Bullet Casters - Roll Call

Do you cast?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 121 65.4%
  • No, but I'm interested

    Votes: 48 25.9%
  • No and I don't intend to.

    Votes: 16 8.6%

  • Total voters
    185
I haven't tried them in my LE yet. I like the 314299 bullet for the .303. Will load up a box to try.

The 312 155 bullet is the bullet for the 7.62x39. Developed by CB Harris. Check out the Cast Bullet forum. Three is a sticky there on the 7.62x39.

Email sent and attached the spreadsheet

Take Care

Bob

Got the spreadsheet Bob. It looks to be very helpful.
Do you mean Cast boolits Forum?

Jerrold
 
This one:

*castboolits.gunloads.com

Eliminate the asterisk.

Check out "Felix Lube". Great stuff you can make at home. I use it for all my pistol and rifle applications.

Take Care

Bob
 
Question for casting geezers?
Just bought whole set up for casting, made some nice bullets, but accuracy is very poor.
It is Lee 160 gr round nose in 308 cal, liquid alox coated with gas checks,
and I tried 30 to 44 gr BL-C (2). 32 gr produced the best group at 100yards - ar5". I was shooting Tika.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks
Vic
 
What caliber are you shooting the .308 bullets in? What are you sizing them to? Have you slugged your bore? What velocities are you getting?

I have found that high end loadings shooting cast rarely give the best results. Not familiar with the powder as I don't use it. 2400 is a very good powder for cast in .308Win/.30-06 and my go to powder for cast bullets.

A good reference can be found here in a couple of sticky threads:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com

Depending on my chamber casts I usually size my .308Win and .30-06 bullets anywhere from .309 to .311. My Husquavarna shoots under 1/2" using Lyman 311291 bullets in my .30-06 using 20 gr of 2400. Velocity averages 1775 fps.

Lastly do you own Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook? If you don't buy it.

Take Care,

Bob
 
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Vic1...I may be able to encourage you to continue as i cast and use alot of bullets as I'm in the cast bullet business so I can give my .02cents....It is very rare to get good accuracy, no leading,etc. the very first mold or the very first time.....accuracy with cast can be much harder to achieve then with j-word bullets...many things come into play, bore size, bullet design vs. chamber leade, bullet hardness, length relative to twist rate, portion of bullet not supported by rifling, etc.....get a few diff. 30 cal molds and the means to size bullets to a few diff. sizes. and experiment...I would suggest Lyman #311041, or #311299(the borerider), or my favorite #311332, Saeco's #315 is another as are the RCBS sillywet designs. Try then sized .309 and .310" to start and my old standby load of 19.5grs. 4759, try diff. OALs, only make one change at a time and enjoy your journey into accurate cast bullet shooting, it will reward you!!
 
Thank you very much for respond.
Rifle is 308 cal, I'm using Lee mold #90367 and .308" re sizer.
I don't have a hardness tester yet but I know that my led is very soft, what is a good source for tin and how much would I have to add it?
And no I don't own Lyman's Cast Bullet book yet.
 
Thank you very much for respond.
Rifle is 308 cal, I'm using Lee mold #90367 and .308" re sizer.
I don't have a hardness tester yet but I know that my led is very soft, what is a good source for tin and how much would I have to add it?
And no I don't own Lyman's Cast Bullet book yet.

Getting off-topic here on the General Poll, but here's what I would do:

- slow the bullet down. Use less of a faster powder, say 20.0 grs of H4227, or 25.0 grs of H4895
- size it to 0.309" or leave it unsized if it casts at 0.309" or 0.310"
- if you want to add tin, it depends what you're adding it to. Tin does very little to increase hardness, but improves "castability". If it's Wheelweight (but if it's as soft as you say I doubt it is), add one pound of 50/50 solder to 25 lbs of alloy, if it's pure lead, add one pound to 10 pounds of alloy.
- if it's hardness you think you need, get wheelweight, add the tin, then try again. It is easy to harden wheelweight by dropping the bullets from the mold into cold water.
 
I would suggest you measure the as cast diameter of the bullets produced in your Lee Mold. I would guess they will be somewhere around .310". Get a sizing die that will leave the bullets as close as possible to their as cast diameter, the idea being to use the sizing die to crimp on the gas check but not size the bullet. Let your rifle barrel size the bullet. Cast bullets have to be bigger than jacketed bullets, otherwise you get gas cutting, leading and poor accuracy. I shoot .311" cast bullets in my .308 and 30/06.

Another thing to measure is the bore riding portion of your Lee bullet. Generally they are too small (around .298") for best accuracy. Ideally the bore riding portion should be .001" over bore size, .301" shoots good in most .308 rifles that have .300" bores. If the bore riding portion is too small it is unlikely that you will ever get good accuracy.

Finally I would suggest that, for rifle use, you cast your bullets to be as hard as you can get them. This is easy to do if you are using wheel weights for alloy. Just drop the bullets from the mold into a bucket of water, taking precautions to prevent water from getting into your lead pot (very bad!). It is a lot easier to get hard bullets to shoot well, assuming that they fit the barrel.
 
I voted "No but interested"

I recently acquired a Martini-Henry Mk IV that I would like to cast for "eventually".
I have a few other rifles that are possibilities like my 1895 Mannlicher.

A question for all you casters who use wheel weights.

Do these tire places charge you for the wheel weights or are they otherwise scrap to get disposed of?
 
I could always buy all the wheelweights I wanted for $20.00 for a five gallon pail full, but now because the price of scrape metal is so high if you do find some it seems they want an arm and a leg for them.

:(:(:(
 
A question for all you casters who use wheel weights.

Do these tire places charge you for the wheel weights or are they otherwise scrap to get disposed of?

I've been given them and I've had to pay for them. Just depends on who you are dealing with. It's a lot easier to get them no charge if you happen to be buying tires!
 
I just go down to any local tire shop and they are more than happey to let me take them off there hands. Dont Know for a fact but seems to me they cant just throw them out.
 
I cast 12 ga.slugs, [7mm,30 cal,.44cal,gas cap] and 9mm,44 cal (flat bottom) bullets,54 cal minnies and balls.If I didn't reload, I wouldn't be able to afford days when I shoot a hundred .44 mags or a hundred and fifty 9mm.in an afternoon.I have guns that have never seen factory or jacketed rounds but I have no intention of ever hunting big game with anything less than a good quality jacketed reloaded bullet, except maybe with my blackpowder or slugs someday.
 
Cast 9mm and (less often) 45ACP. Little Lee pot and I run the risk of complaining neighbours (lucky so far) doing it on the back cement patio. Quite a satisfying hobby...but messy and have to keep my pugs out of the equipment...
 
when I brew up a batch, I do about 70 lbs at a time. and throw in 5bls of tin and a bit of antomie? I think thats how you spell it. and pour it off in to 1 lb mounds for my melting pot. the tin and the other thing gives the lead a bit of hardness. it makes a good hunting round.

I got a buddy who has a ranch once in awhile he needs to put a critter down. gives me a chance to try out my cast bullets. once popped a 2000 lb bull with a 500 gr bullet from my 45 70. it was a barn yard shot 20 yards out, the bullet went though the top of his head and 9 inchs down his spinal cord. he was dead before he hit the ground. we dug the bullet out , and I weight it later. it only lost .035 gr of weight. and was a nice mushroom on the end. sigh than we had to butcher the bull.
 
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