonders on deer where I hunt which is mainly forest but once in a while you have a shot at one in open country and with this accuracy and speed it should make connecting with one at 300 yards a bit easier.
So much for the theory that an old Micro grooved .444 Marlin can't shoot cast bullets very well and lever guns are terrible for accuracy past 50 yards.
I finally received my 2 cavity mold from Mountain Molds and by coincidence I also received the 434-207GC bullet from GLL a group buy rerun from a while ago. These bullets just plain work in the .444 Marlin. So I had a little fun the last couple of days loading them with 5 different powders and in .444 Marlin they were singing a happy tune.
I melted some hard shot and added a little bit of tin for cast-ability and they cast just beautifully, almost jumping out of the 6 cavity mold and with my Mountain Mold I had to persuade them a bit until the metal mold was up to temperature. All were water dropped right from the mold. I sized all the .444 Marlin bullets to .432 and lubed them with LAR's Red which has always worked great in my rifle bullets. All the same Remington Brass and were all sparked with Winchester Large Rifle primers.
Bob's (45 2.1) 434-207GC group buy bullets weighed in at 211 grn lubed/sized/checked and the Mountain Molds bullets were slightly less at 205 lubed/sized/checked.
Here we see the best group for the 434-207GC bullet with H322 powder, didn't like IMR3031 or H4198, H335, Benchmark.
Mountain Mold 433-200GC bullet loves IMR3031 but none of the other 4.
Here with a little more IMR3031, notice the point of impact change.
With all the groups I fired, and there were 7 different weights of each of the 5 powders with 5 shots fired at each target, none were any worse than factory 240 GN .444 Marlin Ammo. Worst one was on the order of 3.5" which is what my rifle will do with Remington factory 240gn ammo.
Point of impact was moving all over the place depending on the powder and load, as much as 4 inches difference .
As you can see Pandora was with me for the customary flier from no where. I shot one 5 shot string at the target, then waited 10 minutes for the rifle to cool down after which I ran a bore snake down the barrel in between each firing to clean out any residual powder. Never found any signs of leading and no pressure signs on the brass at all. Very pleasant to shoot considering I shot 350 rounds. All were done at 100 meters.
Santa was supposed to bring me a Chronograph last Christmas but some how he missed the house, not sure how fast they were traveling but I would imagine about 1900-2200fps somewhere in there.
I would like to find some Lino and heat treat some to see if I can push them even harder basically to say I can. This mold that I designed on Mountain Molds website has been sent off to be hollow pointed and when it gets back I will do some follow up penetration tests. This should work wonders on deer where I hunt which is mainly forest but once in a while you have a shot at one in open country and with this accuracy and speed it should make connecting with one at 300 yards a bit easier.
So much for the theory that an old Micro grooved .444 Marlin can't shoot cast bullets very well and lever guns are terrible for accuracy past 50 yards.
