new guy wonders...

[daveefish]

other than minie balls, i've never shot a CB out of any gun. (does a .22 count as a CB?). have shot a gazillion JBs. i've read threads here about which mould to use first and so on, but it seems to make sense to me to find a CB that shoots well out of your particular firearm and THEN think about buying a mould. so the problem for a new guy seems to be.... how do you get 20 of this CB and 20 of that CB just to get going. for instance .303british.com likes this "200 gr Lyman 314299 sized to .314 & gas checked" bullet for my no.4 savage enfield. but maybe my rifle likes this ".313-180 LFN" bullet. does such a thing as a "sampler" exist? dave

[JohnH]

What do you need as a sampler Dave? Ask, I'm sure you'll recieve. Be sure and mike what you get and document your targets well

Lots of info here can give you a good start to buying a mold. Tell us what you want to shoot, and ask about what others are using successfully. Doing a search of the chambering you want to cast for is another way to find info. Yet another is to buy commercial cast and then buy as close to that design as you can.

This may sound awful, but there is a level of casting and learning to shoot cast that involves trail and error. There are some things you can do to help flatten the learning curve. Slug your bore. It is important to know what the bore/groove diameter dimensions are, as a boolit that don't fit won't shoot. I have a 7.62x54R with a 300 bore and 314 groove diameter. It will shoot the Lee 312-185 sized to 310 (as I use it in a 30-30) very decently up to 1400 fps, then groups rapidly go south. Yet left unsized (about 3135) I can drive the bullet over 1800 fps without problems. By slugging your bore you can get a bullet that fits and up your chances of early success

22LR bullets are machine swaged, sorry, that don't count as cast, but it does have some interesting lessons to teach about speed, lube and twist rate.

[daveefish]

is there a sticky here about slugging my bore? i just tried it with fishing weight and all i got was a mis- shapened weight. dave

[44man]

I use a round ball that is close to bore size. You can pre-shape the sinker with a small hammer and then roll it between two plates until it is just a little over bore size. (Groove to groove.)
It is best to use two brass rods that just fit loose in the bore. Don't use a cleaning rod! :( Put one long rod in from the breech and tap the slug down to it. Then use another short rod from the muzzle and upset the slug into the rifling with a hammer. Then tap it out. You can use steel rods if you smooth the ends, remove all burrs and wrap them with tape.
Trying to pound an odd shaped sinker in just shaves lead too much so start with something close or round.

[mooman76]

Some use those egg shaped sinkers. The whole in the middle gives the lead some place to go which makes it easier!

[Ricochet]

As for slugging the bore, often you can learn more that's useful in sizing your bullets from driving a slug into the throat of the bore and then back out than by running one all the way through (though both are interesting.) If the throat just before the rifling starts is larger, a good fit there can prevent misalignment of the bullet, and it will size down on firing. Often the first few inches of the borre are slightly larger than the part near the muzzle form erosion or whatever, and that's the most important part to fit. OTOH, if the bore's loose near the muzzle from cleaning rod wear, that's important to know. Hard to get good accuracy with that. May require counterboring.

[NVcurmudgeon]

If you are starting to learn about casting, read everything you can find, especially the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. It will answer a lot of your basic questions and get you thinking about more complex questions that can be answered here. Welcome to the board.

[Buckshot]

..............As a couple said (and it bears repeating) slug it. People who would send you some sample boolit designs to try want to know they'll be useable. Sending some Lee C312-185's would be a waste of time (both for mailing and casting) and money (postage and alloy) if the barrel slugs .302"x.314". And a waste of your time and components to shoot them, not to mention time spent cleaning out lead.

Go to the hardware store and pickup a length of 5/16" (.312") and 1/4" (.250") steel rod, plus a 1/4" x 4" long shouldered bolt (ie: partially threaded). Stick the 5/16ths rod into an empty Russian case and cut it off even with the casemouth. Chamber it. Even better if you can, is to fill the case up to the mouth with lead instead of the 5/16" piece of steel.

Use masking tap or duct tape (best) wrapped a couple wraps around the 1/4" rod about every 4" or so wrapping to the bitter end, that end that's going into the barrel first. With the butt on the floor, drop in one of those longish oval shaped sinkers. Or such, modified to go down the bore that USED to be oval shaped :-) You want a usefull sized piece of lead in there and not a couple dinky split shot.

Put the taped 1/4" rod down the barrel against the lead and commence whacking on it with a hammer. You'll be able to tell when it has come up solid or almost so. Open the action and tap the lead slug out. You've created an impression of the throat and leade. That is, you have if there was enough lead in that sinker.

To check close to the muzzle, take the 1/4" bolt and cut the head off. Wrap with tape and stick it in the muzzle. Place the rifle muzzle down on a block of wood. Drop your piece of lead into the breech end followed by the 1/4" taped steel rod and whack it good 3-4 time. Eject the upset slug and measure.

Spending the time, and mybe $10 will allow you to know what's really going on with your rifle, and what will and won't be a waste of time to try.

As an example I have a M1909 Argentine carbine that is .303"x.314". It just wouldn't shoot as I had no slug that would go .303" on the nose. It would group at low velocity but not with any real useable or predictable accuracy. This was with the Lyman 314299 whose output would barely make .302". I did bump a few to upset the nose in the lube-sizer and they shot worlds better.

Not being aware of a bore rider that cast that large on the nose, and not wanting to pay for a custom mould I took a different tack. I used a Lyman 323470 which is a Loverin (all body) slug going .325". These I lube-sized to .323" then ran them up through a Lee .314" size die. By doing this I eliminated any bore rider nose issues and the accuracy was all I could expect with issue open military sights, trigger and my 50 year old eyes (even older, now :-)).

................Buckshot