Looking for tips on loading cast bullets with the .308 Win

T

theshootist

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So far I've tried shooting 180gr bullets using a Lee mold, sized to .309 with gas checks. The alloy is wheel weight (pure lead stick-on weights were sorted out from the pot). All bullets were water quenched, dropped from the mold. They have been loaded over 3 or 4 different types of powder to speeds of 1500, 1900, 2100, and 2300 fps. Results have been less than spectacular, my best has been around 2-3", my worst being spread across a loose leaf page (at the higher velocities the groups opened up considerably), and most groups were in the 5-6" sizes. Maybe I just need to become a better shot. All of this has been tested through 3 different rifles, a Savage 10PC, M305 and a Savage 99. For me the best accuracy in all 3 rifles has been under 2000fps.

How fast can you go while keeping accuracy? What kind of accuracy have you achieved with your cast bullets? What king of accuracy should I be trying to achieve? What has worked for you? Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I'd like to see 1-1.5" groups out of the Savage 10PC. My hopes for the M305 would be no worse than ~3" and for the lever somewhere in between.

I'm wondering if anyone can offer me some pointers, or suggest something that has worked for them. The sooner I can get out of the load development phase the better.

Your constructive input would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks
 
One or 2 things definitely come to my skull. I am shooting 500 grain hard cast out of my .458. At 50 yards I get about 1 inch accuracy. But since the 458 is a straight wall case I need to flare the case neck before seating them. Bing.....first thing,are you getting any lead shavings when you seat the slugs? Doesn't matter what they are sized to. The gas check is .308...slug is .309....but what is the inside diameter of the case neck? You might be shaving lead off and just rattling them down the barrel!

2nd thing....as mentioned what lube are you using? With my .458 I don't lube them, I Teflon tape them. Yup good ol plumbers Teflon tape...the 1/2 inch wide stuff.Try this...take a slug and lay it on a piece of white paper. Gas check facing you. Now make a vertical pen mark on the center of the gas check and follow it onto the paper.Now roll the slug say for 2 full turns till the pen mark is once again touching the paper. Measure this and cut off a piece of tape that length and wrap it around the bullet so that as the bullet flies down the barrel ,the rifling tightens the Teflon up. Its like modern paper patching! The Teflon is now your lube as well as creating a tighter fit in your barrel.

Its a pain in the ass to do....but it works. I use 3 wraps on my 500 grain slugs which are also quenched out of the mold. Oh and flare your case necks if you can so that no shaving occurs when seating cast slugs.
 
Hello
First off, size to 2 thou over groove diameter. Guys shooting cast in the m-305/m1a are sizing .310 and even .311

Use gas checks. Use an alox type lube or whatever you find in the store. Honestly for years I used plain old Ideal lube, which is wax and fat.

Use a faster burning powder like 2400 (not in the m-305 though -it doesn't function well), reloader 7, SR4759, and down to stuff like H335, 748, or H4895.

I'm doing load development right now for m-305 and mosin nagant. For the norc start At or a grain below the starting load and work up. Don't bother going higher than about the mid range of the data, as my groups open up after that point. You might be surprised. Mine has gotten promising groups using H4895, H335 and RL7. 5744 did not work well. And it will shoot like crap with X-grains and less, then give a 1.5 inch group with X+1 and be rubbish again with X+2 and beyond. That's the nature of it. Next ill be fine tuning around that node at X+1and find the sweet spot, and hopefully consistency

I don't own a chrony and velocity without accuracy means nothing, so load for accuracy, take notes on what the rifle likes, then go from there. Velocity isn't the end game with conventional cast bullets. That's what jackets, paper and metal, were developed for.
 
Last edited:
Mark-II said:
Hello
First off, size to 2 thou over groove diameter. Guys shooting cast in the m-305/m1a are sizing .310 and even .311

Use gas checks. Use an alox type lube or whatever you find in the store. Honestly for years I used plain old Ideal lube, which is wax and fat.

Use a faster burning powder like 2400 (not in the m-305 though -it doesn't function well), reloader 7, SR4759, and down to stuff like H335, 748, or H4895.

I'm doing load development right now for m-305 and mosin nagant. For the norc start At or a grain below the starting load and work up. Don't bother going higher than about the mid range of the data, as my groups open up after that point. You might be surprised. Mine has gotten promising groups using H4895, H335 and RL7. 5744 did not work well. And it will shoot like crap with X-grains and less, then give a 1.5 inch group with X+1 and be rubbish again with X+2 and beyond. That's the nature of it. Next ill be fine tuning around that node at X+1and find the sweet spot, and hopefully consistency

I don't own a chrony and velocity without accuracy means nothing, so load for accuracy, take notes on what the rifle likes, then go from there. Velocity isn't the end game with conventional cast bullets. That's what jackets, paper and metal, were developed for.
Click to expand...

Don't use 2400....use ww296 instead....its way cleaner burning..
 
Your accuracy is about par for the course.
Your results are what I got years ago, with a 30-06.
The larger diameter, heavy bullets seem much better. In a 44 magnum in a Marlin rifle, cast bullets, either flat base or gc, will equal jacketed for accuracy. Same for the 45-70. I could approach 1 moa at 100 yards with 405 or 420 bullets.
In the 30-06 I did a lot of experimenting, with results just like the OP is getting in a 308.
I tried every type of bullet lube I could come up with including water pump grease, which once had a following, as well as several other types of grease. I never noticed one speck of difference in accuracy attributed to bullet lubrication. I started with a 50-50 mixture of bees wax and beef tallow. Vary the mixture, depending on temperature, more wax than tallow in hot weather and the opposite in cold weather. No lubricant I tried after that, had any noticeable effect on accuracy, or anything else.
I used every type of powder I had, from Unique to H4831. I had better accuracy with the slow burners, with H4831 at about 2/3 of a case full, being about as good as any.
From capturing my spent bullets in undamaged condition, I was able to see that many were not perfect. That is, some had started to slip the rifling and a few had a slot, maybe about 1/16 inch across, blown past the gas check and down the length of the bullet, where gas had blown out. Obviously these were the ones loaded too heavy and would be the wild flyers.
That indicates that speed is the enemy.
 
Dont use w296 in a case with less than 95% loading density --> so dont reduce the load below published data

My experience,
I have shot 400 rounds of cast through a Norinco M305 without cleaning it (load testing) and I got rained on and then cleaned the rifle because it got wet not because it got dirty

Best Group with not trying, 5 rounds in less than a inch Sako 308 ( the day I found out the old scope-- replaced was giving me problems)
My wife will do 50 rounds in less than 4 inch (on same target) any time she wants to go-- so predictiable it is boring at 100

Cast bullets are very dependent on RPM
RPM……….120,000……….140,000
Twist……….FPS…………..FPS
7”…………1166…………..1361
8”………….1333…………..1555
9”………….1500…………..1750
10”………...1666…………..1944
11”………...1833…………..2139
12”…………2000………….2333
14”…………2333………….2722

get- read a cast reloading book
you need gas checks on your bullets for rifle

read
h t tp://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?3558-7-62x51-NATO-%28-308-WCF%29-in-the-Springfield-M1A

note the m305 has a 1/10 twist and the springfield has a 1/11 or 1/12 twist ------>so you will have better results at a slower speed than the above info


Cast in a bolt action gun can be fun to shoot --> like a 22 rf to full speed hunting loads
 
I've been playing with cast bullets approaching 2000 fps in a few different calibers. I'm still learning and don't by any means have all the answers, so take my input as a suggestion and not as gospel.

My best results have been from gas check bullets .001 to .002" over groove size, made from 80% ww + 20% lino, heat treated in an oven instead of water dropped. Heat treating takes the hardness from about BHN 14 to almost 20, while water dropping was only giving me BHN 16 at best from the same alloy.

Medium powders like IMR4064 and IMR4895 have been more accurate and less prone to leading than faster powders once the velocity goes above 1500 fps.
 
Hope I can provide some helpful information.

Cast bullet shooting can ne ALLOT of fun! If you want/expect a high degree of performance, it could/will be a labour intensive journey! Thats part of the fun.

I shoot a Remington 700 Varmint Laminate in .308win. 1:12" twist rate.

Shooting lead cast bullets can introduce a miriade of variables into a load development process.

Most casters can produce a fairly decent cast bullet. The key to great accuracy with cast bullets is great bullets. Bullets that fill the mould out, and having clean square grooves and finishes (without any internal voids or inclusions).

If Want to get 100 perfect cast bullets, I usually cast around 3-400. After they have cooled, I inspect the bases. Only those bullets with perfect bases make the grade. The sprue cut dimples are lightly filed to give the base a square bottom.( the gas check will fit squarely).

I weight segregate every bullet and put them into 1 grain categories. The bullets that weight more than a few grains light, likely have air voids/inclusions. After you have enough of the bullets you want to shoot, start experimenting.

The rpm threshold as explained above, holds "some" merit. The centrifical forces that a cast bullet experiences puts allot of stress on the alloy! If the bullet alloy has ANY imperfections, air pockets, mould forming inclusions, etc. they will be dramatically exposed as the Rotational speed gets higher.
Even perfect bullets will be affected at some critial speed. Normally, some other physical aspect of a bullet or load combo will fail far before the RPM causes problems.

A bullets response to these factors depend heavily on its alloy, and relative hardness/toughness.

With lead being relatively soft, a few things need to be controlled definitively. The bore to bullet fit needs to be well balanced. 0.001-.002" larger than bore dia. is usually good. This fit allows a better gas seal. If combustion gasses manage to squeak by the bullet/bore contact surface, the gasses will cut/wash out some of the bullets alloy, and either blow out the end of the muzzle, or adhear to the bore surface ahead of the accellerating bullet. In either case, this usually ends up causing leading.

If the bulllet has had the gasses blow by, the bullet will now be missing some alloy where the gasses washed/cut through. This introduces an imbalance to the bullets gyroscopic integrity. Depleating accuracy.

Another factor of a Cast bullets performance is its alloys ability to compress and upset(change shape), and still be able to return to its original shape. (This is known as an alloys "YIELD POINT") If a particular load(powder) combination exceeds this, the bullet will be overly compressed during the forces of acceleration and damaged. The bullet will no longer be able to Return to its original physical shape. This also introduces imbalances to its rotational(gyroscopic) stability. This affects accuracy of course.

Thirdly, the bullet Lube, if properly applied evenly within the lube grooves, adds to the bullet/bore sealing relationship. As the bullet is compressed (obturated) during the initial ignition and acceleration G-forces, the lube hydraulicly supports,lubes,and seals the combustion gasses behind the bullet.

In the perfect load situation, the bullet is obturated (compressed),supported and the gasses are sucessfully sealed behind the accelerating bullet. The cast bullet tends to accelerate proportionally to the forces applied.

If No bullet Damage results, then the load maximizes its potential for the load combo. How well it actually shoots depends on wether or not the bullet is sufficiently stabilised at the resulting muzzle velocity, and if the load combo is consistant.

The barrels twist rate has a huge factor in the performance of cast bullets! The surface of a cast bullet only
Has the shear strength of its alloy. If the twist rate is too fast for the force/velocity applied, the torque applied to the cast bullets surface will strip the outer layer imparted by the rifling. This not only destroys accuracy, but causes severe leading!

With jacketed bullets, they can take many times the shear forces of lead.

The faster the twist rate, the more stress on the cast bullets alloy.
Therefore, normally speaking, the 1:10" twist will not be able to push a cast bullet as fast AND accurately (in combination) as say a 1:12" twist.

Fast powders normally reccomended for cast bullet shooting are very economical by volume, but reach high pressures quickly. So be careful and use only recommended charges. Start low and work up. You will notice at some charge weight, some component of the load will start to fail, and accuracy falls of quickly. When a soft alloy like lead yields to something, its usually all at once.

I experimented with slower powders in my cast bullet shooting. If you go with too slow a powder, the powder doesnt burn properly and you get dirty cases, and erratic velocities.

I found two slower powders that worked well for me in my .308win. Shooting 190 grain Lyman#311644, and lyman#311299,200grain bullets.

These were IMR4350 & IMR4831. They seem to impart thier combustion pressures slow enough, not to damage the cast bullet during acceleration (in my rifle). The powder burnt cleanly, and i get jacketed performance from those cast bullets.

Below, I will paste a response letter I gave another fellow gunnutz member that had asked me what load/s I shoot cast in my .308win.
Again, work up your loads carefully, and at your own risk.



The letter was as follows:

The following is the load conditions/recipe that I load "MY" rifle to. As always, work up to it. I have no way of knowing how your rifle will handle this load. Use at your own risk.
Your rifle may only need 42.0 grains of IMR4831 to reach this performance level.

Be careful, and your rifle may really like this combo like mine did!

If you can, Use a chronograph, its you best tool to measure the ballistic uniformity.

-Federal 210 Primer
-Winchester Neck sized brass
-I am presently using up to 45.0 grains of IMR 4831 with the Lyman #311299, 200 grain Boolet.
-I get 2347 fps average (over more than 120 chronygraphed rounds now) I have shot more than 500 rounds of this load combo. My barrel 26" long.
-I seat the boolet out snugly into the rifling.
-Not much resistance for the bolt to be lowered.
-Hornady, or my own Brass gaschecks.
-Lyman super moly lube.
-Boolet sized to .310"

*The boolet alloy is around 18lbs of clean wheel weight lead + 8 feet of 50/50 Lead/Tin solder.
Air cooled.

*I also dip the entire exposed bullet into liquid Allox after seating and light crimping. (I soak a piece of foam in an old film canister with the Allox lube and dip the boolet through a hole I cut into the foam). Just a nice fine layer is applied.

*This extra lube makes the last 1/4" of forward bolt travel a little bit harder. I simply push forward slowly and firmly till the bullet lube redistributes itself and allows the boolet and cartridge to go into proper battery. I think/feel this hydraulically centers the bore riding portion of the boolet better. Gets everything exactly centred for ignition, and "Absolutely" supports the boolet nose (hydraulically) during the G-forces of acceleration. Maintains bullet nose concentricity so to speak. The extra lube just sprays off as it exits the muzzle.

The only draw backs to seating this boolet this way is: 1) Once chambered the round either has to be fired.
2) If you open the bolt to remove the cartridge, the boolet will stay in the bore and the powder spills into your action.

You can alleviate this mess by firstly lifting the bolt to the unlocked position, then, turn the muzzle to a vertical position, and tap the bolt back till the boolet releases from the case. If you are careful, the case doesn't spill the powder all over the place. If your not, powder gets everywhere! (That was me the first time) LOL!
Use a cleaning rod to then tap the boolet back into your action.

I have shot this combination onto targets all the way to 1000 yards. The bullet holes are still round indicating the boolets are still stable, but just barely. Accuracy starts to fall off/change/degrade noticeably past 900 yards. Great fun!!!

This post was terribly long winded, and I hope someone can benifit form it in some way!
 
I'll make it simple:
Lee 312-155 w/gas check lubed and sized to .311
13Gr of Red Dot or 13.3 of Green Dot
Win LR primer
neck sized cases(Normas and Lapuas rock-everything else not so much :) )

figure out what OAL of case your rifle likes

I load this for Israeli Mauser -it's very good,economical load,feeds really nice and you don't have to go nuts about bullet hardness.Speed is about 1600FPS (checked)
 
I've been shooting cast out of mid caliber military rifles for 30 years. Most of my 308 cast shooting was a Spanish FR7 years ago. I've found that if you work at it you can usually come up with a load nearly as accurate as jacketed. These are all mid range loads not military equivalent. Bullets have always been at least 2 thou over groove diameter, all have been CG'd, poured from WW + 2%tin and waterquenced. Powder of choice either 4198 or 2400. Most accurate milsurp I shoot regularly is a 2 groove O3A3. Lyman 311291 sized 311 over either 25grs of H4198 or 21 of 2400. On a good day this rifle can shoot close to 2 inch groups at 100 yds.

Always check a couple reliable sources before using "internet loads"
 
I have shot cast out of an M305 for some time. 2.5" is the best group I can get at 100 yards time and again.

My load is as follows:

200gr NOE 311299 (sized to .311, cast out of pure linotype, carnuaba red lube, aluminum gas check)

Sort these bullets very well. I throw any out with any visible defect and sort them by weight to 1% of total weight.


26.0gr of IMR4198.

Flare the case before seating bullet, and give a very light crimp with a LEE FCD.

This cycles the action reliably and leaves the brass in a nice pile. These are going +-2000fps

Other powders you can try are, IMR4895, H335, WC735.
 
I'm using a Rem 700 varmint laminate (sounds like the same model as dthunter above) and am getting usually 1.25" @ 100yds but sometimes as good as 1" (edge to edge, not centre to centre)
I size my cast bullets to .311" so I can use the same bullets in my Mosin which slugs .310"

I am using the Lee CTL312-160-2R mould and using Hornady copper gas checks (the aluminum ones I have off eBay are too thin and wont crimp on.) My best accuracy is with 20gr of SR-4759 but I also get good results with 21gr of H4198. I've only tested to full grain separations of loads and have been meaning to test the half grain increments in between.

I flare before seating and make sure the base of the bullet is still in the neck. I've had some gas checks (the aluminum ones) fall off into the case. I will probably file a thou or two off the mould to make the base larger for holding the gas checks.
 
Cast bullet shooting in centerfire rifles depends a lot on how anal you are. However, to illustrate what is possible with cast in a .308 Winchester, Tom Gray used to win or be a threat in CBA matches with 308 Winchester loads chronographing at around 2500 fps. Ken Mollohan (who recently died) had hunting loads around 3000 fps and would prove it to anyone who didn't believe it.

They didn't get those kind of results overnight, however. A lot of experience, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of work on rifles and moulds went into getting results like that.

I don't compete anymore in the CBA, so I'm pretty out of touch with recent knowledge, but I know what works for me still.

First, I've about given up on long ogive moulds. They are so tempting because of the ballistics they suggest you would get, but I don't know of anyone who has had much success. So pretty much all of my moulds from NEI, LBT, Applegate, etc are pretty blunt. I suspect this is why many people find heavy bullets work best - I think they don't work because they're heavy, I think they work because the heavy bullets seldom have sharp ogives.

Second, I control my alloy so that I KNOW what it is, rather than what I think it is. The lead I'm unsure of goes in the pistol bullet pile.

Third, I pay very little attention to what the groove diameter is, because I don't think that matters one bit. What I DO pay a whole bunch of attention to is the diameter of the lead & ball seat that precedes the rifling, and I put a lot of effort into ensuring the finished cast bullet is a very close fit to that part of the barrel. As the saying goes, when the bright light flashes behind the base of that bullet, it is going to swage down to whatever diameter the lands are once it gets to the rifling. A bullet of whatever diameter to fit the lands, in my opinion, is already doomed in the accuracy department if it is going to have propellant gases blasting by it in the lead and ball seat while it moves to the rifled bore.

Fourth, I heat treat rifle bullets to match the working pressures of the load. A lot of explanation has been written about this in the past; the easiest way to illustrate it is pure lead doesn't work in high velocity loads, and linotype doesn't work worth a damn in light loads.

I don't use plain base bullets as I'm too lazy to put in the effort to make them work. I use commercial gas cheques.

I size and crimp before heat treating. Less sizing is better...

I use a good lube - Gray's #24 - but I don't think it is available anymore. I think lube is going to do the job as long as you use a quality lube.

Works for me, although others may well take a different tack and have their own theories.
 
There is allot of good information on this thread, take what you will. People like myself have put a tremendous amount of work into getting the performance we do.
Some just slap loads together with minimal testing or minimalist goals. Try what you like, and hopefully you are satisfied with your results. In the end, thats all that really matters
 
Okay, as the OP I'd like to say thanks for everyone's input. Lots to consider.

My intentions with casting for the .308 is to develop the most accurate load I can for the Savage 10PC as I assume it will be the most accurate rifle out of the three. The same load (after working up the charge) will also be used (hopefully) in the remaining 2 rifles provided the accuracy is satisfactory. I'd like only one developed load for the three rifles to keep things simple.

In an effort to control as many variables as possible I have sorted out all pure soft lead WW's and use them for other purposes, namley slugs. So my .308 load to be developed will be kept to solely water dropped WW's. I'm not concerned about not a achieving a specific velocity I just want the highest velocity possible while maintaining accuracy with a 1:10" twist. I'm using 0.015" aluminum gas checks (Ebay special) and Lyman's Orange Magic lube. I dont have a lube heater and in hopes of keeping things simple I'd rather not deal with one. With the alloy and other controls in mind I wonder what should be considered a good top velocity? I'm hoping for 2300fps but it doesn't sound like its going to happen.

My testing in all three rifles showed no signs of leading. But thats not to say there isn't any leading. I don't know how to identify leading. I can't see any and cleaning patches all looked "normal". Some of my boolits were recovered from wet news print and none of them showed sings of gas cutting. The GC's are staying on the bullets, as I found them in the news print.

I am using the Lyman "M" die to flare the case mouths and expand the case necks to eliminate boolit sqeezing and shaving. All rounds were given a light crimp in the crimping groove.

After reading the posts it sounds like I've been lazy as I haven't sorted and eliminated extreme boolits by weight. Guess I'l need to add another step to my quality control.

I'm thinking of just focusing my efforts for now on the savage 10PC. If I can't get anywhere satisfactory I'm leaning towards a larger diameter mould - but thats more money in molds and sizing dies that I'd rather not spend unless neccessary. I should work up the courage to slug the barrel to confirm bore diameter then go 0.001" or 0.002" larger? I figured .309" would work but now not so sure.

It's almost discouraging to have so many powers to choose from. I'd like to just stick to Varget as my .223 loves it. But these days power is so hard to find who knows where and when I'll be able to get more.

Its pretty nice to have the forum to discuss these thoughts with those with experience. Thanks again everyone for sharing. I'll keep you posted....... now if I could just learn how to add pictures!
 
Don't worry so much about velocity

What are your goals
target or hunting loads ?
the lee 180 is a ok mold
but after you have done it for a wile you will look for a better mold that has more cavities

With the 1/10 twist if the moon and sun are in the right position you can push the velocity --- not saying you can't it just a lot of extra work and luck and load testing
but my experience around 2000 fps is where groups will open up

if you Paper patch you can push the velocity more than a gc lead bullet-- I have never tried paper patching
 
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