Best accurate range with wheel weights ?

[Blackcat]

Man its been a while since I posted here. Im finally getting the hang of casting.
I have been thinking lately of a simple survival rifle... The keyword being simple.
Im trying to figure out what the best range in yards with wheel weights would be while still being reasonably accurate. Preferably with no gaschecks and no other additions to the mix like tin. Just whatever is in the weights. Im on the fence about gaschecks so if they will help...
Looking for opinions on caliber, bullet type, grains and what sort of range can be achieved.
I currently have a .308 what sort of accurate range can be managed with cast weights in this caliber ? Gas check and non. Thanks!

[Jeff R]

Blackcat,
I am a pretty new caster myself, but I'll offer my opinion. Your accuracy potential could be quite good, after you get things figured out. You'll want to get good accuracy at short ranges first, before you try for long range accuracy. When I first started to shoot my own cast boolits, I shot them at 100 yards. The problem there was that not all the shots hit the paper. If a load won't stay on the paper at 50, you can try something different without wasting too many components. If you are thinking best accurate "longer" range, then you might want to go the gas check route. Your .308 has all kinds of possibilities, and there are a lot of good plain base moulds available.
A tiny bit of tin might go a long way towards making your casting more enjoyable, like in helping to get good fill out. Keeping it "simple" will only take you so far though.
Good Luck! Post on your progess.

[JSnover]

As soon as you're able to cast good quality boolits, determine what velocity you want to shoot them at. 1400 fps seems to be the max without gas checks. Max effective range will depend on how well you can shoot and how well your boolits perform on (presumably) medium-sized game. 200 yards?

[mikeym1a]

I don't know. I thought I had read that 1600 - 1800 was around max for WW alloy w/o gas checks. But in any case, a good, flawless .308 boolit should certainly do the job. Perhaps others will enter the conversation. What is the max practical range of the old Winchester '73 in 44-40? I suspect that the range is a bit longer than you might think. Again, it depends on your rifle, your boolit, and YOU. The old Pennsylvania rifles were supposedly accurate out to 300yds. I imagine their velocity was not much over 1100-1200yds. From what I have read, it matters which boolit your gun likes. You would have to do a bunch of test firings, and determine which one performs best in your gun, and go from there. I'm in the process of going from one boolit to another, to see if this new one will give me better accuracy with my rifle. If you tell us what your survival gun is, perhaps others have a similar gun, and would share what their favorite boolit is and which load that works well for them, which would a starting place. Hope my rambling helps. mikey

[runfiverun]

300 yds with gas checks in my 308 is pretty boring.
bowling pins are a cake walk.
velocity/weight has a way of limiting, or increasing effectiveness.
anyway a 170 at 1400 ish is in the neighborhood of a realistic 357 load, if you match those ballistics use it as such.

if you just wanna tip a bowling pin over [maybe] at 300 yds, a 223 will barely do the job [sometimes to mostly] with jacketed.

[1Shirt]

A few years back on the side of a mountain in Colorado, at a range of in excess of 500 yds, shooting water dropped wheel weight blts. out of 06', 308, 7.5x55, and 6.5x55, after adjusting for range and walking them in, was able to pretty much pound a man size rock with great regularity. Guess that would be min of rock, but it was a lot of fun, and eye opening for me.
1Shirt!

[Blackcat]

Wow lots of good info. I think I will try gas checks and tin. I guess the question sort of had two parts. The first is that my main rifle is a savage .308 and im mostly curious about what its capable of with cast boolits. Range, accuracy both for paper and hunting. Ive done my research but theres just so many conflicting opinions.

The other question was about the survival rifle. It will be my .308 unless somebody can recommend a caliber that performs better with cast. Looking for a balance of range, accuracy and and takedown power for hunting. If I do go with the .308 what is a good mold for accurate heavy hitting casts ? I have a few ideas I saw one that was called a lyman 311290 HP I think the HP is aftermarket mod but I cant find this lyman model...

I will start with just the WW lead at 100 yards and work up from there if they need tin or gas checks. I may start without GC's just to see how they perform. Thanks again for the good advice !

[Blackcat]

A few years back on the side of a mountain in Colorado, at a range of in excess of 500 yds, shooting water dropped wheel weight blts. out of 06', 308, 7.5x55, and 6.5x55, after adjusting for range and walking them in, was able to pretty much pound a man size rock with great regularity. Guess that would be min of rock, but it was a lot of fun, and eye opening for me.
1Shirt! Nice "MOR" lol gas checked I take it ?

[williamwaco]

I can only shoot 50 and 100 yards. Wish I had a longer range.

With my .38-55 using a 250 grain plain base bullet at 1000 to 1400 fps, I get .75 to 1.25 inch groups at 100 yards.

I do not have a plain base 30 caliber bullet mold but I get around 1.0 to 1.5 at 100 yards at that same velocity range in my .30-30 with gas check bullets ( Lee C309-170-F.)

I get around 2.0 to 3.0 inches at 100 yards at around 2100 fps. with that same bullet.

Oh yes, air cooled clip on wheel weights with about one half of one percent tin added.

[quilbilly]

My new 308 is at least minute of coyote out to 400 if I do the math and have a rest using the Lee 160 gr RNGC. I am still tweaking loads but it has already shot 1.25" string of 5 shots at 100 yards but I could have just been having a good day.

[Blackcat]

300 yds with gas checks in my 308 is pretty boring.
bowling pins are a cake walk.
velocity/weight has a way of limiting, or increasing effectiveness.
anyway a 170 at 1400 ish is in the neighborhood of a realistic 357 load, if you match those ballistics use it as such.

if you just wanna tip a bowling pin over [maybe] at 300 yds, a 223 will barely do the job [sometimes to mostly] with jacketed.

RunFiveRun: The bowling pin at 300 with .308 load you use. Would you say its fairly hard hitting for a cast .308 say for hunting deer ? You say its pretty boring, does that mean it can be pushed farther as a hunting round ? Is that the .357 type load your referring to ? Im thinking of something like a hard cast GC hollow tip or wide flat nose in... 170g or higher at this point. Does this sound reasonable ? I have run into a number of your past posts during my google searches and im finding your cast and reloading information to be very useful :D

[Nobade]

Shooting air cooled (soft) wheelweight boolits today that were paper patched though my 8X57 I was pounding a man sized torso plate at 750 yds off the bench. Full loads, which track to the sights on my Yugo 24/47. With naked boolits I can't go much over 1800 fps but wrapped in paper they are only limited by the pressure limits of the rifle and cartridge. Something to keep in mind...

-Nobade

[runfiverun]

I'm running a 166gr boolit just shy of 2400 fps, it's probably a bit too much for deer hunting at normal ranges.
I wouldn't hesitate to use it on one if it's what I had with me at the time though.
when hunting with my 30-30 and my other 308 I back the load down to about 2200 fps this gives the boolit/alloy I use a chance to do it's job, without causing undue damage.

at the target [@2400] velocity, hard hitting is subjective, with a center hit it wipes the pins right off the rack and a side hit will spin them off in a whirl.
I wouldn't want to catch one down there.

you have to take some reloading steps and throat measurements to get to that point though, you ain't gonna really do it with a lyman mold.
I think you could push the load I'm using even further than 300 yds easily, I'm only seeing a drop of about 16-17"s from 100 to 300 compared to 10 moa [30"s] from 100 to 300 with a 1850 fps load.
you still have to keep in mind the impact velocity and how the alloy will react at that velocity.
I might could speed the load up even more for a slightly flatter trajectory but I have hit an excellent accuracy node right there so see no need to go any further.
I'm waiting on the 30 XCB rifle goodsteel is building me to get finished to really amp up the velocity.

the 357 reference was towards the plain base boolit at @ 1400 fps..

[Blackcat]

Wow thanks runfiverun that sounds a lot like the sort of load I had in mind.


you have to take some reloading steps and throat measurements to get to that point though, you ain't gonna really do it with a lyman mold.


Is it a custom mold for that or is there one youd recommend ?

[Blackcat]

Shooting air cooled (soft) wheelweight boolits today that were paper patched though my 8X57 I was pounding a man sized torso plate at 750 yds off the bench. Full loads, which track to the sights on my Yugo 24/47. With naked boolits I can't go much over 1800 fps but wrapped in paper they are only limited by the pressure limits of the rifle and cartridge. Something to keep in mind...

-Nobade

What is this paper patch you speak of? :D lol that is VERY interesting! I heard something about this years ago but was never able to find any info on it because I didnt know what it was. Last night I was up all night reading about paper patch. I have to say im quite interesting in trying this! Just for the experience if anything. So it works well with soft cast, how is it with hard cast ? I imagine it would still work quite well ? There seems to be a difference of opinion about the kind of effect ppb has on barrel wear. But it still seems like a bit of a touchy subject but I cant see why. Is there some problem with ppb ? To me it all sounds win win. Thanks for pointing me in that direction!

[Nobade]

What is this paper patch you speak of? :D lol that is VERY interesting! I heard something about this years ago but was never able to find any info on it because I didnt know what it was. Last night I was up all night reading about paper patch. I have to say im quite interesting in trying this! Just for the experience if anything. So it works well with soft cast, how is it with hard cast ? I imagine it would still work quite well ? There seems to be a difference of opinion about the kind of effect ppb has on barrel wear. But it still seems like a bit of a touchy subject but I cant see why. Is there some problem with ppb ? To me it all sounds win win. Thanks for pointing me in that direction!

Hi,
I don't worry about bore wear at all. Shooting with smokeless powder, the patches are lightly lubed on the outside. I have rifles that have had many thousands of PP boolits down the bore and they all look better now than when they were made. Without a doubt, if that many jacketed bullets had been fired they would look pretty tired by now. So realistically, I don't see myself living long enough to wear out a barrel by shooting PP through it.

As for lead hardness, you will be wanting to size your boolits to .001" or so over bore size so they can be patched to fit the throat. It is quite difficult to do this with hard boolits. It is also unnecessary to use hard lead, soft works great and expands properly if used on game. 90% of the time I use air cooled wheelweights or range scrap.

The main thing with this is it has a definite learning curve. When I started messing with it, I was lucky to keep two shots on the entire range. But these guys here kept insisting it worked. So I kept at it, and now I routinely get accuracy equal to what the individual rifle is capable of with any bullet, and full ballistics limited by the rifle and cartridge. Plus it is dirt cheap. What is not to like? Just hang out in the smokeless paper patch room above and you will be a convert before long too. Enjoy!

-Nobade

[rhead]

I am guessing that you are wanting to use the rifle that you already have. With a .308 and no gas checks I would try to duplicate low range 3030 ballistics (around 14 grains of 2400 in a 30-30 in a 308 it will take a little more powder because of the increased case size). With gas checks i would try for an accurate load in the upper range of 30-30. In a 308 I would try something in the 4198 range or a touch slower.
To achieve full 308 power with cast will almost certainly require paper patching. It is a motor skill and the only way to learn it is to practice it and throw away some ruined paper. Read and re read the instructions. I have gotten the best results with paper patching using a powder that will approach 100% loading density.

Good luck on your quest.

[Larry Gibson]

Blackcat

If you want optimum performance of velocity and range with accuracy (500+ yards is attanable w/o much problem) with your .308W given a proper bullet design. Add the tin (2%), use GCs, use a good lube and WQ or HT them. PPing ma also be a good thing to learn for "survival" situation.

Larry Gibson

[Mik]

Not to turn this into a prepper thread, but you might want to consider this regarding the .308 as a survival rifle-

Unless all the planets align, the velocity limitations of plain based lead bullets will result in you having an oversized, overweight method for launching a projectile that will have similar ballistics to that of a 4" 357 magnum revolver. Maybe not ideal in a survival situation. If I were going to carry all that weight in a bad situation, I would want the additional capabilities it allows.

[jonp]

I'm running a 166gr boolit just shy of 2400 fps, it's probably a bit too much for deer hunting at normal ranges.
I wouldn't hesitate to use it on one if it's what I had with me at the time though.
when hunting with my 30-30 and my other 308 I back the load down to about 2200 fps this gives the boolit/alloy I use a chance to do it's job, without causing undue damage.

at the target [@2400] velocity, hard hitting is subjective, with a center hit it wipes the pins right off the rack and a side hit will spin them off in a whirl.
I wouldn't want to catch one down there.

you have to take some reloading steps and throat measurements to get to that point though, you ain't gonna really do it with a lyman mold.
I think you could push the load I'm using even further than 300 yds easily, I'm only seeing a drop of about 16-17"s from 100 to 300 compared to 10 moa [30"s] from 100 to 300 with a 1850 fps load.
you still have to keep in mind the impact velocity and how the alloy will react at that velocity.
I might could speed the load up even more for a slightly flatter trajectory but I have hit an excellent accuracy node right there so see no need to go any further.
I'm waiting on the 30 XCB rifle goodsteel is building me to get finished to really amp up the velocity.

the 357 reference was towards the plain base boolit at @ 1400 fps..

Was that a GC?

[Bigslug]

For .308, you're going to want gas checks. The bigger, slower rounds (i.e., 45-70) can give punch and distance without speed. The smaller-bore stuff is going to perform best above the gas check threshold. There are vendors here that can set you up with gear to make your own gas checks, so if by "survival" you mean self-reliance when the zombies come, you've got options.

For yardage. . .you aren't going to be on a level playing field with Sierra and Berger match bullets, but you can go far enough for reasonable hunting shots. Your velocities won't be as high nor your trajectory as flat, so you'll either have to be closer or better at range estimation. I consider it a 200 yard proposition unless the planets really align. I don't really consider that a handicap. In a true survival situation, you aren't going to be bound by things like sex, antler, age, and size restrictions, nor will you care if mama critter has babies in tow. Those are the main things that have kept me from shooting - not distance.

I would be looking at gas check designs with flat-ish noses in the 180 grain range.