Help with the Lee 309-230 bullet

[roharmon]

I am shooting the 309-230, powder coated over 9 grains of 296, out of a 16 inch Blackout barrel. I am getting good results at 25 and 50 yards, but terrible at 100 yards.

Any my suggestions are welcomed.

[runfiverun]

8 twist I assume.

[brtelec]

Just curious, is the rifle cycling properly with that load?

[Tackleberry41]

Bit short on details, sort of like telling a mechanic your car which has 4 wheels, makes a funny noise sometimes.

16" barrel, in what, what twist?

Not found where most have had great luck with the Lee 230gr without modding the mold or using gas checks. I was given some of the Lee230 gr cast by someone else and all were to undersized to be of any use. Marginal sizing might work at 25 or 50, but fall apart at 100yds.

[roharmon]

Yes, 1;8 twist


8 twist I assume.

[roharmon]

Yes, the rifle operates with no problems

QUOTE=brtelec;3899784]Just curious, is the rifle cycling properly with that load?[/QUOTE]

[roharmon]

1:8 twist. Bullet is 50/50 Lino and pure lead and is .310 after powder coat.

QUOTE=Tackleberry41;3899826]Bit short on details, sort of like telling a mechanic your car which has 4 wheels, makes a funny noise sometimes.

16" barrel, in what, what twist?

Not found where most have had great luck with the Lee 230gr without modding the mold or using gas checks. I was given some of the Lee230 gr cast by someone else and all were to undersized to be of any use. Marginal sizing might work at 25 or 50, but fall apart at 100yds.[/QUOTE]

[runfiverun]

I shoot a 7 twist and have no problems with the boolit.
most that do are using the slower twist rate.
the cog is a bit off and the slow twist rate allows it to start wobbling at the slow speed this kills your accuracy.
NOE addressed this with a 200gr mold.

I have gone as low as 3.5grs of 700-x and kept accuracy but only with a SR primer.
changing to a SP primer throws my groups out of whack at even 50 yds.
try upping the load 1/2gr and see what happens.

[roharmon]

Thanks runfiverun

QUOTE=runfiverun;3900510]I shoot a 7 twist and have no problems with the boolit.
most that do are using the slower twist rate.
the cog is a bit off and the slow twist rate allows it to start wobbling at the slow speed this kills your accuracy.
NOE addressed this with a 200gr mold.

I have gone as low as 3.5grs of 700-x and kept accuracy but only with a SR primer.
changing to a SP primer throws my groups out of whack at even 50 yds.
try upping the load 1/2gr and see what happens.[/QUOTE]

[Boolseye]

I have noticed that I get oblong holes in the target from this boolit, although the accuracy is pretty good out to about 50 yds, haven't tested further. Is that the wobbling runfiverun is talking about? I, too, have a 16" 1/8 twist. my load for this boolit is 12.5 gr. RL7.

[runfiverun]

yes oblong holes are a good indication of marginal stabilization.
quite often your group size will also get larger.
and then you start getting keyholes in the paper.

[Forrest r]

I did a little testing with that bullet in a couple of 308's (bolt guns) with 1 in 10 twists and 1 in 11 twist. I use anywhere from 8/9bhn range scrap to pure lino-type. Tried air cooled, water dropped, sized to .309/.310/.3105, traditional 45/45/10 tumble lube, traditional lube in the small tl grooves with 45/45/10 tumble lube over that. 1 coat of pc & 2 coats of pc & with the pc'd bullets I tried .309/.310/.311/.312 diameter bullets.

Must of tried 6 or 7 different alloys air cooled and water dropped with loads that ranged from 1000fps to 2300fps using several different powders. After a bunch of testing I found that that that lee 230gr bo bullet needed a little tweeking/mods to get it to even begin to get any consistent 10-shot groups @ 100yds.

A little tweeking really helped that lee 230gr bullet. The bullets with the gas checks on them (left) did a lot better @ 100yds than the as cast (right) lee 230gr bullets.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/stepdowninbullet_zpsc30ae8bc.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/stepdowninbullet_zpsc30ae8bc.jpg.html)

Pretty good looking bullet, just too long of a nose and too short of an area where the body of the bullet seals the bbl for a cast/lead bullet.

I don't load/shoot a 300bo but I have loaded a bunch of cast bullets for the 308's & 30-06's. I have yet to see a saeco #315 bullet not shoot in any 30cal rifle I've owned.
http://www.castpics.net/subsite2/ByCaliber/saeco315.pdf

The saeco #301 has also been respectable for me when pc'd and used in 2 groove and 5r (5 groove bbl's).

not much help other than I sold the lee mold and moved on.

[Boolseye]

Alright, thanks. Must be just on the ragged edge, always wondered about that.

[Tackleberry41]

The 1-8 is probably marginal with that weight/length of bullet. Going slow makes the issue worse. So for the 1-8 might drop down to a 200gr.

[skeet1]

My 1 in 8 AR shoots this bullet just fine. I do not size them and just use LLA and shoot. The bullet comes out of the mold at about .3095. I suspect at most of the problem is the initial size of the bullet out of the mold. I don't know anything about powder coating but I wonder if just adding more coats really does anything to the size of the bullet once it is going down the barrel? Roharmon, what size is your bullet out of the mold and have you tried to shoot them as cast?

Ken