Cast bullet trouble with Longlee enfield

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clift83

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Hello everyone I am looking for some advice with shooting cast bullets out of my 1901 longlee enfield. Through trial and error I finaly was able to find a really good load using the 215gr .312 woodleigh bullets behind 39gr IMR 4350. Its deadly accurate at 100 yards or so. But there very expensive bullets and I wanted to cut the cost down with cast bullets.

I purchased some .313 200gr bullets that weigh out to 212gr with the gas check, and tryied them with the same 39gr of 4350 and 24gr of IMR4227. When I finally tried them both loads key holed all over the place. I was wondering if this happened because these are bore riding bullets or because my velocities were to high or do I have to get maybe .315 bullets or something. I was also wondering if the cast bullets that have fatter nooses would be better since they are more like the long woodleigh bullets. Thanks.
 
Per Lyman 49th, your 24 gr. of IMR4227 should be in the ball park - they list Start@20.0 (1555 fps) and Max @26.5 (1953 fps) for 200 grain cast (314299) gas checked sized .313". I think I would slug the bore next - seems to work best having your cast bullet .001" or more larger than the bore, but still able to easily chamber (i.e. - real close to throat size). Are you seeing leading building up in the bore?
 
From the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook 4th Edition, 2014 Printing.

For a 200 grain Lyman #314299 bullet;

IMR- 20.0 to 26.5 grains

4350 is not listed at any weight shown, ( 180, 185, 200 )

SR-4759 = 18.0 to 24.5, The 18.0 being the most accurate of the 6 powders listed..
 
Did you thouroughly clean your gun? Lead likes to stick to any copper traces.

You cant expect lead bullets of equal weight to replace copper jackets.

You need to experiment and do your ladder test
 
I found the heavy RN cast bullets worked the best.

I suggest you try faster powders, and start low, and work up. The accuracy may drop as velocity increases.

I use 10 to 15 gr of shotgun powder in similar calibers.
 
I checked the bore for leading and I don't think there was any, my bore is dark so it's kinda hard to tell. I also sluged the bore before and it keeps measuring out to .3115 Which seems strange to me considering the age of the rifle. I would figure it be larger then that. Do you guys think I should just try some larger diameter bullets say .314 or maybe even .315 and drop the powder load? Also can it be dangerous if you use too large of a cast bullet like the .315 if my rifle actually is a .311
Thanks
 
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I have three .303 British rifles. #1 MKIV, M10 Ross and a Ruger number 1.
The milsurps both run tight, around the .310 or .311 dia mark. The Ruger, on the other hand, is a whopping .314 dia bore.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the bore being wore out. Those rifles had generous tolerances from the factory when it came to exact bore dimensions. Making it go Bang was more of a concern than match grade accuracy.


Consider yourself lucky that you have a rifle for which there is an easy supply of bullets to choose from.
 
Pay attention to your throat size. Might want to try to slug just the throat - from the lands back. I believe the technique is called "throat packing". At some point your fatter bullets will start to jam the case mouth in that case mouth area of the chamber - need to have some room for case mouth to expand, even two or three thousands appears to be enough expansion for case mouth to let go of bullet. That dimension - less your neck wall thickness - pretty well sets your maximum bullet diameter.
 
I have a 1896 long Lee, I use bullet barn 200gr gas checked, when I was first developing a load was actually using imr 3031 and h4895, the bullets were going through target sideways, so started playing with pistol powder, tired 4227, 2400, and unique and trailboss, out of all of those unique did the best, it's not breaking any speed records but at 12gr it's a very consistent load
 
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