Seating cast 303 bullet

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Forty4Forty

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Hi. I have a packet of cast bullets that I have never loaded before, I cannot workout the seating depth, my books etc don't seem to have for this shape.


Cast bullet weighs 184g on scale

Over 43g Winchester 760 (fills case)

Looking for advice on correct seating, thanks.


303.jpg
 
When loaing cast, I take an old casing, full length size it and slit the mouth with a dremel cut off disk in 2 spots down to the shoulder. This lets a bullet slide inside the neck. Put a bullet in so it's just started, put it in the rifle and close the action. Open it back up and remove the round. Measure the OAL end now you know your maximum OAL before jamming the lands.
 
Ganderite said:
I would try seating it longer, so case mouth is just past the grease groove.

Why this powder and powder charge?


I would use 10 to 15 gr of a shotgun powder.
Click to expand...

This is a good question. Driving a cast bullet with this much powder (43 grains of W760 as stated in original post) could result in serious leading of the rifle bore. Using a powder charge that results in 1400 to 1800 fps with cast bullets is something worth considering.
I have been using 18 grains of H4198. Not too concerned about OAL or how close to the rifling the bullet is. I shoot this load from a number of Ross rifles, mostly sporterized MKIII's but also a Ruger No1 and a Ross 1905R and a R10 Ross sporter. Accurate and easy on the shoulder and on the wallet. The bullets I use are 180 grain gas checked and lubed- from the Bullet Barn.




Fargone4sure said:
I agree with ganderite on this. My best accuracy with cast has been 16gr of 2400.
Click to expand...
excellent advice
If I could find 2400 around here I would use it as well as H or IMR 4198

Forty4Forty said:
Hi. I have a packet of cast bullets that I have never loaded before, I cannot workout the seating depth, my books etc don't seem to have for this shape.




Cast bullet weighs 184g on scale

Over 43g Winchester 760 (fills case)

Looking for advice on correct seating, thanks.


303.jpg
Click to expand...
 
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The latest 50th Lyman manual lists SR-4759 which is a powder made for reduced loads and nearly fills the case. Meaning you do not have to worry about double charges or position sensitivity in the case. Another bulk powder that fills the case is Trail Boss and both of these powders will not strain your bifocals when visually checking the powder charge.

Below I use .312 100 grain pistol bullets for fire forming my .303 British cases with reduced loads. And when fire forming 100 to 200 cases this makes the brass butt plate much softer. ;)

HHDfGl9.jpg


Other powders listed in the Lyman manual for cast bullets
Unique
2400
IMR-4227
5744
IMR-4198

Bottom line Winchester 760 would be fine with jacketed bullets but a bad choice for lead cast bullets. And remember when shooting cast bullets at reduced velocities it is the faster burning powders that work the best for kicking the lead bullet in the seat of the pants and making the bullet conform to bore diameter. Especially in worn over sized bores like the .303 British with cordite throat and bore erosion.

Below look at the bottom left hand list with SR-4759 and reduced velocity loads.

tyJBZe1.jpg


I had a hard time finding SR-4759 so I started using Trail Boss and it even works well with reduced plinking loads in my Savage .223 bolt action with jacketed 55 grain bullets.
 
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I have never seen so many locked up minds in my life!
The OP seems to be the only one with any sense of adventure, like seeing how something he hasn't read in a loading manual will work.
Of course, all the quotes you guys are giving from books will drive a cast bullet fairly accurate at slow velocities.
This is not what the OP wanted to do. He is trying to see how his cast bullet performs at normal rifle speeds. Carry on with your experiments. As long as the powder kind and charge you are trying would be safe with a jacketed bullet, then it should also be safe with a cast bullet.
I forget if your bullets are gas checked, or not, but a good gas check bullet may obtain, or close to, what a jacketed bullet would do in the 303.
 
H4831 said:
I have never seen so many locked up minds in my life!
The OP seems to be the only one with any sense of adventure, like seeing how something he hasn't read in a loading manual will work.
Of course, all the quotes you guys are giving from books will drive a cast bullet fairly accurate at slow velocities.
This is not what the OP wanted to do. He is trying to see how his cast bullet performs at normal rifle speeds. Carry on with your experiments. As long as the powder kind and charge you are trying would be safe with a jacketed bullet, then it should also be safe with a cast bullet.
I forget if your bullets are gas checked, or not, but a good gas check bullet may obtain, or close to, what a jacketed bullet would do in the 303.
Click to expand...


Forty4Forty said:
Hi. I have a packet of cast bullets that I have never loaded before, I cannot workout the seating depth, my books etc don't seem to have for this shape.

Cast bullet weighs 184g on scale

Over 43g Winchester 760 (fills case)

Looking for advice on correct seating, thanks.
Click to expand...


H4831

I don't think of myself as having a "locked up mind" or getting all my experience from reading manuals.

You need a hard lead mixture and a gas check to drive cast bullets faster. And the OP said he had "a packet of cast bullets" that makes me think he didn't even cast his own bullets let alone have hard cast bullets. And I quit casting bullets because finding good and "cheap" wheel weights was harder every year. And now in the U.S. lead wheel weights are being banned so I shoot mostly jacketed bullets and occasionally buy cast bullets. It wasn't just the lead in wheel weights, it was also the heavy metals that were dumped into the wheel weights and the rain runoff from roads was washing this into our streams and rivers and into our drinking water.

H4831 I think your underwear might be too tight and putting you in a bad mood. And if making cast bullets cost is close to jacketed bullets its time to quit. And the days of finding cheap lead are long gone here in the U.S. and not caused by a "locked up mind". :bangHead:
 
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I use red dot and green dot pdr for my cast lyman 314299 and use liquid alox lube and the deer at 60 yards did not run at all, they just dropped. up here in Canada there are still lots of ww if you know where to look and they do not cost that much. I have about 1500 lbs of melted ww in bars, enough to keep me going the rest of my life. for me to shoot at the range for a day it does not cost me that much compared to jacketed bullet as they are very expensive up here. I cast for all my guns and I does not drain my wallet.
 
Our American Environmental Protection Agency or EPA is costing you and I a lot more money and many of their "protection rules" are costing us jobs also. I hope our new Republican President and administration reverses some of these laws. The last lead smelting plant was shut down in the U.S. and all we have now are lead reclaiming plants that salvage lead from batteries, etc. and remelt the salvaged lead down and sell it for a higher cost. And we had the tree hugger environmentalists even trying to stop the pipeline here that would carry your sand oil across the states to Texas.

"BUT" Europe is ahead of the U.S. in environmental laws so it might be a lost cause trying to fight it.


And if you Canadians had not stolen our Star Gate and moved it to Vancouver we would be getting lead from all over the universe.

This makes me wonder if H4831 was captured by the Goa'uld and the trip through the Star Gate is what made him grumpy. :evil:

But I might be grumpy too if it rained all the time on my rifles where I lived and I forgot to dip them in cosmoline every day to prevent them from rusting. :stirthepot2:
 
Well, I didn't say everyone replying had a locked up mind, but you can see the majority answering the OP had their minds dead set on only creating a load, if they could see every detail spelled out in a loading manual, so nothing, whatsoever, remained for them to make a judgement on.
Whether the bullets the OP has were hard, soft, or anything else, he had decided on his load and only asked for help in seating them.
It is very obvious that Ed does not have a locked up mind. On this subject it seems to be prominently of a tree hugger, except he doesn't like that term, but after all, those lead bullets are poisoning our planet, but "I do really like to shoot, and ---"?
 
Note to self.

Next week remind H4831 to dry underwear on low heat in the drier. Also remind him that if we Americans had only stretched our 54-40 or fight past the 49th parallel our EPA would be keeping him from getting cheap lead. And Washington State would be connected to Alaska and all of it would be a lead free zone. But it would still rain all the time and H4831 guns would still rust and put him in a dark mood.

And you Canadians don't give me a hard time, there are now over 850 Tim Horton restaurants in the United States trying to in circle Washington DC and force out our American Dunkin Donuts. There is even a Tim Hortons near Cape Coral Florida so you snow birds wont get home sick.

timhortonsmap-e1341506239566.jpg


P.S. My last name is Horton and I hate hockey and my ancestors didn't like King George either.

P.P.S Actually I'm mad because my side of the Horton clan doesn't have any Upper Deck cards with our faces on them. ;)

Tim-Horton.jpg
 
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H4831 said:
I have never seen so many locked up minds in my life!
The OP seems to be the only one with any sense of adventure, like seeing how something he hasn't read in a loading manual will work.
Of course, all the quotes you guys are giving from books will drive a cast bullet fairly accurate at slow velocities.
This is not what the OP wanted to do. He is trying to see how his cast bullet performs at normal rifle speeds. Carry on with your experiments. As long as the powder kind and charge you are trying would be safe with a jacketed bullet, then it should also be safe with a cast bullet.
I forget if your bullets are gas checked, or not, but a good gas check bullet may obtain, or close to, what a jacketed bullet would do in the 303.
Click to expand...

This is a giant leap on your part. We don't know what the OP wanted to do, except he wanted to shoot his cast bullets.

He asked about OAL and I made a suggestion.

I also pointed out that H416 was not the powder I would use. My take on the request was that if he was asking for OAL, he was new at this, so I politely hinted that a full case of H414 might not be the best choice of powder.

Others suggest using less of a faster powder, which might be useful info to the OP, and as importantly, useful info for others reading this who might want to try cast bullets in their 303.

If the OP boldly wants to go where no man has ever gone, fine. But just in case he was green, I think we owed him the info that a faster powder might work better.
 
H4831 said:
Well, I didn't say everyone replying had a locked up mind, but you can see the majority answering the OP had their minds dead set on only creating a load, if they could see every detail spelled out in a loading manual, so nothing, whatsoever, remained for them to make a judgement on.
Whether the bullets the OP has were hard, soft, or anything else, he had decided on his load and only asked for help in seating them.
It is very obvious that Ed does not have a locked up mind. On this subject it seems to be prominently of a tree hugger, except he doesn't like that term, but after all, those lead bullets are poisoning our planet, but "I do really like to shoot, and ---"?
Click to expand...

He asked about seating depth...and that's exactly what I replied about, how to obtain a maximum seating depth, which I've found works the best for cast bullet accuracy.
 
uh–oh now its H4831-40 or fight and a brand new war.

I wonder if I can sneak across the border and get our Star Gate back while the BC war rages.

The sad part is President Elect Trump will be briefed by our intelligence services and then say Putin had nothing to with the western war in Canada.

And for once Trump will be right. :stirthepot2: Now you guys look at the bright side, Ron AKA didn't make a single post in this thread.:dancingbanana::cheers:
 
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