Just wondering if there’s a bullet mould out there that’s a known winner for Lee Enfields? I’m thinking about casting some bullets and thought I would get the pro’s opinions here at CGN before I start buying moulds. It’s for a 5 groove Long Branch Parker Hale conversion. Not sure what the bore diameter is yet, but it’s a 5 groove in excellent condition. I’m thinking of a 180 to 220 grain, likely with a gas check.
A bit late, but having already walked that path with an exceptionally accurate 95L series 1950 Long Branch, perhaps I can help if you're still looking (or alternately looking for fine tuning). My Long Branch, BTW, the bore pins at .3045" end to end, and measures at .315" just before the first markings from the grooves appear. I have no idea of the groove dimensions for the five groove rifling, in part because that had nothing to do with fitting cast bullets.
In general, three things that I and a lot of others believe (at least concerning milsurps and very experienced older rifles):
- How well your cast bullet fits in the space from the case mouth, through the throat and ball seat up to the beginnings of the grooves is the most important thing for accuracy.
- The bullet design is much less important than getting a better fit - when the light flashes at the base of the bullet, it WILL quickly fit the lands and grooves once past the throat/ball seat and in the bore.
- Some designs are harder to fit - leading those are longer bullets with a long bore riding section, versus bullets with fairly blunt ogives.
I have mould with a separate design in each cavity from Accurate, that by happy coincidence works not only extremely well in the Long Branch I designed and intended the bullet designs for, but also my Grandfather's old 1895 Winchester (circa August 1898) in 30 U.S.
The bore on the Model 95 looks more like sewer pipe through a borescope (never buy a borescope, boys, it will ruin your life); there MIGHT be some rifling left after decades of my grandfather using corrosive ammunition. Now the barrel has land and groove dimensions belonging more to a .303 British rather than 30.40 Krag.
The Long Branch, by comparison, was the pick of the litter after I bought 20 Long Branches back around 1992 when Distribucorp was selling all those Long Branches in lots of ten that they brought back from Belgium. After test firing a ten shot group at 300 yards with each of them with Greek 69 HXP ball after cleaning and mounting a no-gunsmithing scope, this one came out on top. (I wish I still had the other 19 at today's prices, rather than gloating at the miniscule profit I made selling them individually back around 1995). I finished preparing that rifle with a long day of hand lapping with a lead lap until it felt as smooth as a virgin's cheek (you young guys have never seen one of those either) from throat to muzzle.
So: two very different rifles, one having a horrible looking bore and the other one the bore of a rifle I got new in the grease with proven accuracy, then lapped to a fine finish. One that couldn't group with anything jacketed; the other that groups extremely well with various jacketed loads.
The short story related to the question of what mould designs to use is this: by adjusting the fit of these two designs to the two different throats and ball seats, I get extremely good accuracy out of both. Although each rifle takes slightly different operations to get the right fit. The result is particularly impressive in the 1895 Winchester (think similar badly worn Lee Enfield) that with jacketed bullets, isn't much more than a 50 - 75 yard hunting rifle. With the WFN cast design and rear aperture sight, it's now a legitimate 200 yard hunting rifle.
BUT, if I just grab something like Lyman 314299 that so many like, run them through a sizer, I get mediocre accuracy at best. That's not the fault of that bore riding design - as somebody earlier posted, you can do various things to tune it to better fit. You can beagle the mould (never done that), powder coat it (done that), etc.
But fit from the case mouth to the start of the rifled portion of the barrel is the most important, not finding just the right design. AND I also believe that the worse and more worn the throat/ball seat/and bore... the greater improvements you get from properly fitting the bullet.
There's lots of discussion that can be had about determining dimensions and then how you can adjust a lot of different designs to get a good fit. But I suggest that's where you'll get the greatest juice for the squeeze: determining your dimensions from the beginning of the throat to the beginning of the rifling, and then doing what you need to do in order to get the closest fit. Use your best jacketed bullet load as the standard you're working towards for accuracy.
In my case, I quickly learned 314299 was mediocre, even unsized (this is long before powder coating), and I opted for a custom mould made to size. I started with moulds made by Rob Applegate (before the magazines made him famous and the demand for his established designs led to him abandoning custom mould work). Since then I've found that Accurate is really good to work with getting moulds that turn out bullets that measure precisely what you specify. Now that powder coating has changed my life (well, almost), I'm going to have to order another set of moulds - the fit on the original moulds is now a wee bit too fat after powder coating, so I need some dimensions cut back a couple of thou...
In my case, I was looking for a cast bullet good enough out to 200 meters to minimize my use of my stock of Greek HXP-69 ball as well as 174 gr clones from Sierra and Hornady (when I could actually find them). With a little thought and work on fit, it isn't something all that complicated; most handloaders should be able to do it.
I'd upload some pics of the Accurate designs I chose and modified to use in my Lee Enfield, but apparently I have run out of space. Have to do something about that...
https://i10.servimg.com/u/f10/14/11/62/01/5-2_410.jpg
https://i10.servimg.com/u/f10/14/11/62/01/5-2_510.jpg
https://i10.servimg.com/u/f10/14/11/62/01/5-2_610.jpg
https://i10.servimg.com/u/f10/14/11/62/01/5-2_710.jpg
