Comparing "wrinkled" and "perfect" boolits

[oldracer]

As I noted earlier I had my first casts turn out wrinkled boolits with the Lee 6 cavity 148 DEWC mold and the advice for a hot plate was spot on with the next batches looking pretty darn close to perfect. So I wanted to see if the wrinkles would actually make any difference and also compare them to the ones I have been using from Missouri Bullet Co. What I did was weigh the casts and bought boolits, load 25 of each into 357 cases with the same powder load and primers at the same session on the reloading bench. I then measured accuracy, velocity with my birthday present chrono and noted things like leading and smoking. The results were a bit of a surprise to me when I looked at everything.

Gun was a S&W model 327 TRR8 custom center 8 shot.

Missouri Bullet Co> weight avg = 150gr, solid lube in 2 bands, 3.4gr W231 powder and W small pistol primers. Avg velocity = 734fps. Leading was spread around the forcing cone and some on the face of the cylinder and a little in the barrel and pronounced clouds of smoke from the lube. At 25 yds resting by hand on a bench all shots were in a 5 inch circle.

Gun was throughly cleaned.

Cast w/wrinkles> weight avg = 152gr, Lee liquid lube allowed to dry, 3.4gr W231 powder and W small pistol primers. Avg velocity was 710fps. Leading was less pronounced than before, none on the cylinder and slight in the barrel and very little smoke. At 25 yds resting on a bench by hand all shots same as above, slightly tighter possibly.

Gun was throughly cleaned.

Cast perfect looking> weight avg = 152gr, Lee liquid lube allowed to dry, 3.4gr W231 powder and W small pistol primers. Avg velocity was 712fps. Leading was less pronounced than 1st set, none on the cylinder and slight in the barrel and very little smoke. At 25 yds resting on a bench by hand all shots same as above, slightly tighter possibly.

So what do those with much more experience think about the test and any ideas? I did recast the wrinkled boolits and now have several thousand very nice ones!

[HeavyMetal]

Think your on the right track!

You've already "proven" to yourself that you can control leading and get a bit better accuracy with home made cast than commercial.

Now you need to "fine tune" the load. You did not mention if you'd check cylinder throats, slugged the barrel or what size the boolits were.

I have seen shooters using 231 get great groups out of the same basic pistol as yours so I know you have room for lots of improvement and thats what makes re loading fun!

You also have the right idea on your cast boolits! Perfect is best! Boolit base, sharp and clean, is best. The mold your using is a DEWC, strive to put the sprue mark on the outside of the case ( make it the nose) and you might see some improvment there.

Good luck and keep us posted on the progress you make.

[bunkysdad]

I was just casting out in the garage my second round with a new Lee double mold for the .303 British. My first batch a few days ago were nearly all wrinkled.It was my first experience with a rifle caliber mold, and the only other experience I have is with 45acp boolits,so I am a definite rookie. Your post here was perfect as far as timing for me as I was just wondering about the results if I were to load some of these and try them. I don't think my results would be as good as yours when shooting for accuracy at 100 yards, but who knows? My results today were much better as I adjusted the temperature and got the mold temp at what seemed to work fine. I don't have any intentions to use the wrinkled boolits but the frosted ones or less than perfect ones will be used until I see results that say to stop. As my new mold becomes properly seasoned it seems to be dropping really well.

[oldracer]

After the post was made, I remembered I did not mention the bullet diameter and also the grooves either. The Missouri Bullet Co just push through the Lee sizer die I bought and I checked about 8 or 10. I went to run my own castings through and they also went through with just a slight amount of resistance so I have stopped running them although I'll do a check of a few from each batch.

The commercial boolits are all two groove with solid lube (blue in color) and the Lee mold makes their micro groove DEWCs and I am using Lee's liquid lube and that seems to be the difference in the smoke when the bullet fires.

I did slug the barrel but the TRR8 has a 5 land barrel so that is a bit hard to measure and I don't think I need to get one of the V blocks? I can push the bullet easily through the cylinder and I called S&W and they said the cylinders on that gun are made that way. The bullets do fit very snug in the barrel and also the forcing cone so I was afraid the somewhat large cylinder bore would cause accuracy issues but it is almost exactly as accurate as my model 66 with a 4 inch barrel.

[HeavyMetal]

Your cast boolits should require some slight pressure to push through the cylinder throats.

They should not fall through but you should not have to "hammer" them either!

"fitting" the boolits to your cylinder might provide you with an interesting group size.

[NSP64]

Having a loose fit on the cylinders might be where some of your leading comes from. Also you might be inadvertantly sizing them down more when loading them into case. Pull a loaded one and remeasure boolit.

[Bret4207]

Agree with the last 2 posts. The boolits should be a snug fit in cylinder and shouldn't even approach entering the barrel. Anything else in most guns is a recipe for leading and shotgun pattern accuracy. There will be the occasional gun/load that works great like that, but they seem rare.

[Three44s]

I make three piles out of my freshly cast slugs:

1) perfect ones

2) dirt clod busters

3) re-runs

A dirt clod buster needs to have it's wrinkles arranged so as to not pose a "risk" to gas cutting from the base.

Wrinkles aren't the end of it all, I have some and am still going semi-strong!

Three 44s