casting 22 cal for 223

[sleddman]

Looking to cast .22 cal with a gas check for a .223. How hard should the lead bhn be in the cast? Any tried and tested loads out there for this round to be shot in a semi auto? I would assume the bhn should be very hard due to the fps of this round. How far can you push fps in this cast ? :killingpc

[quilbilly]

Depending on what you want the boolit to do, check out my today post on "another terminal ballistics test". I have never tried to push my gas checked 22 CB's faster than 2200 but had no problems at that velocity.

[HARRYMPOPE]

I use Linotype for all of my .22 shooting.I see others using softer stuff but for me the quality of the bullets are much better with lino.I have best accuracy between 1700 and 2100 fps.

[runfiverun]

when i went to much over 2400 fps in my 223's i cut the lino in half with pure lead and upped the tin back to 4%.
this helped shrink my groups substantially.
i further modified the alloy by adding some copper.
this allowed me to go to 2700+ fps and keep good groups.
i was able to shrink the groups even further by swaging the cast and weight sorted boolits to a more throat friendly shape and a more squared up base.
heat treating the alloy in the oven made the hardness more consistent also.
if i didn't heat treat i could shoot the swage softened boolits in the 2400 fps range and hold groups in the 3/4" or less area. i have shot a lot of ground squirells with this softened boolit.
little girl used the same heat treated rounds i made for my target rifle in her stag 1-9 twist with a 6x scope to shoot consistent 100 yd groups in the 1-3/4" size at the nevada shoot this year.
we should probably have cleaned the bbl out before she shot it for group as we had been shooting ground squirells with home swaged jaxketeds for a couple of days before.

keep trying stuff,measure everything,and make things tight.

[buyobuyo]

runfiverun, did you ever measure the hardness of your alloy after swaging and after oven heat treating? According to bumpo's alloy calculator 50/50 lino/pure with enough pure tin to bring the tin back to 4% should be running 15 bnh air cooled. Were you air cooling or water dropping out of the mold? Also, how do you add copper into the alloy? With babbit?

[GabbyM]

My alloy for little .225” and .243” boolits is similar to runfiverun alloy.
I just get there from the other direction. Starting with 2:6 foundry alloy I add one pound linotype to each eight pound ingot plus a little tin in the form of lead free solder. With sixty grain bullets you get 116 bullets to a pound of alloy.

My 22 mold is the Lyman 224646. I like it a lot. It’s the one with the little groves in the nose.

After Christmas I’m ordering some of the #3 Babbitt from Rotometals , tin with 7% copper, and some of the high sb ingots. Since a few others here have had such good success with adding copper.

You can make pretty good little bullets with WW mixed 50/50 with linotype. Add one or two percent tin to that and it’s real good.

What I'm working towards is a 6% antimony 4% tin and the copper I get from the #3 babbitt.
I always heat treat a little at the lower temps. I destroyed a big batch of 22’s once by over heating them. Little pills heat up quick.

[runfiverun]

the 4/6/90 alloy is what i'm using too.
i do a psuedo of this alloy with lino and ww's and tin also which works out pretty good.
i generally make about 150 lbs of the alloy in three batches and then do a 1-1-1 mix of the ingots for a final alloy.
when adding the copper i melt it into the tin first then distribute the tin mix into the alloy.
i have also melted copper plated 22's and added tin in the mix to precipitate in the copper.
the copper into the tin works best.

there is a good discussion in the lead section [i think] started by jim flinchbaugh [i think again]
about adding copper to lead alloys.

[Nobade]

Something that I don't see mentioned is twist rate. AR rifles vary a lot in this regard. The same boolit I couldn't push faster than 1800 fps in a 1:8 barrel is good to 2700 fps in a 1:14 barrel. So a lot of it has to do with your individual rifle.

[sleddman]

Thanks guys for the replies. I have some work and testing to do so this is a good start. I will be shooting a 55 grn cast in a .223 and will try it in my 22-250 at a lower fps of course.

[runfiverun]

i use the exact same load and boolit in my 22-250 as i do in my 223.
ditto the swift.

i'm gonna touch on the twist rate a little bit.
the slower twist rates are just more forgiving.
a faster twist rate makes the h/v thing a bit more of a challenge you still have to do everything right.
measure what you have, make what you get fit, and make everything tight.
once you have those three things you can mess around with the loads/buffers/neck tension/oal/and alloy.

[chris in va]

Careful using cast in a semiautomatic. I had a discussion with our range's RO who has seen countless gun failures and is a retired Army sergeant. More than a few hard AR jams were attributed to the shooter using cast reloads, and one had to replace his entire gas system due to the lead buildup.

I looked into this myself but decided against it. My AK jammed badly with a Lee 155 GC mold clocked at 1500fps. The gas block had a lead ring around the piston.

[runfiverun]

the entire gas system on an ar is a 5 dollar aluminum tube.

[Oreo]

Pretty sure mine are $5 steel tubes.

[1Shirt]

If you have not read John Goins (aka Beagle) article "Why Grown Men Cry" regarding cast in the 223, you are probably overlooking probably the best shake out of cast in that cal. It is a three parter, and I know of no better reference than it for cast in the 223. He is a common sense writer who does common sense testing, and he writes from experiance.
1Shirt!

[Oreo]

Can you say briefly what conclusion(s) he came to?

[runfiverun]

all the little stuff matters more with the little stuff.

[snuffy]

You'd better go here and tell them you can't load lead in an AR system;
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?165455-50-Beowulf


Careful using cast in a semiautomatic. I had a discussion with our range's RO who has seen countless gun failures and is a retired Army sergeant. More than a few hard AR jams were attributed to the shooter using cast reloads, and one had to replace his entire gas system due to the lead buildup.

I looked into this myself but decided against it. My AK jammed badly with a Lee 155 GC mold clocked at 1500fps. The gas block had a lead ring around the piston.

I got my head handed to me when I stated that myth.

I just completed a load work-up with the 225462-60 grain RN to use in my bushy AR .223. Top velocity should be right at 2200.

I, myself, just don't see why it wouldn't work just fine. I mean, there's nothing other than some lube that might spin off/out of the lube grooves as the bullet passes the gas port. IF you have lead coming off the boolit, then your barrel will also be leaded very badly as well. Now, a plain base boolit would be an entirely different story.

[Lizard333]

Between my 40's era M1 Garand and my Rock River AR-15 with a 1/8 twist, I have shot thousands of rounds through them with ZERO, problems. No leading in the gas port. This may not be everyone's experience, but I think it is the majority of those that have gone against the grain and just did it.

This gets my blood flowing just like when somewhere gets on here and says that you can't shoot lead boolits out of a stock glock barrel, It'll blow up! Another bit of information found on the Internet that simply isn't true.


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[kir_kenix]

I shoot heat treated rcbs 55-sp up to 2700 fps in 1/9 twist ar's pretty regularly. I use a fairly hard lube, but I do get some junk that finds its way into the gas system and onto the bolt. 'Tis the nature of the beast with the AR gas set up, but it doesn't bother me. I just clean up my rifle when I'm done (usually 400 or less rounds down range). Firing some full power jacketed rounds (I know, I know...what a sin) gets the rest of the gunk out of the gas system the next time I hit the range.

1/8 and 1/7 twist AR's take a bit more work, but they can be made to shoot acceptably as well with cast. Easier to get everything to group a little better if you keep the velocity (and therefore the RPM's) down though.

[Moonie]

Careful using cast in a semiautomatic. I had a discussion with our range's RO who has seen countless gun failures and is a retired Army sergeant. More than a few hard AR jams were attributed to the shooter using cast reloads, and one had to replace his entire gas system due to the lead buildup.

I looked into this myself but decided against it. My AK jammed badly with a Lee 155 GC mold clocked at 1500fps. The gas block had a lead ring around the piston.

Please excuse me if I trust my own experience and that of those here over a second hand reference from some random RO retired anything. I cast for 4 AR's, 5.56, 2 300BO's and a 6.8 SPC. No leading issues of the barrel, gas system or BCG and the 300's have never shot anything except cast, lots of it plain based.