30-06 One in Ten Twist and the Modified Lee Blackout Boolit

[heathydee]

Several months ago I received the Lee TL309 230 5R mould from Titan Reloading - one of our sponsors . The fastest twist 30 calibre rifle I own is the custom made falling block featured in my avatar which is in 30-06 and has a 1 in 10 twist barrel . I realized that this twist would be marginal with such a long boolit , especially at the sub-sonic velocity I wished to employ but I bought the mould anyway . At worst I am only out twenty dollars .
The mould was given the usual scrubbing and de-burring before casting commenced , a pot of alloy was prepared and a couple of hundred were cast over two hours or so . The boolits weighed just over 230 grains , measured .311" and after a week or two the Brinnell hardness was 16 .
I set up my lathe with a 5/16" collet chuck , ground a thin parting tool and machined the pointed nose off the boolit , removing about 200 thousandths creating a meplat of 0.220". An internal stop inside the collet provides repeatability and two to three boolits a minute can be modified this way . The modified boolit weighs just under 220 grains .
Tumble lubed with Lee Liquid Alox and loaded in front of 10 grains of Trail Boss they are shooting very close to MOA at 50 metres . Velocity 1090 fps .97638

[Char-Gar]

Looks good and the new blunt nose should be effective on small game. But, the bullet should be as accurate, as cast, as you are not removing any of the bearing surface.

[heathydee]

Looks good and the new blunt nose should be effective on small game.

I have shot quite a few feral goats with sub sonic 30 cals and boolit performance is always an issue . Often chest shots are ineffective - the boolit going in one side and out the other with little tissue damage . Head shots always work .
I have experimented in the past attempting to enhance sub-sonic expansion using the Lee 200 grn boolit which was the heaviest , commonly available mould I could access .
Flat nosing , hollow pointing etc . Using the collet chuck in the lathe makes this sort of stuff easy . I even tried splitting the boolit by placing pieces of aluminium foil between the mould halves before pouring . I judged boolit performance by the amount of disruption to the a two litre plastic bottle full of water which was my test medium .
Boolits flat nosed to the extent of them being a wad-cutter did little.
Drilled hollow points almost the full length of the boolit and an eighth of an inch in diameter did little .
Split boolits sometimes flew apart on the way to the target .
A reliable and accurate method combined some of the above modifications .

First the boolit was split with aluminium foil but only in the centre - leaving the base and nose solid . The boolit was then flat pointed in the lathe and a small hollow point drilled with a centre drill . Gas check fitted and loaded in front of 9 or 10 grains of Trail Boss . 3/4 inch accuracy at 50 yards and tore the water jug up . A ballistics gel test showed the boolit was tearing into three pieces .
The experimentation was the subject of a complete thread on a now lost website .

All that is left online is this video .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buprWD66MTQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UUdza0w1OiFq1ByUehsRXzdA

This boolit will also be trialled in the split/hollow point format some time soon .

[leadman]

I bought this same mold from Midway as soon as they listed it. Problem was the description was a "wide" meplat. At the time there was no picture in the ad.
Been playing with it on and off ever since. I finally drilled out the boat tail section in one cavity and it still did not shoot well, but the unaltered side is shooting moa at around 1,800 fps out of my Savage 1 in 10 30-06. Haven't tried them in my Whisper yet.
Be interesting to see how the modified boolit performs on game.

[user55645]

heathydee, you think like I do. Ive also put boolits in the collet and altered. Exact same reason I have a depth stop in mine.
Have you ever tried to form a skirt for heavy subsonics?
Im trying a 45winmag rifle and im thinking about skirting some 325 SWC or RFN. I figure I can move the centre around a bit to aid in forward stabilization.

Not trying to hijack, just thought it pertained to the boolit modification in this thread.

Thanks

[heathydee]

Have you ever tried to form a skirt for heavy subsonics?

I am not sure what you mean by this . Hollowed out bases ?

If that is the case it should help move the centre of gravity forward allowing a heavier boolit than the norm to be stabilized in a given rifling twist .
I have played around modifying Lee 200gn 30 cal moulds to throw a heavier boolit with less than ideal results for the most part .
The shortened Blackout boolit looks like a winner so far . A high velocity load is something I want to attempt too . The boolit will have to be gas-checked of course and I am hoping for a speed of 1800 fps plus with decent accuracy.
I did try the boolit bare based with 18 grns of 2400 - around 1650fps - and then spent the afternoon getting the leading out of the barrel . Never had it worse . Coming out in strips .

[Blammer]

try soft point casting? pure lead in the nose may help.

[user55645]

Exactly. Boolit nose into collet and tool into base. Ill try the modern "V", a ball end, a flat end and maybe something exotic. Ive got time and components so why not. A good amount of people say the HB works good in the 45-70 at slower velocities.
I agree that the flat nose works best with subs. Ive shot plenty in multiple calibers. They made the Apollo command module with a large radius(almost flat design) for a reason.
Have you given any thought to powder coated boolits? I was skeptical at first as well, but it isnt hard or too time consuming. Plus, the benefits make it worth while and I hate gas checks.
I use h110 with a similiar boolit design for my supers in 300blk. My stock of 2400 is getting low and the closest GS to stock it is an hour away.
Try a few subs with a skirt and compare. Never know

GL

[heathydee]

I managed to get out to the range today to test the boolit at higher velocities . Twenty rounds were sent downrange in groups of five.The powder used was AR2208/Varget and charge weights started at 32 grains and went on up in one grain intervals to 35gn.
Gas checks were fitted to the boolit. Boolits were seated out to just touch the lands and a dacron filler used to keep the powder positioned to the rear of the case . An overall length of 80.8mm or 3.18".
No idea of the velocity . It was pouring rain and I didn't want to put the chronograph out into it .
The 33 grain load gave a centre to centre group of 17mm at 50 metres . Worth trying again .

98637

Edited to add the velocity which was 1950 fps .

[Garyb]

A side note on this thread about this particular mold. I know some of the Blackout guys modify the mold to remove the BT to make a PB boolit. I'd be interested to hear advantages/disadvantages of a BT on a cast boolit. All I've ever used is PB but I've been considering purchasing this mold.

ETA: never mind about the BT business. I thought this was the boolit designed for the 300 blackout that has a BT and no gas check. Shouldn't be reading on my phone with old eyes. This is the mold I was thinking of:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/938614/lee-2-cavity-bullet-mold-tl309-230-5r-30-caliber-309-diameter-230-grain-300-aac-blackout-tumble-lube-5-ogive-radius

[NSP64]

I wonder if you cast the front half of the boolit out of pure, back of w/w per BruceB method, trimmed them and then HP, if you could get better expansion.
I have tried the 230gr LEE out of my 308 at subsonic and couldn't get groups. I switched to the LEE 170gr RNFP w/ GC and get 1' at 1060fps @ 100yrds using 6.6gr of 231 powder.

I am going to cast some BruceB soft points to try this summer.

How would casting it all from pure then PC affect accuracy/expansion?

[heathydee]

I am still working on this project and have achieved results which I think are worth posting. I have moved on to
AR2209/H4350 as the powder of choice . 38 grains behind a tuft of dacron weighing 1 grain gave the pictured results at 50 metres . 1970fps. Only two fliers out of 20 shots fired . More vicious culling of the boolits may eliminate these . The group centres changed between groups because I was sighting the rifle in .

[Gtek]

This is the path I am heading. Removing BT, creating flat nose pins and PC as soft as I can get away with for smack attack in AAC. Please if you buy this mold, unscrew and remove plate- do not swing once. Clean up edges and run around on flat plate then install. I also heated blocks up and seated pins in mill vise, removed a lot of the daylight through mold. If I screw it up, a twenty five buck stop on my trip to ordering a custom mold that makes me Happy!

[Quiettime]

T.. Please if you buy this mold, unscrew and remove plate- do not swing once....

I wanted to do this, it was scratched when I opened the box. I ordered from the latest "run" at Midway. I was unsuccessful at removing the screw. It would plain not come loose.

I figured what the heck I'll cast a few and see if it loosens up. Nope. Still cant get the damn screw out.

This was the worst mold I've gotten so far. Lots of burrs and I had to do some gentle file work at the bottom of the cavities to get the mold to close all the way...but hey $20 right?

[RickinTN]

Quiettime,
One of the two Lee 2 cavity molds I recently ordered has a reverse thread sprue plate screw. Turn it to the right, or clockwise to loosen. Apparently this is an attempt by Lee to keep the sprue plate screw from moving while opening and closing the plate. I fail to see their logic here, but I guess we'll see.
Rick

[Quiettime]

Thank you Rick I will try that!

[Quiettime]

If you're gonna be dumb it pays to have smart friends. Thanks Rick you were right. Lee even marked the block "LH"...DUH!

[grouch]

It might be worth your time to try some 20:1 alloy - I get near 100% expansion with flat nosed 30 30 bullets using 12" of water at the velocities you're getting and achieving very similar accuracy.
Grouch