non-tapered?

[RhodeHunter]

Is it OK to use non-tapered boolits in ML's? There's a 50-70 mould in the group-buy section. I would be interested to use it in my CVA Optima magnum, which has pretty shallow grooves. Do you think it would be difficult to load?

[newton]

Is it OK to use non-tapered boolits in ML's? There's a 50-70 mould in the group-buy section. I would be interested to use it in my CVA Optima magnum, which has pretty shallow grooves. Do you think it would be difficult to load?

Ive been working on a solution to this. I think it is not only OK, I think that with the right set up it could be the best thing since sliced bread.

Difficult to load? I think, according to what others have done already, that the difficult part is starting it in the barrel. Not only that, but also not damaging it when you do so. After its started a little down the barrel, any boolit made of pure lead will slide down decent. I know this first hand because I have slugged many a barrel, even slugged my .50 ML. It was a booger to get into the barrel, wooden dowel and rubber mallet, but once in I could slide it from end to end.

The boolit you speak of would have to be sized first however. That boolit is, unless I mistook something, going to drop at .515". I highly doubt your CVA is .515" groove to groove. I bet its right around .510" or under. So in order to use it you would have to get a sizer to size the cast boolits down.

Anyways, there is more to it, but I think you get the jist. I am hoping to get going with my project in the next few weeks and I'll be updating the progress if you want to check back. My gun is a CVA also, but its a buckhorn.

[RhodeHunter]

I'm only getting .513 max out of my REAL's I make. .509 is the average. The .515 of the 50-70 sounds great to me.

[RhodeHunter]

Hey there Newton. I've been reading a lot of your posts lately :bigsmyl2:

You say the REALs you have are .517 on the top band, so I'm surprised they're not working good for you.

I just don't want to have to wack the short-starter so hard that I will deform the boolit nose.

[RhodeHunter]

In regards to the group-buy mould, I am interested in the hollow base. Not that I know whether or not I would need to size the boolit, I don't even know if you CAN run a HB boolit through a sizer.

[451 Pete]

A couple of thoughts. Using a bullet that is bore dia. instead of groove dia. will work in your muzzle loader but if you are carrying the rifle as in hunting you have to be careful not to have the bullet come away from the powder charge. For target work and at a bench they work great. Removing over a couple of thousands in sizing tends to remove the grease grooves or shallow them up and lube is a important factor in keeping your rifle easier to load as it softens the fouling from shot to shot. You might want to add a felt wad that has been saturated with something like bees wax and canola oil to introduce additional lube into your barrel. If you keep the bullet alloy close to pure lead the bullet will bump up into the shallow grooves to take the rifling.

Just my thoughts ... Pete

[John Taylor]

several years ago when I was making inlines out of H&R shotguns, I made some up with fast twist rifling and used a short piece of barrel as a bullet sizer. The barrel piece was shrunk down a bit and used in a reloading press to size the bullets and engrave the rifling. When the bullet was loaded it was twisted till the rifling lined up and shoved down with the ram rod, no need for a short starter. The rifling was a mechanical fit so did not depend on the pressure to upset the bullet to catch the rifling, only a little upset to seal the bore. The rifles that used this setup were very accurate. I quit building them when Idaho changed the rulls about the 209 primer and primitive hunting.

[newton]

Hey there Newton. I've been reading a lot of your posts lately :bigsmyl2:

You say the REALs you have are .517 on the top band, so I'm surprised they're not working good for you.

I just don't want to have to wack the short-starter so hard that I will deform the boolit nose.

Couple of factors come into play. For one, there is very little that is actually that size. Only two bands out of the four are larger than groove size. The other two are smaller. The other factor is the boolit is just too short. I get great groups at 50, but the short boolit is over stabalized and spins out of control further down range.

I think they would work great in a 1:48 twist.

I think you would have to give a starter a good whack to get a .515 boolit started. At least one that is not made like the REALs. The only reason they are easy to load is because of their relatively small bearing surface as compared to a .50-70 boolit. But if you were to size down to the actual groove diameter then it would not be as hard. I have no experience with sizing hollow base boolits. Can't help you there.

[StrawHat]

...Removing over a couple of thousands in sizing tends to remove the grease grooves or shallow them up and lube is a important factor in keeping your rifle easier to load as it softens the fouling from shot to shot...
Pete

Lubing the boolit before sizing will keep the grooves intact.

[RhodeHunter]

I'm only getting .513 max out of my REAL's I make. .509 is the average. The .515 of the 50-70 sounds great to me.

I slugged the CVA barrel over the weekend. I had to improvise to get the bore diameter because the lands are narrow, smaller than the tips on the micrometer. I put marker ink into the land of the slug, then shaved the surrounding lead down to the ink. I got .501 bore, .511 groove diameter.

Some of the REAL's top bands I measured before were as low as .505. But 451 Pete is saying I could go as low as bore and still be OK because of bump-up. Maybe my lead isn't soft enough? I don't feel like investing more $$ into testing equip at the moment. Is there an wives-tale method of testing softness?

Another thing I wanted to determine is the RPM of the boolit. Someone else tested their REAL velocity out of a .50-cal, and they got about 1260 fps with 53 grains of Pyro RS. I use 60 grains, so it's close. At that velocity, the REAL is spinning at roughly 32,000 rpm!!! This makes me think casting imperfections could be the culprit of why I can't go over 60 grains of powder.

At this point, I am just ready to concede to not go over 60 grains with the REAL. I only have one good shot through an adult deer to go by, but it passed through the deer at roughly 35 yards, and the deer did a flip in the air, came down and didn't run anywhere, so it seemed effective enough.

[StrawHat]

Some where on this site is a thread about determining how hard lead is by using a variety of pencils.

[nanuk]

melt your lead into a beer cap

melt some KNOWN BHN alloy, or KNOWN Pure into a beer cap

place a large diameter hard ball bearing (larger the better, say 3/4 ins) between them and squeeze in a vice until the "Dent" is about 1/2 the diameter of the ball

measure both very carefully, then use a formula...

I'll try to find it...
Sheesh, can't remember it right now.


Edit: found it
BHN= 5 X ((KNOWN dia./UNKNOWN dia.) * (KNOWN dia./UNKNOWN dia.))

where KNOWN is your alloy that you are sure about, such as pure lead, or something tested. UNKNOWN... well just that, your unknown alloy.

Bigger is better! Use muffin tin ingots if you have them and a 1" ball bearing if you can get it... use the FLAT side, and measure CAREFULLY.

[RhodeHunter]

Thanks Nanuk!! I can't wait to try it. You just saved me $85.

[newton]

I slugged the CVA barrel over the weekend. I had to improvise to get the bore diameter because the lands are narrow, smaller than the tips on the micrometer. I put marker ink into the land of the slug, then shaved the surrounding lead down to the ink. I got .501 bore, .511 groove diameter.

Some of the REAL's top bands I measured before were as low as .505. But 451 Pete is saying I could go as low as bore and still be OK because of bump-up. Maybe my lead isn't soft enough? I don't feel like investing more $$ into testing equip at the moment. Is there an wives-tale method of testing softness?

Another thing I wanted to determine is the RPM of the boolit. Someone else tested their REAL velocity out of a .50-cal, and they got about 1260 fps with 53 grains of Pyro RS. I use 60 grains, so it's close. At that velocity, the REAL is spinning at roughly 32,000 rpm!!! This makes me think casting imperfections could be the culprit of why I can't go over 60 grains of powder.

At this point, I am just ready to concede to not go over 60 grains with the REAL. I only have one good shot through an adult deer to go by, but it passed through the deer at roughly 35 yards, and the deer did a flip in the air, came down and didn't run anywhere, so it seemed effective enough.

I think your on target with the RPM thing. That's what I am seeing with my experiments. I am getting better with my casting, but spinning them so fast you about have to have a perfect boolit. I know that idahoron is meticulous with his boolits and it showed with his ~3 1/2" groups at 100 with the REAL's.

If I was shooting 50 yards and under the REAL would be perfect. But the further it goes, the more time it has to spin out of control.

Where did you hit the deer at?

[newton]

melt your lead into a beer cap

melt some KNOWN BHN alloy, or KNOWN Pure into a beer cap

place a large diameter hard ball bearing (larger the better, say 3/4 ins) between them and squeeze in a vice until the "Dent" is about 1/2 the diameter of the ball

measure both very carefully, then use a formula...

I'll try to find it...
Sheesh, can't remember it right now.


Edit: found it
BHN= 5 X ((KNOWN dia./UNKNOWN dia.) * (KNOWN dia./UNKNOWN dia.))

where KNOWN is your alloy that you are sure about, such as pure lead, or something tested. UNKNOWN... well just that, your unknown alloy.

Bigger is better! Use muffin tin ingots if you have them and a 1" ball bearing if you can get it... use the FLAT side, and measure CAREFULLY.

Thats cool. I am going to have to try this. So how acurate is this? -+ how many BHN's?

[RhodeHunter]

Where did you hit the deer at?

What part of the deer's body?

[nanuk]

Thats cool. I am going to have to try this. So how acurate is this? -+ how many BHN's?


the few times I've needed to try this, I got within 1 BHN during my trial runs...

others get within 0.25 BHN

I'd say, if you can get within 10% it should be pretty good for boolits.

I went on ebay and bought 10x loupe with a measuring scale in it. but any magnification can help, as can an accurate measuring device

[StrawHat]

Some where on this site is a thread about determining how hard lead is by using a variety of pencils.

Found it,

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=75455&highlight=pencil+lead

For about $10 worth of pencils, you get a good testing device.

[RhodeHunter]

I did the pencil test. According to this method, my alloy is between 8 and 9 BHN. BHN of 10 is a 1in20 tin/lead alloy. BHN of 5 is pure lead. Is 8-9 too hard for bump-up?

[RhodeHunter]

bump up

[johnson1942]

1.2 or 1.25 length is the best for a 1-28 twist.

[RhodeHunter]

1.2 or 1.25 length is the best for a 1-28 twist.

Thanks. Is that length in inches, or is that a multiplication factor for the bore size? I'm guessing inches. Also, do you mind sharing your source of the information? I do appreciate any help I can get.

As to my situation with the lead alloy I have, I have dug up two posts from the Lead and Lead Alloy forum, where someone said for muzzleloading, you should have no higher than 6.5 BHN. Another post I found said 5-7 BHN. It sounds like mine is too hard for obturation, but I would like confirmation from 451 Pete, and Curator, who mention the concept of obturation most frequently. I will be searching for some sheet lead at my local scrapyard.

[johnson1942]

most inlines are 1-28 twist. length of bullet (1.2) devided by width of bullet (.5) =2.4: the constant 150 devided by 2.4=62.4: 62.4 times width of bullet (.5) = rate of twist 31.5 or one turn in 31.5 inches. most likely your rifle is a 1 in 28 twist. it is good to be the number 3 under or less that the 31.5 this little extra spin means you could shoot to several hundred yards well. if you lengthen your bullet so the formula comes out tp 1 in 28 it means you could shoot that bullet to about 250 yars very very accurat but their would be possibility of tumbling a 300 yards. major greenhill figures out this formula for the british army in the late 1800s. if you use it to build a round ball barrel use the constant 120 instead of 150. if you plan on useing your gun for very very long distances use the constant 120 and you will be right on. it has never failed me and i built 15 to 20 guns.

[johnson1942]

sorry for all the type os i didnt prof read it. a bullet of 1.25 would be the perfect length for a hunting bullet for a 1-28 twist because your most likely not going to shoot out past 250 yards. yes in inches.

[RhodeHunter]

Thanks, Johnson. I do remember reading a few posts about the Greenhill formula, but never paid too much attention. Well, I'm taking notice now. I'm going to go calculate the perfect twist for the REAL boolit by Lee later tonight, since I don't know the length of a 320 gr REAL off the top of my head, and I'm at the office at the moment.

[RhodeHunter]

Johnson, I just got through re-reading newton's four page thread on the .50-70 boolit. Did he bring that to deer camp? Do you know how he made out with that boolit? I was considering a heavy boolit, and was signed up for a custom .50-70 mould, but I just asked to be removed today. I don't want to have to build a starter for using non-tapered bands. And I want to be more sure what I should try before laying out that much cash for a mould.

This would all be moot if Lee would just produce a new mould, a longer REAL for these 1 in 28 barrels. I think the 320 gr REAL is a lot shorter than 1.25 inches, but I'll find out tonight. Couldn't find the length searching on the web.

[451 Pete]

Nanuk,
The method and formula for testing lead softness ( or purity ) using a ball bearing, a lead sample known to be pure and a sample of the unknown hardness material you are wanting to test does work very well. I found this and the formula you posted above in a Janurary 1968 issue of American Rifleman a number of years back. Several things that the Rifleman article also states : 1.) they recommend using a steel ball of from 1 inch to 1/2 inch diameter for use in your testing 2.) the diameter of the largest impression should not exceed 1/4 the thickness of the pure lead sample or 1/4 of the steel ball diameter being used to make the test impressions. Cratering or forcing lead up around the impression could occour and make accurate reading of the impressions a problem if the 1/4 inch rules above are not used.

RhodeHunter,
Lead hardness of 1-20 or 1-30 Tin to Lead mixture should work well to give you enough obturation to bump up to take your rifling from a bore diameter bullet. Additionally in most target shooting either a card wad or felt wad is used between the bullets base and the powder charge. This will help to protect the base of your bullet from erosion or gas cutting from the burning powder.

The best example of what pressure's generated in firing can do to achieve this obturation is in shooting a Whitworth rifle. In the Whitworth with its hexagonal bore, we have used cylindrical paper patched bullets of .450 bore diameter and of up to 590 grains in bullet weight for long range target shooting. Using a heavy felt wad over a 90 grain 2 fg black powder charge, the recovered bullets of about 1-40 hardness mix have shown that they will consistantly obturate from the cylindrical form they are introduced into the bore as, into the hexagonal rifling form of the Whitworth's bore. This reformation is over the entire length of the bullet's bearing surface in the bore and up to the oglive of the bullets nose. This shows that the pressure being generated in the bore at the time of firing will completely reform a little over an inch of this bullet's total length into a hexagon using almost pure lead.


just my thoughts .... Pete

[johnson1942]

well this is a good time to get everyones interest in how to shoot something traditional in a fast twist gun such a 1 and 26 through 1 and 32. as we speak im haveing a mould made and this is the make up of it it is 1.2 inches long. it looks like this, it looks like 2 rounballs joined together. the front ball is more of a tear drop shaped with about a .40 thousands flat nose. the diam. of the back ball is .494 and the front tear dropped shaped ball is .508. the back ball will be cloth patched as a round ball should, and the front ball will easily in grave by a starter and keep the front centered in the bore. it should weigh close to 500 grains or more. i recently made some up to test before investing in a mould by screwing a .495 roundball to a .509 round ball. about 5 of them. i tried them a 50 yards with 100 grains of 2f black behind them they grouped very well. if a shooter made a jig to perfectly on center drill a under size hole through .495 balls and .509 balls. their would be no need for a mould. use sheetmetal screws to put together. another thing you could do is get some .501 diam .9 to 1 inch long soft lead pistol bullet and screw on a .495 round ball the front would be a bore rider and the back would seal and spin the bullet. if you used black powder it would also bump up the front bullet enough to in grave it. if you have a very small metal lathe your in on this one. centering the holes would be no problem and you could make hundreds in a few hours. i will post a picture of the bullet when i get it back from the mould maker. if any one out their does this on two round balls make sure they a joined tight together. i am not fond of sabots and i like a heavy bullet. this is fairly traditional adds good weight and most of all will shoot consistantly accurate. when my 13 year old son dropped his deer with a 400 grain cast bullet this season it went down faster than with the 270 to the same area would have done. think what a 500 grain .50 cal will do.

[RhodeHunter]

The length of the REAL 320 gr (.50-cal) is 0.730 inch. Using Greenhill, I get a twist of 51.4 inches to stabilize that boolit. And conversely, for .50-cal, a barrel with a twist of 28 inches (my CVA gun), will stabilize a boolit 1.34 inches long.

The sabot and pistol-boolit combo, that are pretty accurate in this gun, together measure 1.00 inch. The pistol boolit by itself is 0.710 inch, and .430 in diameter.

It kind of bothers me that Lee doesn't put their lengths on their webpage. I found a chart in their archives but it doesn't cover all their moulds. One their improved minies is out of stock; maybe it works good in the new in-lines?

[johnson1942]

over the counter bullets try to satisfy every gun out their and considering muzzle loaders are very prevalent in the more forested areas of the U.S. shots are not at great distances. they also produce these bullets for hunting not target practice. where i hunt shots are between 70 yards to 225 yards. if your were to make a mould just like the lee bullet 1.3 inches long and the front driveing band was bottom of groove size and the last band was about top of your groove size and the rest tapered toward each other the 1.3 real like this would be deadly accurate to almost 300 yards. if you wanted to shoot it out past that make it 1.2 to 1.25 long. i would use a .60 thousands fiber wad behind it like you would in a 50/90 straight catridge. also this bullet would have enough weight to take a moose, bear, or elk. it would preform as good or better than a 50/90 sharps straight. when you put a 500 grain plus bullet in front of 100 grains black or sub. for black you have a real north american meat getter or trophy getter. does any one know a real good mould maker that doesnt cost a arm and a leg?

[RhodeHunter]

RCBS has a .507" 50-530 530 Grn HB Paper Patch RCBS Mould. What do you think of that, Johnson?

[johnson1942]

rhodehunter. that bullet would be too hard to get down the barrel. to try some out send me your mailing address to my private message area. i will send you 10 .50 knarled up and lubed hollow base swaged bullets and .60 thousands wads to use behind them. they are about 1.25 long and weigh over 500 grains. i did this for newton but im not sure of the results he got. if your barrel is like newtons and have some lands taken out it will be easy to start with a good round ball starter of .50 cal size and a small rubber mallet. when i mean lands taken out it is about 1/2 inch at the muzzle. i think they may call it coneing. newton has done a lot in this area and also so talk to him too. i am very interested in shooters who want to shoot bullets in their inlines rather than the expensive that is store bought. every one is afraid of makeing a starter to start pure lead cast bullets in the inlines. if a person has access to a lathe they are not hard to make. it would last a life time and solve every problem about shooting a pure lead cast bullet in a inline. if you or any one else is interested i will put a plain to read picture of a blue print on here so every one interested can see if they want to try it. my so who got his first muzzle loader deer this year did so with a 1/28 twist custom gun i built for him, it shoots a 400 grain cast lead bullet, pure lead, started by a starter. with 70 grains of 2f behind it he rolled that deer the same way a 45/70 would have. i have kept 3 holes touching at 100 yards with that gun. some one posed a while back that they made one out of wood and it lasted for years. some one also posted and i have done this too that if you can find a scrap barrel like yours you can cut off a 3 inch piece, take the lands out on a lathe for 1 and 1/2 inches and then push a bullet through it useing your loading press and a .50 brass dowel. the bullets are preingraved and go down the barrel perfect fit every time. their are ways to shoot a cast bullet in your gun. you might want to read my web site, pineridgeblackpowder.com on google. i talk a little more their on this subject. you can look at my 1000 yard big fivety target shooter i built. it shoots a 700 grain paperpatched bullet. like newton dont quit untill you get shotting what you feel good about. johnson1942

[RhodeHunter]

Johnson, while I completely agree with you in principle, I am going to just cast for sabots for that inline until a mould manufacturer makes a tapered boolit long enough for good stabilization. I don't have a lathe, so that's a factor also. Thanks for the offer, though. These manufacturers are just not keeping up with the times. They don't even make a smooth-sided boolit for sabots; it's all lube-grooves. I know you didn't want me to give up, but here it is: I give up, for now.

[johnson1942]

rhodehunter: you are correct, how hard would it be to make a carbon composite bullet starter to fit over the barrels of these main inline companys guns. if they did that and sold a reasonbly priced mould for a cast boolit it would increase the use of their guns. if you look at the price of those sabot packets that may be why they dont do it. anyways i like paper patched, castbullets or roundball. i think i sense on this site a desire to expand what can be shot in these guns, so if the demand goes up something may come out of it.