bater mold (.224)

[compass will]

Ran my first test with the bater mold.
Cast from harder lead (some Hunters Hard Cast boolits I melted down) water dropped. gas checked. They look good.
Lube is that hard orange stuff I bought with my sizer, sized to .224.

Fire formed cases, H4895, 21.3 and 21.6 grains

rifle is a H&R with a 24" fluted bull barrel. Scope is a BSA Platinum Target 8-32.

Results: AT 100 yards the best I could get was a 16" group.
50 yards was like an 8" group.

I don't think the problem is the bullet since I had the same results with winchester 55 grain jacketed the last time I shot it. this barrel was installed by H&R and was real loose on the frame so I sent it back to get it fixed. The cast test was after the adjustment.

Tonight I get to clean the barrel to see if I had leading problems, but I don't think so at those powder loads.

While I was at Cabelas I bought another 100 jacketed, guess I will try to see if the gun shoots them any better before moving up to real boolits.

[1Shirt]

The bater shoots well in my K-Hor at around 2000 with Unique. Stays in under 2" on a calm day at 100 if I do my part. Have yet to try it in any of the other 224's.
1Shirt!

[leftiye]

Try sizing bigger. Slug or cast your chamber/leade to see what size it is. You don't say what your velocity, and pressures, nor cartridge (caliber) are, so anything I can say is just a guess. The powder seems slow enough, but if pressures are high (mushes the boolit), and/or if the boolits are too small (causes Flame cutting,deformation and leading), and/or if you're just at too high of a velocity (is relative) and getting leading, it all goes to he!!. The orange stuff is supposed to be good lube for high velocity ( so I've read, haven't used any), but a better lube may also be the problem.

[compass will]

Sorry leftiye, I just re-read and noticed I left out it is a 22-250.

I will clean the barrel tonight to see what comes out.

[crowbeaner]

I size my 225415s to .225 for the 222 and 22-250. Hornady checks.

[compass will]

Barrel was spotless. In fact it was cleaner then a .22 rim fire would be after 50 rounds.

First I will load up some more jacketed bullets to see if I can get them to shoot. It only has 100 jacketed and 50 cast through the barrel so far.

Then I will turn up the speed on the next batch of the bators I load.
I just found out my shooting buddy has chronograph. Maybe I will buy him some new batteries :-D

[compass will]

This weekend I shot 50 condom bullets. Using 55 grain FMJ BT winchesters with H4895, 1.5 and 2.5 grains below max and Winchester primers. They all were real nice groups, but the -1.5 was starting to crater the primer. So looks like I will try -2 grain with the 50 I got left. It was fun shooting the high power silhouettes. At 200 the chicken moves (swings) pretty good. Even out at 500 meters you can hear it hit the rams.

For the lead boolits, I was using the max load of H4895 X .60. After finding no leading I think I am going to load up 10 of each in .5 grain increases and see what shoots.

Problem is my .308 will be here this week and I want to start playing with it :-D