cast success with 45-70

[brnomauser]

After a year of arising around and taking forever to get things going I have finally cast, loaded and shot from my 1895SS. I was very worried about bullet size in the MG barrel, but it seems at the moment it's not a problem.

I started by trading a carton of xxxx gold (mid strength beer) for about 50kg of wheel weights at my local tyre shop. I cast these straight up with plenty of saw dust. Cull rate was good - about 1 zinc weight per 20 lead clip on. The heat source was a wood fire with an ancient hoover connected via a metal pipe on blow mode for extra heat. I only needed this for about 1 minute per 10. Pot was a $1 special enamelled steel one from the dump.

The mould is an accurate 462350 brass 2 cavity and cast beautifully and functioned flawlessly with my homemade handles. Cull rate after the first couple of pours was about 4 bullets for my whole session.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020306.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020308.jpg

I lubed them with NRA 50/50 and sized to .4595 - any bigger won't fit in a fired case (bore slugs at .460) Fitted a gas check made using my homemade check maker. I used scrap steel for this and had an old drill bit lying around that happened to be the correct internal diameter. I've since made a 30-06 version the same way (turned an internal mandrel this time) and have to say these are very quick and easy to make. It was almost my first ever project on a lathe (have one at work). These checks are one layer of coke can bottom metal and one of wall metal. Haven't mic'd them but they stay on the bullet and get sized by the sizer fine.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020309.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020311.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020310.jpg

I took it out today to find a good load. Tried 35, 36 and 37 gr of ADI 2206H (H4895 under the original name) under 1gr of dacron, seated to the crimp groove with a light crimp for the magazine.

I set up a drum at 100 yards, used a bipod made from sticks on the bonnet of my HJ47 landcruiser, and the 36gr grouped the best. In fact I was very pleased with it - I would have expected it with my 30-06 and scope, but not this with very homemade cast bullets and a tang sight on the lever action! I'm totally hooked. Just need to load a few more up and zero it in then head out and get a goat, pig or deer - whichever is unlucky enough to show itself first... So far no leading, but this is only after 20 shots. I tried this last week with 36gr powder with no filler - amazing what it did to the groups because before they were 2" at 50 yards. I'll be keeping a serious eye out because as the bullet is smaller than the bore I'm suspicious... Quickload thinks these are doing about 1300fps but I don't have a chrono so I bess they are pretty moderate.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020305.jpg
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee33/harrygrey382/P1020303.jpg

I'm uploading a video of the shots but is taking ages on this crappy satellite connection...

[MtGun44]

Looking good! Those are accurate rifles. You called it an 1895SS. I take the SS to mean
stainless steel, but it sure looks like blued steel to me.

I think you will be ready for anything with that load pumped up just a bit. For fun and
smaller game in the deer size or even bigger, you are set at 1300.

Bill

[brnomauser]

thanks mate, I'm still a bit shocked by the accuracy in fact... The SS actually means sporter safety - it's what they were called back when there was no guide gun or cowboy versions and means they have micro groove rifling - traditionally considered no good for cast bullets.

I'm keen to see what a 350gr at 1300 does to a pig - I'm thinking quite a lot

[btroj]

I think the pig will be quite unhappy with the end result.

My Marlin is very accurate for a lever action. I have actually found it difficult to find loads it won't shoot well.

[sav300]

brnomauser, am in the hunter area too.drop me a pm.

[WHITETAIL]

Don't argue with success!:Fire:

[44man]

Awful darn good, nice boolit too.
I would be careful shooting as far as 50 years though! [smilie=l:
I think some of mine are still going though after shooting through deer. :bigsmyl2:

[1Shirt]

Yep, looks good!
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[brnomauser]

Thanks fellas, this casting thing in 45-70 is pretty exciting. The satisfaction of shooting an accurate load with most pieces homemade is unbeatable.

I'd be fairly impressed if the bullet kept going through the backstop... bloody auto spell check

[brnomauser]

ok here is the last group I shot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g2tJt-kfM0&feature=plcp
sound is a bit weird, the camera was too close to get the boom from the barrel I think...

[runfiverun]

the rest closer to the reciever generally helps me get better groups from my lever guns.
you could also add a third leg for better stability.
look at some of the tri-pods they use in africa.

the crack of the boolit sounded pretty good though, reminded me of the old westerns.

[brnomauser]

nice one on the third leg - it should keep it from falling over. I'll only be using it for load testing though, in the field I'll either bring a sit down one or nothing at all.

[Northerner]

Nice! Most of my casting and shooting is done for and with an 1895. It's always interesting to see what other people are doing.

[SlippShodd]

My reloading log is filled with years of failures trying to develop a cast load for my 95SS, to the point I had given up; minute-of-broad-barn-side accuracy was just too depressing out of gun that was a proven deerslayer. Last winter I started devouring the huge amount of encouraging information in this forum on that very topic and took a new look at my efforts. Instead of trying to load elk-thumping cast loads, I went the other direction and resurrected a fun-to-shoot load with an oversized pistol boolit that shot to same point of aim out to 100 yards and was a big surprise to the ground squirrels last spring. It's nice to be able to shoot this gun all day without having to write out a check to the chiropractor afterwards. And based on this success, I can start working up pragmatic loads to relieve my dusty inventory of rifle boolits.
There's always an answer for the questions about these rifles. You just gotta study the information, and install a Limbsaver recoil pad to find it.

mike