My First Cast Rifle Loads - 30/30 with Lyman 313445 boolit

[Charlie U.]

I have been casting and reloading for pistol for about a year and a half now but had not made any rifle rounds until today.

My first foray into bottle necked cartridges was making these gallery/mouse fart loads for the 30/30 using boolits I cast from a single cavity Lyman 313445 mold.
Thanks again to the forum members that gave me load advice on this previous thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?252554-Lyman-313445-in-the-30-30-suggested-loads-using-unique

Today was just a small batch to test function in my Marlin 336 and get a sense of recoil and noise level. The weather is too miserable for range/accuracy testing so that will have to wait, but I just had to take a handful out back on the deck and pop them off into a stump.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e3/gekkocha/Hunting%20Guns%20Relaoding/IMG_7303.jpg

The load is:

Lyman 313445 boolit cast from WW and water dropped sized to .311 in a Lee push thru sizer and 45/45/10 tumble lubed. (Listed as a 95gr. boolit, but from my mold they are a hair under 100grains)
Once fired Remington brass.
FED. #150 LG. PISTOL PRIMER (non magnum).
5.0 grains of Unique.
crimped using Lee FC die.


They were only a bit louder than 22lr and had no recoil to speak of. I am really looking forward to playing around with these once the weather allows. If I can squeeze some useful accuracy out of them they should make a fun and efficient substitute for 22lr small game and plinking duties.

I did run into one challenge - seating these little wadcutters was not working right with the bullet seating stem in my Pacific Durachrome 30/30 die set. The seating stem was too short and shaped for RN or RFN boolits. The sharp edges of my boolits were getting boogered up and depth was not right for the crimp ring.


http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e3/gekkocha/Hunting%20Guns%20Relaoding/IMG_7304.jpg

I found a simple solution by switching out the seating stem with a longer one from the Durachrome 300Win Mag set. It's got a neck that is a bit longer and has a much better profile for use with these boolits. Problem Solved!

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e3/gekkocha/Hunting%20Guns%20Relaoding/IMG_7307.jpg


For those of you loading the little Lee 314-90 or other little wadcutters in the 30/30 this problem might also arise. Hope this helps.

[magyars4]

Well done...I look forward to reading about the accuracy.
I have a box of 500/120gr rn that I have, and have been toying with a similar idea.

[sthwestvictoria]

This problem with seating die does arise with these very short bullets. My fix, suggested by an old hand on this forum is to insert a small 5mm long piece of rod between the floating part of the seating die and the top adjustable part of the die (Lee die)
126715

[dondiego]

Slightly flaring the case mouths will aid in seating your boolits. Most 2 die rifle sets are designed for jacketed bullets.

[gwpercle]

If you are water dropping, to harden them, when they run thru a sizer the working of the lead surface softens it back to the original hardness. You may want to just air harden then size.
I used straight wheel-weight metal for years (had unlimited free supply), it is plenty hard for 5 grains of Unique.
My WW supply ended and I started mixing the WW,s 50/50 with soft lead to stretch it....have discovered the softer alloy actually works better in handgun and low velocity rifle loads. Sometimes harder is not better, despite the crowd who touts you must water drop all boolits.
Anyway , if you are going to water drop them, don't size, just lube and shoot. Sizing softens them back up.
That's a neat looking boolit , one you don't see every day. Well Done!
You might want to get a Lee Universal Case Expanding/Flaring Die I find it most helpful with cast and can be used for just about everything.
Gary

[Charlie U.]

....Anyway , if you are going to water drop them, don't size, just lube and shoot. Sizing softens them back up.


Thanks for the tip, Gary.
Now I know not to water drop things that i plan on sizing.
I'll try some as cast and see how they fly.

BTW I did pick up the Lee Universal Case Expander recently.

[Charlie U.]

I found that the main body of the 313445 boolit ahead of the crimp groove is full bore. Seating it in the crimp grove caused the round to engage the rifling when chambered. Enough so that it gave some resistance when I tried to cycle the action and chamber a round. OCL was 2.321 when seated to the crimp line.

Lately I have been playing with seating depth to find what is best for my Marlin.
It looks like I will end up having to seat them past the crimp groove. An OCL of 2.280 seems to cycle fine and puts me just off the rifling.

Crimping Question: Should I give them a gentle squeeze with the Lee Universal Crimp die or will this be a problem since I am seating past the crimp groove?

[JohnH]

Just add enough "crimp" to turn the case mouth back against the boolit. No need to try and roll crimp it into the driving band. The load don't make enough recoil to create a deep seating problem. I use this same method on lots of boolits for rifle and handgun where the seting length puts me on a driving band instead of a crimp groove. You might also want to shift to either Red Dot or Green Dot. I shoot lots of Alliant pistol powders in rifle cases and have found these two powders make better reduced loads than does Unique. Unique is a bit dirty and not as uniform in ignition as are Red or Green Dot.

[s1120]

That's a cool idea. How do they feed??