Cast Bullet Challenge --- The Imp of the Perverse

slug

slug

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
1245   0   2
Location
Sudbury, Ont.
was sitting on my shoulder this morning.



Nine in one ragged hole with one stray lamb.
I'm of the opinion that ten shots into an inch and a quarter is significantly harder than five shots into one inch. Perhaps some statistician can back me up on this. It's been well over four decades since I've looked at a stats text, so the little grey cells are a bit foggy. I haven't seen any postings of groups that qualified, yet. I think that we should relax our standards a bit, especially since we want to get new casters/shooters involved. Even the gun-zine writers use five shots in an inch as a benchmark, and now a few of them shoot three shot groups for accuracy.

Comments, Please?
 
Ruger 77 sporter, .30/'06, Hornady brass, flash holes deburred, 42 gr. WC852 (H450), Winchester LRP, bullet Lyman 311644, sized to .314, cast of linotype. I don't size my bullets. I always use a large die and it's just used to seat the gas check and put lube in the grooves. The lube was the NRA Alox 2138 and beeswax mixture. The load isn't hot, but fairly stiff as I want to use it at 200 yards. Out of those 20 Hornady cases, three had slightly thick areas of the neck measured by the RCBS case tool. I'll look for those three culprits and neck turn them tonight.
 
I think it may be a gnome, not an imp... At least, I always blame the gnomes. But it's still fine shooting you did, bravo! :)
 
It is fun when you can get a rifle/cast bullet combo to equal or even beat store bought bullets. Need to split the rules into scoped or non-scoped rifle group. I have a k98 that loves cast .316 bullets and I can about duplicate the group shot with open sights but of course there is always one flyer, lol.
 
Nice shooting SLUG!

If I get the occasional flier, say 1 out of 6 or7 rounds or less, I tend to almost ignore it. I don't shoot competition, so I try to keep the relative importance of a flier in perspective. I do my best to limit the fliers, but we need to know the limits of our equipment and chosen shooting style. Basically, don't lose sleep over it.

I have been shooting cast bullets in my 308win (200 grain lyman311299) at 2350fps for years. I can attain near MOA consistently. With the occasional flier as previously stated.

Cast bullets are capable of far more than 95% of shooters think.

The physics of shooting lead requires a few different loading practices and limitations, but some of those limitations can be "tweaked" so to speak, at times.

I remember having some debates with other posters at the castboolets web site. The few posters figured that cast could not be pushed past 2000-2100fps and maintain any realistic accuracy past 200 yards. I took that as a personal challenge, and worked up a load that shoots extremely well for cast all the way out to 900 yards.

This is a picture of a muley doe I shot at just under 250 yards. Shot placement was fairly good I feel. This shows that cast bullets have very decent potential for performance at normal hunting ranges.


 
Nice group...and that includes the one you refer to as a "flier". Personally I don't call a round a flier until it is 3 or 4 " or more from the group. I consider a flier a round that ,on its own, and for it's own reason has hit considerably outside a "group". In your case that round may be caused by you instead of ammo falure, even a heart beat/trigger pull difference, not in line with the other rounds will cause that much barrel movement. If you look at the farthest apart top & bottom rounds they are only a 1/4 " or so closer together than the closest hole in the "group" to the outside round.

In respect to your question on group size relevance I always use a 3 shot group as a starting point. I only ever load up 3 rounds of a cartridge for testing and those will tell me if further use is warranted. If I get all 3 close to touching then I will load up a bunch for whatever use I have in mind, It only 2 are touching or close to it and one is only "heartbeat" close I will load up another 3 to be shot some other day, not the same day as experience has taught me that my heartbeat rounds will occur way more often in the 4th or 5th round as compared to the first 3 rounds of the day...others may vary from this but in my case I know it to be true.

If I get only one definite flier in the first 3 rounds with the others touching, more testing (another 3 shot group) will happen but if the 2 grouping rounds are more than an inch apart then it's back to the drawing board.

I won't get anymore useful info out of 10 shots than I do out of most "1 st 3 shot" groups.
 
Actually, slug, I sent in a scoped rifle group that was 0.7" + for 10 shots at 100yds in January, I believe. To be fair about it, I do shoot competition(Cast Bullet Association), the rifle is heavy class(14 lb, not a sporter) and I sent the best of 4 groups shot that day.
I can't help with the statistics, but if you look at the CBA match results you are certainly right about the difficulty with the 10 shot group. For what it's worth, the old time riflemen (1880 - 1910 or so believed 10 shots was the MINIMUM number of shots that could provide a good indication of a rifle's accuracy potential, and for center fire at least 200 yds.
With respect to your comments though, the standards ARE pretty demanding for hunting weight rifles. I'd like to think they can be achieved, but it'll take some effort and time to do it. Glad to see some continuing interest in this thread, and hope to see more.
Grouch
 
Long live cast bullets!

My father shot his last 2 moose with my cast bullets (45-70) and the plan is for me to take my next black bear with cast as well, likely from a 9.3 x 62.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom