Casting for small caliber wildcats?

[Dick Dastardly]

I'm not entirely paranoid, but I have made it my business to have good bullet molds for all my rifles. What I'm wondering is this. Should I need to, how would I work up a load for my .25 Gibbs, .25 Durham Jet, 6.5mm Gibbs or 22-250? I know that these are pour candidates for cast bullets, but if the political winds blow jacketed bullets away I still want to be able to make the ammo I need.

I've loaded cast bullets for .32 Win Spl, 8mm-06, 7mm-08 and 38-55 and had pretty good results. I'm not able to get jacketed bullet velocities, but I can get usable 200 yard results. I'm just worried that the smaller wildcats may become obsolete if jacketed bullet supplies dry up.

Perhaps a good book for loading cast bullet ammo for the higher intensity chamberings could be suggested?

Thanks for your indulgence.

DD

[docone31]

Some of us paper jacket the smaller castings. When I wrap, I load to minimum jacketed velocities.
Two of my calibers outshoot themselves over jacketeds.
One of us paper patches 25-06. I plan on doing that hopefully this year. Same with my .243s.
Just a thought.

[Bret4207]

IME the biggest difference between the 30+ calibers and the smaller ones is that the moulds take longer to heat up and little imperfections are more of a concern with a smaller boolit. Once you get so you can cast good boolits in 22 and 25 caliber the rest is just finding a powder than works. Boolit fit is king, the powder charges can be extrapolated from jacketed loads. Fillers sometimes help. I'd aim for 22 Mag speeds, say 1500-2000 fps, not 3000+.

BTW- is your 6.5 Gibbs the 6.5x257 Roberts? Or am I having another CRS moment and getting the names confused?

[Dick Dastardly]

Thanks for the info. It looks like I was making about the right guesses. Bullet quality and muzzle velocity seem to make the whole thing doable.

Bret4207, I have Two of the 6.5mm Gibbs rifles built on K98 actions. One is a 27" sporter with the intended mission of long range plains hunting. The other is a 29" Argentine Mauser with a new barrel but otherwise not discernable from original military. The chambers are made for 30-06 brass fire formed to minimum taper with a one caliber neck and a 40° shoulder. They thrive on Winchester 785 ball powder. I wish I could find some more of it.

DD

[Bret4207]

My bad, 25 and 6.5 Gibbs are '06 based. I was thinking of the 6.5x257 Roberts. Can't for the life of me recall the other name!

[Scrounger]

Could it be 6.5 X 57, since the .257 Roberts is the 7 X 57 necked down to .257? The 6.5 in that case would be the 6.5 X 57.