Hardline Industries grooveless boolet results

[castalott]

I have a four cavity Hardline Industries Mold that casts ~150 grain .360 bullets. It is smooth sided with a small bevel base. I've had some cast of 50/50 for a few weeks and last week I put one coat of 45-45-10 from LAR 45. I let them dry for a week because I didn't have time to load. I sized them .358 in a Lee sizer before coating.

Loaded them yesterday in 38 cases with a max charge of 231.

Tonight just at dark I tried some fastfastfast offhand groups at 7 yards. Results were a very respectable 1 inch group ( I can't hardly see the S&W 65 sights in the dark) for 6 shots. Fired 18 rounds total and the bore looks great except maybe a little leading back next to the forcing cone. There was some in it when I started. The rest of the bore looks wonderful.

Then 3 fast rounds in the Marlin 1894 .357 still offhand in the dark. One hole in the paper that a dime would cover completely. There is no leading I can find. There are some balls of black I would call unburnt powder but that shouldn't be with a hot load of 231.

I am wonderfully pleased with this mold and design. I plan to shoot longer distances when time permits.

Dale

[longbow]

Is this a custom smooth mould or one that they market? Why the smooth mould? When I started reading I thought this was going to be a powder coated boolit.

I made a push out mould like the old Ideal Cylindrical moulds many years ago because I could not find a commercial mould that was fat enough for my .44 mag. Marlin.

I was getting horrible leading and poor accuracy using the Lyman 429421, and feeding issues as well. So I made up an RNFP smooth mould that cast at 0.433" and 265 grs. Tried tumble lube and dipping with poor success but a small lube cookie like the BP guys use worked well for me and accuracy was quite good with no leading.

More recently I tried the same thing with my .303's and got similar results except lube cookies are difficult to use in bottleneck cases so I tried a light knurling then tumble lubing. Those boolits produce the best accuracy so far out of that rifle.

For me smooth and tumble lube didn't work but with minor changes things turned out well.

I will be interested to see more posts on your results and how things go. Also some pics of boolits and the mould would be nice. I am curious.

Longbow

[castalott]

Hi to my neighbor in the north, Longbow!

I think it is the one on the website except a larger size. I wanted to try it with TL and with PC. I actually wish it had a crimp groove but so far everything is ok.

I also may have trouble when I get up into 357 mag power levels. Time will tell. If TL doesn't work there ( every other TL load has worked at more than 38 special velocity in the rifle) it will be time for the powder coat. I haven't ventured into full power mag range yet as I was waiting on Starline Brass and the time.

My thinking on the smooth sides is this: easier to cast and get out of the mold, a lot easier to inspect with no grooves and the quality of the cast is higher as I don't have to worry about rounded edges on grooves.

Isn't a slightly rounded edge an imbalance that could affect groups?

I also wanted one bullet that worked in all the 35 bores- rifle or pistol. Not having a crimp groove seems to be a disadvantage and an advantage at the same time.

A final note in this rambling discourse. Sizing effort was a concern going in but not coming out. They sized really easy and came out well.

Dale