BruceB
07-28-2005, 06:28 AM
A few weeks back I saw this mould on Ebay, and it looked sorta interesting, so I put it on our 'watch list'....and completely forgot about it. Then one day I came home from work, and my wife told me she'd bought it on account of time was running out and I wasn't around. Very nice.
This is a two-cavity Lyman in excellent shape. I had NEVER heard of this 311672 design before I saw it on Ebay, nor can I find any listings for it. The bullet looks a bit like a shortened 311334 or RG-4, with two bands and a relatively long straight-sided bore-rider with a truncated-cone nose leading to about an .020" meplat. In straight WW it casts at 164 grains. Everything about it seems pretty simple, at first glance.
EXCEPT.....about 0.17" ahead of the front band, the nose starts to taper very gently from .300-.301" up to .308" at the narrow groove at the leading edge of the front band. This gentle increasing taper is barely visible, but as I think about it, it would seem to offer a guiding effect on the bullet as it enters the rifling leade. I drove one of the bullets into the muzzle of my new-condition #4 Enfield, and the land-engraving marks are very plainly extended about .160" ahead of the front band, where on my 311334, for instance, the engraving begins right at the edge of the forward band....and this is on a .303, where the dimensions are nominally larger than a US-type .30-caliber bore.
The cylindical portion of the nose measures .300-.301" as mentioned, and the bands are .311-.312". In this new .303 barrel, the bands are heavily engraved by the lands but do not quite bottom-out in the grooves. However, I imagine a gascheck seated in a .312" die will allow the bullet to serve well in this .303 barrel. At 164 grains, and with the dimensions as noted, and a very feed-friendly shape, it would seem that this might be a virtually perfect physical specimen for that new 7.62 NATO Fulton Armory M-14 that should be coming along next month. Whether the rifle itself agrees with that assessment is of course a whole 'nother matter, but right now I like the look of this bullet design.
Anyone else ever hear of this one???
This is a two-cavity Lyman in excellent shape. I had NEVER heard of this 311672 design before I saw it on Ebay, nor can I find any listings for it. The bullet looks a bit like a shortened 311334 or RG-4, with two bands and a relatively long straight-sided bore-rider with a truncated-cone nose leading to about an .020" meplat. In straight WW it casts at 164 grains. Everything about it seems pretty simple, at first glance.
EXCEPT.....about 0.17" ahead of the front band, the nose starts to taper very gently from .300-.301" up to .308" at the narrow groove at the leading edge of the front band. This gentle increasing taper is barely visible, but as I think about it, it would seem to offer a guiding effect on the bullet as it enters the rifling leade. I drove one of the bullets into the muzzle of my new-condition #4 Enfield, and the land-engraving marks are very plainly extended about .160" ahead of the front band, where on my 311334, for instance, the engraving begins right at the edge of the forward band....and this is on a .303, where the dimensions are nominally larger than a US-type .30-caliber bore.
The cylindical portion of the nose measures .300-.301" as mentioned, and the bands are .311-.312". In this new .303 barrel, the bands are heavily engraved by the lands but do not quite bottom-out in the grooves. However, I imagine a gascheck seated in a .312" die will allow the bullet to serve well in this .303 barrel. At 164 grains, and with the dimensions as noted, and a very feed-friendly shape, it would seem that this might be a virtually perfect physical specimen for that new 7.62 NATO Fulton Armory M-14 that should be coming along next month. Whether the rifle itself agrees with that assessment is of course a whole 'nother matter, but right now I like the look of this bullet design.
Anyone else ever hear of this one???