How fast?

[tomme boy]

How fast can you push a flat base lead bullet with no GC? I am doing a 45 colt in a Handi rifle and would like to know about how far I can go before I will need to go to a GC design. I have tried the "454 255Gr. RF (45 Colt)" from NOE with H110 at 24gr. with no leading. The handi has a 20" barrel.

[x101airborne]

I use plain base boolits out of my marlin 44 mag pushed hard with no leading. I dont know exactly how hard and fast you can go, but I havent gotten there with any pistol boolit yet. Maybe one day I will, but if the 44 mag doesnt do it so far, I just may not have the need.

[ku4hx]

I've clocked one of my 245 grain .44 Magmun loads at 1,611 FPS out of a 7.5" Ruger SBH with no leading. That bullet is a plain base design.

I've seen posts here of 2,000 fps with no leading using plain base boolits in rifles.

What are yours clocking out of your 20" barrel Handi Rifle?

[tomme boy]

Don't have a crono anymore. Sabot from a shotgun slug took care of it for me.

[ku4hx]

Don't have a crono anymore. Sabot from a shotgun slug took care of it for me.

Ow! Yeah, that'll do it.

[rintinglen]

The notion that there is a set velocity limit that is consistent to all or even most firearms is flawed.
i have seen severe leading from 38 mid-range wadcutters, I have seen 44 Mags traveling at well over 1400 fps with barely a light wash in the corners of the grooves after a 100 rounds were fired.
Fit, alloy composition, fit, barrel conditions, fit, lube type and amount, fit, bullet design, fit, crimp type and amount, fit, even the weather and atmospheric conditions can have an impact on leading. I suppose that if one must have a rule of thumb, then the old chestnut, "keep plain-base bullets under 1600 fps for best results" is as good as any, but there will be a great many exceptions to the rule. Your gun and your ammo will tell you what your limit is. What I or anyone else does is virtually irrelevant.

[btroj]

Bet you can drive that bullet, if it fits, as fast as safely possible.

Like was said, no hard fast rules on this. Your gun may disagree with me.

[white eagle]

Your alloy hardness,fit and bore will tell you how fast you can go
like others have said
there is way more to performance of a boolit than velocity
if you want fast get a swift

[williamwaco]

You can do 2000 fps for sure.

I have read posts here of people exceeding 2600 with .22 cal gas checks. I have never seen it done but I can personally attest to 2000 with a gas check designed bullet without the gas check.

See:

http://reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_111201a_lla_test.htm

For actual test results. All the really high velocities are with the .30 caliber bullets but there are several .357 loads in the 1600 range.


.

[Rangefinder]

As stated, many factors will determine. Fit of the boolit, hardness of the boolit, twist rate, and lube used are the main ones. Then also consider depth of your grooves, burn rate on your powder, etc...

Shooting from the hip, size .002 over if you can, water-drop for hardness, and use 45-45-10 lube over a slow powder for a long "push" to the muzzle rather than the abrupt "spit". No telling how high you could go, but one never knows till one pushes the question.

[runfiverun]

hmm never tried.
i have hit 1650 10' out in the 45 colt and 44 mag with plain base boolits.
it never occured to me to try for faster.

[tomme boy]

I thought 1500 was considered the max for a plain base. That was why I was asking. My NOE mold is dropping at .4535 and the bore is .4525" I wanted to load some various loads for playing. Just shooting plinkers gets boring. Thats why I needed to know.

[geargnasher]

I've pushed plain-based, 50/50 wheel weight/pure 340-grain boolits to over 1300 fps in my .45 Colt Handi with no leading. I never pushed anything lighter very hard in it. I'd expect you'd run out of pressure ceiling before you'd really need a gas check.

Gear

[MtGun44]

Absolutely no "speed limit". I am not convinced that harder is any better for faster, at least
in my magnum handguns there has been no gains with water dropping in accy. None of them
lead. I have repeatedly driven .357 mag and .44 mag boolits with max or near max charges of
H110/W296 with measured BHN of 8 with excellent accy and no leading.

Somewhere around 1800-2000 it gets harder to keep accy without a GC, but not impossible,
and powder pressure curve, rifling type, bore size, boolit design, fit, lube type, lube quantity,etc.
(probably your father's hat size is in there somewhere) all have some effect, some of the time.

Bill

[Old Coot]

You can push it just as fast as you want until the gun comes apart, but what kind of accuracy are you going to get at those speeds ?

Speed ain't everything; being able to hit counts for somethin.

Brodie

[mpmarty]

I routinely shoot gas check boolits without checks in my 308 and no leading at all and excellent accuracy (better than I'm capable of holding at 100 yards w/scope). I use 3031 and push these 170gr LEE acww boolits with 50/50 jpw lla at over 2000 fps. No leading and the barrel looks like a mirror after a dry patch to remove powder fouling.

Unlike most things there is no speed limit, just common sense as to pressures and stresses on the boolits.

[mroliver77]

I routinely shoot gas check boolits without checks in my 308 and no leading at all and excellent accuracy (better than I'm capable of holding at 100 yards w/scope). I use 3031 and push these 170gr LEE acww boolits with 50/50 jpw lla at over 2000 fps. No leading and the barrel looks like a mirror after a dry patch to remove powder fouling.

Unlike most things there is no speed limit, just common sense as to pressures and stresses on the boolits.


This is amazing Marty. We need more information on what boolit, how much powder, filler? etc.

[cajun shooter]

tommie boy, The 45 Colt is a grand old design and was overlooked for many years because of it's black powder start. Let me say this, the 45 Colt loaded with 40 grains of BP and a 255 grain bullet is no sissy.
Very few animals and no men can take hits and not go down. Because of it's large size case which was designed that way so that they could fit in a lot of gun powder was never meant to set new FPS records.
I have never loaded any full house all out loads that were as accurate as a lower load with less powder.
Having said that, and this is constructive criticism why not move up to the 454 Casull if you are looking for a all out load. It will out do any safe 45 Colt load that you may load.
In fact your gun is designed to do that very thing. I'm not trying to rain on your parade but maybe a few things are going on that you may not be aware of.
When you fire super hot loads from any case you are using up over half the life of that case and will have split or cracked case mouths pretty often. You are also eating away the throat of the chamber with the hotter loads.
Not to speak of the amount of powder used to obtain these loads.
Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I'm only saying that maybe if your needs call for a faster load then it may be time to move up.
Everyone of us are free to do as we want and none of us has the right to say they are wrong. I'm just trying to say something you may have not thought about.
Good luck with your project whatever that may be.

[1Shirt]

It depends! Depends on a lot of factors, none of which are absolutes. You have to try until you fail, and be satisfied when you suceed.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[sqlbullet]

Has anyone mention that fit is important?

Just kidding, I did read the thread.

You have gotten the basic answer already. It depends on lost of variables. The biggest ones you control or can measure are fit, bore consistency, lube and chamber pressure.

I plan this winter to work on a 30-06 load for my Garands using a plain base 200 grain bullet at 2000 fps. If I can acheive that then I will have a load that costs me $100/1000 for that gun. Right now I am stuck at about $130/1000 after I pay for gas checks, plus the extra time to seat the gas check. Headache and cost I would love to be shed of.

[Larry Gibson]

As mentioned you can push them as fast as the case capacity and the strength of the gun will allow if prudence is not important.

To answer the question though you can push the PB cast just as fast as an equally weighed GC'd cast bullet. The problem (also already mentioned) is one of accuracy. I find that in rifles handgun cartridges with hard cast PB'd bullets will lose accuracy in the 1400 - 1600 fps range depending on powder burning rate used and the alloy used. GC'd cast bullets, even with softer alloys, will hold accuracy to as high a velocity as is possible staying within the cartridge psi limit.

My experience with revolver/rifle cartridge combination with PB'd cast bullets is to load for accuracy/velocity in the rifle staying within in handgun data for the cartridge. The selected load for the rifle is then almost always less than the max load for the handgun and will shoot quite well in the handgun also. I shoot a lot of PB'd cast bullets as such for practice, plinking and small game hunting.

However, for top end loads in rifles or with magnum cartridges in handguns I us a GC'd bullet cast of a soft malleable alloy that expands well without breacking up. Such bullets are also mildly HP'd. I've found all of my top end revolver/handgun loads with GC'd soft cast bullets also shoot extremely well in the rifle, at the higher rifle velocities. These are my serious "go to" loads for big game hunting and/or serious social encounters.

Larry Gibson

[mdi]

The notion that there is a set velocity limit that is consistent to all or even most firearms is flawed.
i have seen severe leading from 38 mid-range wadcutters, I have seen 44 Mags traveling at well over 1400 fps with barely a light wash in the corners of the grooves after a 100 rounds were fired.
Fit, alloy composition, fit, barrel conditions, fit, lube type and amount, fit, bullet design, fit, crimp type and amount, fit, even the weather and atmospheric conditions can have an impact on leading. I suppose that if one must have a rule of thumb, then the old chestnut, "keep plain-base bullets under 1600 fps for best results" is as good as any, but there will be a great many exceptions to the rule. Your gun and your ammo will tell you what your limit is. What I or anyone else does is virtually irrelevant.

Yes, and did you mention fit? ;-)

[tomme boy]

So why does the accuracy drop off around the 1500fps range? Is the bullet starting to strip or is the base starting to deform or melt. I am trying to learn all of this. I have always been a jacketed shooter before and I want to learn as much as possible about lead. I tried shooting lead out of a Enfield years ago. Before internet. I had very bad results. At the time I knew no one that casted other than sinkers. What I have learned here over the last 9 months is unbelievable. One thing I always heard before was the bullet had to be very hard to shoot them. Now I know that the fit is more important. I think I have a handle on most of this. I just need to learn the little stuff that makes a huge differance.

[mpmarty]

This is amazing Marty. We need more information on what boolit, how much powder, filler? etc.

LEE 170 gr fp cast from ACWW lubed with 50/50 lla jpw and the load in the 308 is 36gr of 3031 over a Winchester LR primer. Same boolit in my 7.5X55 swiss does the same with 38gr of 3031 and Wolf LP primers.

No dacron filler or any other type of filler and that's my load of choice inasmuch as I can't find any more Hi-Vel #2.

No sizing done to these boolits either. Cast, tumble, wait a week, load and shoot.

[runfiverun]

tomme,
many things can happen.
any of them will cause problems.
the thing is what happens in one gun might not happen in another.
for instance i have two 375 winchester rifles one a marlin and one a winchester.
i at the time only had one mold that was a plain based flat point that i had to use 4/6/90 alloy to get it to pour to 379.
i tried evrything i could think of to get that boolit to shoot in my marlin, cards, fillers, powder changes, longer cases, thinner cases, thicker cases,lube,primers and combinations of all the above.
i couldn't get it to shoot even close to the sights and no groups under 4"'s at 50 yds.
the best load i come up with for it was winchester 38-55 brass h-322 powder and a filler of dryerlint,and two cardboard wads.
this shot right at 4" and only 16" low at 50 yds.
that same load shot under 2" and to point of aim in my winchester the first day i bought it.
i have since moved on in the winchester to a gas check design thats stepping out and is under 6" at 200 yds with the factory sights.
the key is to read what you see and change whats wrong. if you see it in the bbl you can investigate fairly easily, if you see it on target you need to dig a bit harder or capture your boolits and read what they and the gun show you.
some things are not a sign of wrong. no lube star, grey wash,round groups may or may not be a problem.
other things are, vertical stringing, fliers,leading.