Sideways?

[theiastcowboy]

Ok. First off.

[smilie=s: I've been lurking for awhile, and I love the site. with that said this is what i'm doing and this is what's happening.

1/2 WW and 1/2 soft lead
Lee 401-175TC 2 boolit mold --> dropped in a bucket of water
sized with "LEE BULLET LUBRICATING AND SIZING KIT" (.401)
lubed with Lee lube
shot with 5.5 gr on Unique
shot at about 12 yards
shot from tauras pt 101 (beretta knock off)

ok accuracy, but out of the 20 rounds I shot, it looks like 2 or 3 of the bullets hit sideways:confused:

Tell me owe mighty sages, what am I doing wrong??

FYI: I just want a coke can accuracy at 12 yards

[gray wolf]

Nice to have you here.

I must ask-- why would you add lead to soften the WW and then water drop them to harden
them back up ?
Have you slugged your bore? do you know what the groove diameter is for YOUR barrel ?
Have you measured your bullets after the lee sizing ? never mind what the number on the die is saying. What do the bullets measure ?
Did the bullets you shot leave leading in the barrel ?
I think we need a little more Info.

Sam

[chris in va]

I just went through the whole 'sideways' thing myself in 9mm.

Slug your barrel first. I didn't do this and spent countless frustrating hours trying to figure out why my boolits were keyholing.

Also, 5.5 Unique with a 175gr boolit is a bit warm according to my Lyman manual. Starting charge is 4.7.

Basically if you're bore measures 401 and you're sizing at 401, the lead just doesn't have enough purchase on the rifling, smearing it down the barrel. Coupled with a warmer load and the boolit will start tumbling.

I'm pretty new at this though, the other guys can elaborate.

[mooman76]

What the others said and we call it "key holeing". The 40 is one of the highe pressure rounds and you might want to switch to straight WWs. Usually the mix would be fine for pistol. I would slug it first though or you could even back off your load a little and see if that helps. May not take much.

[geargnasher]

WW plus a little tin (1-2") for fillout and bolstering the Sb/Sn intermetallic compound ratio a bit, water drop them for best accuracy but air cooled is probably ok if you wait a couple weeks for them to harden after casting, and try a slower powder. If you just want to plink, back WAY off on that Unique charge and it will do ok with the same boolits you just tried (think four grains).

As has been said, slug your barrel (do a search here for how) to determine what size the boolits need to be. I go .402" (honed out a .401" die) for a .40 that slugs .401" and it works well with slower pistol powders and water-quenched WW. Only issue with my gun is a tight chamber and can't go much over .402" or the loaded cartridge won't chamber easily. YMMV.

Gear

[Crash_Corrigan]

I gotta go with the guy from North Las Vegas. I have a friend, a very good friend, for whom I make reloads for. I have not a .40 in my stable nor do I wish for one. However he begged me to buy the dies (he paid for them) and to start reloading rounds for him.

I bought a couple of thousand of Rainer condom bullets for the gun and put together a few to see what works. His gun, an HK something or other loved the rounds I had made. Well we went through over 3K of rounds of so in a few months and I decided to buy a mold and to play with cast.

I ended up with the same mold you have. I cast using straight ww's with the stick on's added for flavor. I have some Scotch blood and I cannot waste anything. It even hurts me to skim off the dross when smelting and to toss that stuff away. I confess I don't. I save it all. At a later time I melt it down again and make fishing sinkers out of it and a few ingots to have handy to hold down the tarp on my beloved Triumph Motorcycle in the winds here in Vegas.

Getting back to the 40 short and weak gun. My first efforts were not sized just tumble lubed as cast. I let them dry overnight and did it again the next day for a total of two very light coats of mule snot and JPW.

His gun loved it. I never bothered to measure the slugs as cast nor did I bother to cerrosafe his chamber. He was very happy with the new boolits and the lower costs I passed on to him so he pays me a grand total of $4 for a box of 50 rounds for his HK .40 S&W and he is a happy camper. He saves his empties and brings them to me.

I am actually thinking of aquiring a very cheap HI Point .40 Carbine just for fun plinking although I cannot really justify the need for it. I already have a decent truck gun in a cut down Baker 12 gauge side by side and a recent aquisition in 8 MM a VZ 24 from BRNO.

I would love to find a semi automatic carbine in 9MM just for plinking and blasting various targets of opportunity at the range. We go out in the southern desert about 15 miles south of Vegas and although hot it is a lot of fun. If you bring a 10' x 10' pop up canopy and enuf water you can enjoy 110 degrees if you move slow. We had 8 shooters out there Friday morning with a variety of weapons and a good time was had by all. I got to play with my .44 CA Bulldog and some HP rounds I had made. They blasted through 4 gallon jugs of water and are still moving as far as i know. I never recoverd a boolit. That straight WW stuff is too hard to open up even in a Penta Pin Mihec mold so I am going to hafta go to pure lead for expansion at low velocity.

My recoil junky shooting buddy Blake Stephenson (forum member) was showing off again (what else is new?) with his Dakota .450 something and a scope at 80 yds. His victim was a steel 5 gallon round can fulla water. He hit it with one shot and the silly thing flew about 20 feet up and to the right and was ripped open like a short gal on her wedding night. That gun produced some serious knowdown power. Blake sez that this gun is powerful Bison medicine. One shot in the right place and DRT. However I have declined the honor of touching off one his rounds in this gun. I did so once in a 505 Gibbs whilst standing up and although a big thrill (captured on video) I do not wish to duplicate the experience.

We have to keep in mind here that Blake is 48 yrs old, no body fat, 6'5" and 250. Whereas I am 67, mucho excess baggage, 5' 9" and 230 lbs. I also wear glasses and suffer from a variety of maladies which keep my doctorsl rich and in expensive sports cars and bimbos. My pain management guy has a car which when it requires a tune up sets him back by 10 grand. (Ferrari). I am a prime supporter for a variety of doctors and medical facilities here in Vegas. Thank the Lord that I have excellent insurance from SS and the NYCPD.

Getting back to the topic. Yeah, slug the silly gun and measure your cast boolits. They need to be at .001 or .002 above the groove depth of the barrel and using straight ww's may be the ticket for you. Reducing the charge may also help. I usually start way below the starting levels and bring a squib rod to punch out the failures. You are looking for reliable function and then accuracy. Somewhere in there you will find it. However the .40 is a nasty caliber to load cast for. The working range of bullet weight, diameter, charge, and alloy is a narrow one and do not lose sight of the vital OAL parameter. This is a high pressure round and it will bite you badly if you get careless. These guns can and will go KABOOM if you mess up.

[HeavyMetal]

The one thing that hasn't been covered is the condition of your boolit base's.

Take a magnifiying glass and examine a bunch, not just one or two, of your boolits.

What your looking for is a clean crisp well filled out base. A cast boolit can be very forgiving of most flaws but a poor base is not one of them!

This give you the same results as a damaged barrel crown: as the boolit exits gas escapes from the edge that is not compeltely filled out and pushs the boolit sideways as it get out first.

The result is key holing on the target.

Next time you cast these up dip the mold itself in the alloy until the lead will not stick to it then dip the sprue plate, that part you use to open it, until the lead doesn't stick to it and then start pouring.

Dip the sprue plate every two or three casts and your base issue should go away.

I would also stop softening the ww with straight lead. If your casting real clip on ww make sure to seperate the softer stick on ones from the stuff you plan to melt as that will also make your alloy softer as well.

The Taurus barrel is most likely 402 diameter if your as cast boolits are this large or a bit larger stop sizing them and try 50 as cast and lubed and see what happens.

[fredj338]

I shoot lead bullets in my 40s, air cooled ww works fine across the vel range you would run 170gr-180gr bullets. I size to 0.401" for use in two diff 40s. I use a Star & BAC or CR lube. Unique & WSF have been my most accurate powder choice, both running about 950fps.
Make sure your bullet strikes are actually keyholes. SOmetimes a bullet hole tears in std papaer targets & it looks elongated. If accuracy is good, I doubt you are gettign actual keyholing. I've never seen accuracy from a load that throws keyholes. If it is keyholing, then bullet size is probably the issue. If you are using the LFCD, this could be causing it. Recheck groove dia & if using the LFCD, try some loads w/ convetional TC die instead. Your 4die Lee set has it built into the seating die.

[NSP64]

Welcome. You must slug your bore.
My astra .40 has a .403 bore. I shoot the lee TL 170gr TC unsized & I can hit a man sized target @ 100yrds 3of 5 shots.
I bought some factory pmc 40 S&W ammo for the brass. The bullets were actually .399 They were going everywhere @ 50yrds. I almost sold the gun. Decided to slug barrel and cast a few. Shoots good when you match boolits to barrel.

My load is wdww over 4.5gr of 231 lubed with LLA

[truckmsl]

Slow those babies down a bit!

[oldtoolsniper]

Nsp64,
I never realized how poorly most factory ammo is suited to most firearms until I started casting and reloading. In the Marine Corps an Armorer when the rifle would not group I just replaced the barrel and cut up the non-shooter for scrap, I made a lot of scrap! Of course we were prohibited to reload any ammunition as it was not Nato spec if it were reloaded. Contrary to popular belief the M-40 and the .50 Barrett (sniper rifles)shot only match grade factory loads that were tracked in the gun books. They are re-barreled at 1000 rounds.

I wonder how many barrels I trashed over crappy ammo.

[theiastcowboy]

Wow. First off thanks to everyone for the info, and thank you for giving me tons of stuff to look at.

1st off I'm going to look into slugging the barrel. (i'll hit the site and find out what that is, how I haven't heard of that yet, is beyond me.)

2nd less powder, then check bore diameter, check bullet diameter, and I also liked what Heavymetal said about checking the base of the boolit. I'll get back with you guys about what I find. If anyone else has any other advise throw it in! Thanks again, you did not dissapoint!

[chris in va]

Slugging your bore will be very easy as you already have boolits available. Grease up the barrel and a boolit really well, take a wood or aluminum dowel and basically pound the thing through, chamber first (I believe). What comes out is essentially a fired boolit but you'll be able to measure it accurately across the lands/grooves. That way you know exactly what your bore diameter is for your particular gun.

Of course I'm assuming you know to take the barrel out and place it on a wood block or something that won't damage the crown.