boolit base condition and shooting...

[bushka]

Okay,so I had a bad casting session,couldnt get a nose pour broken in,
and the 50 cal rapine needs venting...
So ,I busted out the trusty 40cal saeco and had filled out boolits almost immediately,tho some with sharper edges on the bases than others,but uniform and filled out all around,no wrinkles,which got me to thinking about the condition of the base,
and what Harry Pope said,
and wondering what are the feelings of all here concerning dead sharp vs radiused corners on the boolit bases,and how they may affect accuracy even
after they been weighed out/segregated.
How PICKYshould I be??

thanks:castmine:

B

[Reloader06]

Haven't a clue, but I've been wondering the same thing.

Matt

:castmine:

[Bass Ackward]

The answer is ..... depends. Depends on how well and how far you want to shoot.

The other possible answer is to try it and see.

I probably shoot more crappy bullets than anyone. I have almost a 0% cull rate. Some of the worst bullets get shot with reduced loads for bore preppers or loaded low with GCs to remove leading after a hot secession, or sometimes they are grandkid fodder.

But the only area I will not tolerate variation is the base and these are culled while molding. As to round or bevel base or sharply square it again depends. You will find all three examples of bases that will and will not shoot for you as you do this long enough.

What shape you need at the time, is what is required but uniformity is always key for me.

[Bret4207]

IMO the base is the single most important item on a cast boolit, once you get one fat enough to fill the throat. Thats for PB boolits. A GC can take care of a certain amount of rounding, but they won't fix a really bad one. Slight imperfections in a band or a small inclusion on the nose I can live with, a lopsided base goes back in the pot.

[bushka]

The radius` I get is like a uniform .02"max.
likely not enuf tin in alloy I suspect,
I run them hot,maybe not fluxing/stirring enuf? but doubt it.
The "alloy" is scratchable with the fingernail,but with pressure.

[runfiverun]

i have a couple of molds with bevel bases i wouldn't trade for two i needed
i also have a couple of them i have considered loading backwards asi think they
would actually shoot better.
but if i have a square base and they aren't coming out square back they go.

[Boerrancher]

The answer is ..... depends. Depends on how well and how far you want to shoot.

The other possible answer is to try it and see.

I probably shoot more crappy bullets than anyone. I have almost a 0% cull rate. . .

But the only area I will not tolerate variation is the base and these are culled while molding.

I too shoot lots of crappy looking boolits and have very few culls. The only thing I really care about is the base. I have molds that have rounded bases and some that are nice, sharp and square, and haven't seen a difference in how they shoot in any group of guns. Some guns just don't like certain types of boolits.

I use to be super picky about my boolits. If they weren't perfect looking they were culled, until the man that taught me how to cast took one of my loaded rounds with my nice pretty boolit in it and crunched up the nose with a pair of pliers. I had just fired the 4th shot of a five shot group that was under 2 in" and he handed me the mangled one and told me to shoot it. He had never let me down so I did as he ask totally expecting it to blow my group. It fell in with the rest, and he told me, "see I told you the nose didn't matter, only the base does."

I have not been picky every since, and still can dust a coyote at 150 yds with any of my rifles and cast boolits. Would I shoot imperfect cast boolits in a match? No probably not, but for what I do an ugly boolit works just fine.

Best Wishes

[Old Coot]

I''m new here, but IMHO i don't care for bevel based bullets, I think that they lead to gas cutting and leading.
I read an article inthe National Rifleman-back when it had good articles not just collectokr junk and the latest whidget- the writer took a box of 30 cal seirra matck and filed different ammounts off the nose and the base (not on the same bullet) . What he found was thaat the base of the bullet is the guiding portion. The smallest deformation of the base produced wide groups and fliers. Conversely, he could remove up to five grains of material from the nose asymetrically and hardely affect accuracy.

I'm shure that the same holds true for cast bullets as well.