Casting 30 cal on Tuesday, what alloy?

[brewer12345]

I am planning a casting day of 30 caliber boolits on Tuesday for 30-06. I will definitely ocast a Noe 195 grain flat point and Lee 309-150-F (both for target and deer). If time permits, I will cast some Lee 309-113-F (for plinking and small game). My question is what alloy should these be cast from? I had planned on casting from COWWs already mixed with about 3% pewter (a run of 44 mag fodder that simply didn't make the cut) and considering that I am going to try driving them to 2000 FPS or better I am planning to water drop them. Considering that the bigger boolits will be used for hunting should I mix in some range scrap, say, 50/50? I'd guess the vast majority of this run will be used for practice rather than critter whacking, so do I lose anything on the target side by mixing up a softer alloy?

[Jack Stanley]

Sounds like you have a workable plan right there .

Jack

[waco]

I'm not real sure how good of a hunting alloy it would be, but I've just started to use a 90pb/6sb/4sn alloy water dropped for some higher speed .308 stuff. It ends up after a month being around 18-20bhn. So far it handles up to 2500fps.

[Rcmaveric]

Around 2000 fps air cooled will do fine. I push half COWW and Half range scraps at around 2000fps.

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[Wayne Smith]

Depends on your desired velocity and the presence or absence of a gas check. Softening the alloy in the presence of a gas check will still water harden and is shootable to around 2000fps - fine for the 30-30 but maybe limiting in the 308/30-06.

[brewer12345]

Gas checks on everything. As for velocity, I am hoping to push the 195 grain boolits to 2000 to 2200 fps in order to have a 200 yards capable deer load for mulies in mountainous terrain. 2000 or so would be fine as a limit for the 150 grain boolit. My concern is terminal performance with an all coww water dropped slug.

[CraigOK]

Somewhere there is a write up on using dead soft lead on the nose of the bullet. Maybe you melt a fisji.g weight in there let it cool, then pour alloy over it, then let the mold melt them together. Maybe someone can clarify that. But you could use those soley for hunting and 100% alloy for practice

[CraigOK]

Duplicate

[BUCKEYE BANDIT]

I believe that was some of Bruce B's handy work ,try a soft nose cast search maybe.
Somewhere there is a write up on using dead soft lead on the nose of the bullet. Maybe you melt a fisji.g weight in there let it cool, then pour alloy over it, then let the mold melt them together. Maybe someone can clarify that. But you could use those soley for hunting and 100% alloy for practice

[BUCKEYE BANDIT]

I believe that was some of Bruce B's handy work ,try a soft nose cast search maybe. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-17546.html
Somewhere there is a write up on using dead soft lead on the nose of the bullet. Maybe you melt a fisji.g weight in there let it cool, then pour alloy over it, then let the mold melt them together. Maybe someone can clarify that. But you could use those soley for hunting and 100% alloy for practice

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I use air cooled 94-3-3 for most rifle loads and Mag pistol. Which is very near your COWW with 3% pewter.
When I load above 30Kpsi, I will heat treat that alloy.

[Seabee1960]

For anything over say 1750 FPS I have had the best success with Linotype(12% antimony, 4% tin, BHN of 22) . There is still tons of it available. I am still casting from the bars I picked up for free when our local paper went to a photo-electric printing plate in 1980. My best .30 bullet seems to be the Lyman .311299 sized to .309 under 25 grains of IMR 4198 fired in a Winchester High wall with a .3080. grove Dia. I tried to size them at .310 but I had trouble chambering them because of the tight neck. Now mind you this data is for .30-40 Krag and the -06 case is substantially larger in capacity so you might need to adjust the powder amount up or down a few grains. This load shots consistently 1.5 MOA which is about the best I have ever been able to get my cast boolits to shoot.
Gas Checks are a must. I like the Lyman style because they are easier to seat perpendicular to the long axis of the boolit. Hornady type gas checks have always caused me grief.

Another fantastic boolit is the RCBS .30-180-FP. It shoots as well as the older Lyman Loverin bullet 311407 which isn't available 216271

[Jack Stanley]

Someone wrote once that the 32-40 was an excellent round for deer , I don't think you'll need to go over two thousand feet per second with your alloy .

Jack

[brewer12345]

Someone wrote once that the 32-40 was an excellent round for deer , I don't think you'll need to go over two thousand feet per second with your alloy .

Jack

Which alloy? The coww plus tin water dropped?

[Rcmaveric]

Check out the stickie in the "Hunting with Castboolits" section. Air cooled half weight and half pure lead is recommended and talked about often. You dont want too hard of a bullet. Watter droping that 50/50 would help make it tougher without being as brittle. You dont need a super hard bullet to acheive 2000fps with MOA or better accuracy.

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[brewer12345]

I looked at the sticky and it quickly devolved into serious hair pulling so I was not sure.

For practice fodder I guess I could use air cooled coww plus tin? I was pushing that to at least 1600 fps with excellent accuracy today at the range.

[WRideout]

In my early days of casting, ca mid 1980's, I used air cooled COWW exclusively, and didn't have any trouble. Now days, I tend to use 50/50 COWW/range scrap. Range scrap is reasonably soft. I add "some" tin for good fillout. I get reasonable accuracy with the 311284 Lyman bullet in my interarms Mark X 30-06. I tend to shoot it at around 1400-1600 fps, and am now experimenting with some full-power loads, around 2000 fps.

Wayne

[Rcmaveric]

I also started with air cooled COWW. COWW are getting hard to come by in my area so i started cutting it with 50% range scraps (RS is Free .99), all air cooled. I only add tin if the mold is giving me fill out problems that i cant fix by running the melt hotter. For 30-30 and .270 Win, seated into the lands or with faster powders velocity limit is about 1600 fps. Back it off the lands and use a slower powder and 2000 fps seams to be about the limit. Acurracy is MOA or better, oddly when backed off the lands groups tightened. I am tempted to run an experiment to see how soft i can shoot at 2000 fps in those guns, but if i don't get the wifes .260 Rem shooting soon she is gonna skin me. 50/50 COWW and RS also works great in my 6.5 Grendel AR pushed at 2000fps. The slower you kick the bullet in the rear the faster you can launch it, the harder you kick it in the rear then then slower you can launch. Seating into the lands spikes the pressures.

[tomme boy]

Add the pewter. Air cool. The tin will act as a binder and hold the bullet together and let the bullet flow/expand without fracturing.