Problem with 7.62x54r and lee 312-155

[M44osin]

Hi,

Im new to reloading and casting and ive started with the mosin for my learning curve. The problem im having though is absolutely terrible accuracy.

I use the lee mould as mentioned in the title and have also tried using aluminium foil to increase the size of my boolit as my barrel is around 3.15, For my first few rounds ive had to use pure lead as ive had trouble getting hold of tin to use in my mix. I got hold of about 15kg of wheel weights but then found they were all zinc. My rounds that have been made ive tried putting through a sizer but then decided not to as it sizes them to 3.12 also the gas checks dont seem to crimp on at all so ive just super glued them. When i seat the boolit in the shell i find that lead scrapes off the boolit because the neck is so tight.


my load is 13g red dot (i have little choice of powders here and this one is easily got) using lapua brass. I seat the boolits just enough that the grooves are covered but some of them seem to go in kind of squint i think because they are so tight.

These were so bad that they were missing the board at 25yds, One went in sideways.

any help appreciated

thanks

[nagantguy]

Welcome, first did you slug the bore and do.a chamber cast? Second the lead shaving upon seating is a killer, rifle dies don't bell the case mouth like pistol dies a lyman M die or a Lee universal expanding die are needed for lead boolits. I've seen and owned a few nagants that were just shot out or ruined by years of neglect corrosive primes salts and poor storage. I'd bet seating clean by using a flaring die will aid some what. A pair on needle nose pliers can be used, put them in the case mouth and turn once, or a punch of desired size put in case mouth and tapped with mallet. Also what lube are you using? If these steps fail to help try paper patching, inventive idea with the foil but there are many here who can aid you on patching better than I. Keep.me posted and feel free to PM me if you need help.

[sthwestvictoria]

Welcome M44mosin,
The question is how does the rifle shoot with factory jacketed? There may be rifling or muzzle problems that will cause problems with anything you shoot, let alone cast bullets. Particularly that side-ways bullet at 25metres is a concern!

For the sake of the argument if it shoots jacketed factory fine then we can look at the cast bullet side of things:
-Pure lead is going to be too soft for 13grains of red dot. Ideally some wheel weights or pick up some pewter (95% tin) from a charity shop or 50:50 solder from the hardware store. This is a great read about alloys: http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_textonly2.pdf
- as nagantguy states you need some way of flaring the case mouth - the Lee Universal Expander Die is one, the Lyman M die is another and there are expedient options as Nagantguy suggests.
-What brand and size of sizing die are you using? If the Lee you are going to want the .314" as smallest and will possibly need to open it out. You don't need the sizing die to make the bullet smaller but just to crimp the GC.

Good luck, keeping enquiring here and having fun.

[truckjohn]

A Lyman "M" die will bell the case mouths so you can load the bullet without shaving huge lead.

Next - you must adjust the seating die way back - you don't want any hint of a crimp to start before the bullet it all the way seated. Once you are done seating all of them - you can run the seater die down and close the bell on the case mouth back down.

On the alloy - pure lead is going to need to go slow... Tin is easy enough to find - just get some lead free solder at the hardware store... Get the solid core stuff - not the acid or rosin core stuff.

Please post additional 7.62x54r questions in the military rifle loads forum below... There's a TON of info on the 'ole Rimmed Russian and that's where most people look for them.

For example - the classic thing folks run into is tight chamber necks preventing them from running bullets large enough for their barrels.. Without buying a neck turner - the only thing you can do is to just run the largest bullet you can safely chamber.

Thanks

[M44osin]

Hi Nagantguy, I slugged it and it came out at 3.15 but im going to do it again to be sure, i also hammered one of the 155 boolits through it tonight but i dont have anything to measure it with me atm. It barely has any grooves on it though. Id say the barrel is pretty shot out but it shoots out to 300 yds with fmj and probably further if there was someone better holding it. i didnt realise you had to bell the cases, i got a tool with my reloading kit that chamfers/deburs the inside of the neck , would this do the job or am i better with long nosed pliers? Its the lee reloading dies i have and it actually came with a 308 decapper/sizer but i replaced that with a 3.03. thanks I just noticed the otherposts after i had sub,mitted this post. All my dies and equipment are lee. The .312 was the biggest sizer i could buy so i just went for that but my last round i never bothered sixing because it makes them too small. With the Lee dies i have a seperate seating tool and crimping tool so no problem there. but what i did find was im having to push so hard when seating there are marks left on the nose of the boolit from compressing it. Im in the process of trying to find tin but all wheel weights seem to be zinc now, I will hit some shops and see if i can find some pewter cups etc. Also appologies for the wall of text here, For some reason when i try and edit it doesnt save my new paragraphs, its just bunching it up.

[texassako]

A couple of questions to clarify some things. What tool did you measure the .315 slug with and why couldn't you use it to measure the 155 bullet? How were you crimping the gas checks if you were not running them through the sizer die?

My immediate suggestions are to do as suggested above to get the case mouth belled to keep from shaving lead and use something harder than pure lead. Next, find out how big a bullet you need with a chamber cast, pound cast, or even measuring the inside of a fired case. Once you know how big you need or can fit, do a search on lapping out your Lee sizing die to a larger size. You can kind of cheat the size at slower speeds by running a gas check bullet through a bigger sizer until you can get a bigger mold. It crimps the gas check on to the bigger size.

[gandog56]

Hi,

Im new to reloading and casting and ive started with the mosin for my learning curve. The problem im having though is absolutely terrible accuracy.

I use the lee mould as mentioned in the title and have also tried using aluminium foil to increase the size of my boolit as my barrel is around 3.15, For my first few rounds ive had to use pure lead as ive had trouble getting hold of tin to use in my mix. I got hold of about 15kg of wheel weights but then found they were all zinc. My rounds that have been made ive tried putting through a sizer but then decided not to as it sizes them to 3.12 also the gas checks dont seem to crimp on at all so ive just super glued them. When i seat the boolit in the shell i find that lead scrapes off the boolit because the neck is so tight.


my load is 13g red dot (i have little choice of powders here and this one is easily got) using lapua brass. I seat the boolits just enough that the grooves are covered but some of them seem to go in kind of squint i think because they are so tight.

These were so bad that they were missing the board at 25yds, One went in sideways.

any help appreciated

thanks

Hmmm, I use a 150 grain cast bullet with aluminum gas checks with the same 13 grains of Red Dot. The only difference is it is about 1/2-1" lower than a regular 150 grain FMJBT jacketed bullet. I think my bullets calipered out at .313" I also had to kind of bell the case mouths out a bit using a Lee universal expander die so I would not shave lead seating them.

[M44osin]

Hi texassako,

I used a digital micrometer to measure the slug but I keep it at my workshop which is across town so will pick it up tomorrow to measure the bullet I've put through.


I tried using the bullet sizer to crimp on the checks but it's as if the checks are too big, they don't fit right so I super glued them. I'm using 30 cal aluminium ones I bought off eBay so maybe that doesn't help?

Is it possible to shoot pure lead at all? I have 50 bullets ready to be fitted and would be nice to just put these together to shoot at the weekend as I can only get out once a week to shoot. Do you think a reduced load of Say 10 or 11g would help?

[texassako]

Aluminum checks are not crimp on, for one thing. You can try annealing them to see if that helps keep them tight on the gas check shank. Pure lead casts smaller than most manufacturers spec their molds at; so you aren't doing yourself any favors in the size department with it. Ask for some range scrap or wheel weight ingots down in the S&S section and save your pure for a muzzleloader or mix it with solder as suggested above. Spend the time waiting for it to arrive reading the stickies.

[nagantguy]

Didn't read the pure or catch the pure lead part, that and belling the mouth are huge areas that are causing you problems, for lightplinking loads don't think a gas check would even be needed, never have used one on a nagant. You said no grooves and that the rifling my be shot out or at least past service life, paper patching candidate. But since it shoots jwords well I'd focus on finding a boolit alloy fps powder mix that she does like have a 1919 nagant that looks almost smooth bored but shoots pretty good, paper plate as far as I can go on the back yard range.

[M44osin]

Ok Thanks for the help guys, I will just have to try and find some pewter or buy some tin. i would buy from the sales section here but im probably about 3000 miles away from anyone with some for sale :(. I will also get an expander to enlarge the necks some so i can more easily seat the boolits.

[Pinsnscrews]

M44osin, you don't show where you are from, so for us making suggestions on what to find with tin is limited.

I honestly would suggest you check out the Smokeless Paperpatch section of the forum. You might find it to be interesting and it very well may suit your needs since it sounds like you are having a problem finding a bullet large enough. You could roll those pure leaf ones you have, meaure them after they dry and see how close they are to what you need without a sizer. Couldn't hurt anyways.

[M44osin]

Hi Pinscrew,

Ive updated my profile location,Im in the north of Scotland so Which is the reason everything seem to be so hard to find. I will take everyones advice on the paper patching and see where that takes me.

thanks

[rsrocket1]

M44osin, read up on beagling the mold. It consists of simply sticking strips of metal foil tape on the insides of the mold to increase the diameter of the cast boolits by 1-3 mils depending on the thickness of the tape. You should be able to buy metal foil tape at the hardware store or in craft stores as copper foil tape for stained glass crafting. If you have a push through sizer like the one from Lee, you can open it up to .315 or .316 with some waterproof sandpaper, some oil and a dowel, but you might be able to get away by simply shooting the fat boolits as cast so long as the case neck doesn't swage the boolits down too much. Pure lead through a too-tight neck will almost certainly swage it down somewhat.

I use reclaimed shot from a trap and skeet range and that stuff is pretty hard when I drop the bullets directly from the mold into a bucket of water (at least to where I get no leading and very good accuracy up to 2400 fps with a gas checked boolit).