Fer y'all who are wanting bore diameter boolits (plus .001 to .0015"), plain straight sided boolits can be simply drilled into a set of blocks. Smoother boolits can be done by reaming, and also more controlled diameters ( drill small and ream as necessary).
We need somebody/something to keep the government (cops and bureaucrats too) HONEST (by non government oversight).
Every "freedom" (latitude) given to government is a loophole in the rule of law. Every loophole in the rule of law is another hole in our freedom. When they even obey the law that is. Too often government seems to feel itself above the law.
We forgot to take out the trash in 2012, but 2016 was a charm! YESSS!
Well, here is the story from reloading the correctly sized bullets and paper patching with 16# paper, and the shooting adventure on Saturday...
Reloading on Friday night was a total fiasco...almost everything that could go wrong, did. Dumped 75 grns of powder into my die storage drawer. Spilled powder all over the work bench. Dropped a primer onto the carpet and spent a half hour looking for it. Interruption after interruption. I bagged reloading for several hours until the chaos was under control. After things calmed down I loaded up a couple of rounds to test fit and function. The thumb press fit is NOT going to work for me unfortunately. There is just not enough neck tension on the un-sized cases to allow the assembled cartridge to survive the trip from magazine to chamber, and the recoil of rifle. If I single load, then they will probably work just fine. That realization sent me back to the drawing board to find a neck tension that works in my situation.
I putzed around sizeing and measuring for about half an hour and came up with sizing the once fired cases to 0.458 - 9" I.D. The PPCB's measure 0.4615 - 0.462 OD. The unfired cases measure 0.462" I.D. The firm thumb pressure noted earlier was coming from a larger diameter band of paper that is formed at the heel of the bullet where the paper patch folds over the heel. Live and learn. I ended up with three and a half to four thousandths neck tension on the bullet in the final analysis. That seems to hold them in place just fine. It does compress the last quarter of an inch of paper patch though, just a little. Anyway, I finally got 15 cartridges loaded up by about 12:30 in the morning.
Saturday dawned as a wonderful shooting day. Clear, in the mid to upper 60's, light wind, moderate humidity. Loaded up the truck and the wife; and away we went! After setting up the wife started shooting first, with me spotting. Wife's first shot was a bull's eye with her Kimber in .243 and some J-word bullets that I had loaded up for her. Good show Wife! Next up was the wife and her 50+ year old Brno Sporter in 7x57. Also my reloads with 130 grn Sierra Match Kings. First three shots into one hole. I thought that she completely missed the 2' x 4' backer board on the second shot...but such was not the case. The third shot was just enough off of center to cause the hole in the target paper to change shape.
My turn! My turn!
I loaded up five rounds of the new load and settled into position on the rest. Set the set trigger. Deep breath and let it most of the way out. Cross hairs on the bulls eye...and...touch the trigger. Bummer, called flyer. Repeat four more times, including the called flyers. OK, this ain't working out so good, let's try standing position, slung up. Five more of the new rounds into the magazine, adjust the sling and away we go! Four more called flyers and an uncalled flyer. At that point I was done with the 458WM for the day. I was just wasting powder and time. Remember that comment I made about hitting the broad side of a barn from inside the barn? Yaaaa, that was Saturday. At least I kept them all on the paper though.
What I do know is this: Bullets dropped at 0.459" using lead and 2-1/2% tin and sized to 0.452", wrapped in two wraps of 16# paper do not lead the bore. Those bullets seated into the case 1/4" let the start of the PP just touch the Leade at the start of the ogive. 75 grns of H4895 fills the case with no compression. The paper comes out the muzzle and confetti's or powders on exit. This load leaves some awful big holes in damp dirt. It would take awhile to dig down far enough in the berm to recover a bullet. Some days it's better and more fun to be a spectator...
I was having the same shooting issues with the 24-47, the Parker Hale .308 and the M48. (AND the 1911!!!) I even dumped a case full of powder into the action of the 24-47. Long story on that one, and best left for another time and another thread. The wife was actually shooting better left handed (her off hand) with her Kimber 1911 than I was right handed with my Colt.
We both had a very good time, and I did learn a little about my 458WM load. It was good to be out in the woods on a sunny day.
Too hot a load? Or just more of Murphy's shenanigans from the night before? I just slugged my Handi 38-55 - .375 BORE??? .382 grooves. That nice new Lyman has a .365" nose, and nothing like .382" anywhere else Waaah! (This is me commiserating?)
We need somebody/something to keep the government (cops and bureaucrats too) HONEST (by non government oversight).
Every "freedom" (latitude) given to government is a loophole in the rule of law. Every loophole in the rule of law is another hole in our freedom. When they even obey the law that is. Too often government seems to feel itself above the law.
We forgot to take out the trash in 2012, but 2016 was a charm! YESSS!
Ouch! What can be done about that mould? That's a lot of space to try to fill up...Originally Posted by leftiye
Say, I was interested in your comments about making a mould using common tools. I have read about that here, in Paul Matthews book and elsewhere. I used to have access to a lathe, milling machine and other tools, but I don't think I do any longer. I haven't talked to the guy who has them in his garage in a couple of years. I may hunt him up again and see what he is up to...just for giggles.
Murphy was firmly affixed by the teeth to my backsides this weekend. Lots of bad stuff interacted to cause me to shoot for garbage. Too anxious to make these loads work, to hot a load (fixated on 100% load density), distracted by the wife's good shooting, dirty glasses, bad form....a whole host of ills visited on myself. When I try to force it, things often go awry.
I think it is time to back off a little and go with the flow.
Let's see... I could easily trim 200 fps or so from the load and still have plenty of velocity to work with. The ES and SD for the loads that I had earlier were not all that bad, not as good as the 100% loads, but not bad. I would have to look them up again, but IIRC they were on the order of 30 - 40 fps ES. I sat down and blew 100+ of those down the tube with no sweat.
Off to the races!
Sent 50 ea 460gr with five of them wrapped and ten other .458 TC bullets in USPO flat rate small box.
These were sized to .452 although I have had very good accuracy as dropped at .454. I sent five wrapped to show where the PP started on the bullet ogive.
Note that the microgroves are lubed. And here is why. I told you about using soluble wax in the patch wetting water. But occasionally, I got a flier which I attributed to the patch not separating cleanly. The higher the wax concentration, the more frequent. Hence the compromise on 25/75 wax/water - enough wax in the paper to do the job but not enough to glue the patch to the bullet. In my experimenting, unwrapping some wrapped bullets showed that sometimes the patch would glue to the bullet in a small spot. By filling the grooves with beeswax and then wrapping, the patch grips the bullet but sheds the patch consistently when fired. The reason I tried this is the theory that it is centrifugal force throwing the wax off the bullet that helps carry the patch cleanly away. I am using beeswax because using regular bullet lube, the patches soaked up the oils in a couple of weeks. Beeswax did not. Paraffin wax was too brittle and would not hold in the grooves well, but beeswax is just right.
If you desire to try WITHOUT the wax, just heat the bullets in boiling water for a couple min and they will be clean.
The TC bullets are shot WITHOUT gas checks just fine although I usually use a PE .030, .465 patch under them. Milk jugs are a good source to punch out these translucent plastic wads. The patch is tight in the brass and will 'bow' somewhat but as the case is tapered, you want it to fit 'at depth'. I 'thumb' it into the charged case mouth then insert the bullet and let that push it on down so the patch and bullet remain in contact - this is for both ACCURACY and SAFETY as you should NEVER, never ever have a gap between any filler, wad, etc and the bullet base. Chamber ringing and/or powder detonation (instead of progressive burn) can result as mentioned in several threads on fillers and wads. Seems to be a refracted pressure wave problem according to powder industry reports I have read. The plastic wad also has the advantage that it keeps the powder and bullet lube separate.
With these TC bullets I load like regular cast bullets - regular resized cases, and a slight crimp in the crimp grooves.
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And once again, I will say that for Quiggly match accuracy, you are NOT going to get it in a magazine compatible load....for that type of accuracy the rifle is shot as a single shot. If you figure out a way to increase case tension and crimp WITHOUT degrading accuracy you should share the method because thousands of PP shooters would like to know. Like I wrote earlier, I run the case into the dies just enough to get a .001 to .002 interference fit between case and bullet (and that only for the top 1/4 inch of case mouth at that.) That holds it for handling and shooting but NOT in the recoil of the magazine. Every time I tried crimping, I got a cut patch at the crimp and bad accuracy. I use my .45ACP taper crimp die to remove the small case mouth bell/straighten the case but do NOT force the case into the bullet so much it 'swages' the bullet side under the PP (also as discussed earlier).
I will also mention that I usually use the PE wad under my PP loads. Because of the slight to non-existent case neck tension, sometimes a bullet will get bumped or knocked and fall out. But if there is a wad there, the powder ....HaHA...stays in the case instead of in my pocket or the bullet box or in the rifle action or wherever is most inconvenient --You know, Murphys Law.
Good luck and let us know how they work.
Last edited by windrider919; 04-26-2011 at 02:59 PM.
You get the government you deserve.
Stay out of politics? Don't VOTE?
Do nothing and you deserve whatever the government does to you, your family's lives and all your futures.
Outstanding! Thanks windrider919...
I have to start taking and posting pictures of all this stuff, as well as writing up a narrative on what works and the gotcha's. I now have pages (literally) of notes on what I've tried and what I have been told.
More very good information in that last post as well. I'm coming to the same conclusion about Quigly accuracy from the magazine as well. Hunting accuracy, yes...extreme accuracy maybe not so much.
The last batch of loads had a 0.002 - 3" interference fit, no crimp. I couldn't tell you how accurate they should have been to save my soul. Didn't dump any powder into the action though. The rifle and load may have been accurate, but I surely wasn't. Time will tell, won't it!?
I"m still to much of a newby to feel good about using wads or filler or some of the more advanced techniques. Just not there yet. Good information to file away though.
Thanks again for the boolits...
I did not insure or ask for delivery notice - hey, its the United States post Office.........
oh geez - I screwed up.......
Anyway, let me know when you get them.
And reading the prior post, The 10 truncated cone 350 grainers are standard cast, grease groove boolits, NOT paper patchers.
Used one last year at 160 yards to take down a problem feral bull, 3 1/2 or 4 years old, trotting away at a 30 degree angle. Bullet went in on left side between front and rear legs, went through the heart and on out the chest. 78 gr of H322 and a CCI LRM primer. Kept trotting for about 15 feet the just collapsed, straight forwards on its chest with its neck still outstretched. <*>
{STD DISCLAIMER- this load is safe in my rifle but may not be in yours, use a starting load and work up to max in you rifle for your safety. Not my responsibility if you are a candidate for retroactive birth control due to defective genes/intelligence}
Have also used TC successfully on over 15 hogs ranging from 40 lbs to 110lbs at ranges of mostly 40 to 60 yards with a couple over 100yds.
<*> My Dad always taught me to eat what I shot. This critter dressed out to over a 1000 lbs of the TOUGHEST, stringyist, most tasteless meat you ever ate. The ONLY way to eat it is to pressure cook it for 20 min and you have to still add something else for flavor! Only the dogs like it because they can chew on it for a long time as it slowly wears away. So the dogs are eating 'high on the bull' so I can clear some freezer space of this .....whatever...meat. I even considered donating it to the county jail but did not want the lawsuits in return.
The .458 TC bullet
Notice the small 'bore rider' section after the Truncated Cone where the diameter then steps up. If loaded with the first grease groove OUTSIDE the case, the case mouth between the two grease groves and that step just touching the rifling it will shoot 1 1/4" [the worst group with it ever] or less!!!! The average group size is 3/4". Loaded this way its not a bang around cartridge but kept in a plastic tube with plugged end, it can be kept in the pocket where it can quickly be pulled out of the pocket, removed from the protective tube, loaded and shot. Disposable cigar tubes from the tobacco shops work well for this.
I never bother with the gas check, it shoots fine without it...IF the right lube and alloy is used (and PE wad).
Pic of a 200gr, .451 cast HP I have PPed and used for short range small game
This works but you have to KNOW the 'line of sight' is 1 1/2 inches off the trajectory of the bullet, so you offset/Kentucky windage for accurate, close shooting at under 50 yards.
Last edited by windrider919; 04-27-2011 at 04:26 AM.
You get the government you deserve.
Stay out of politics? Don't VOTE?
Do nothing and you deserve whatever the government does to you, your family's lives and all your futures.
That mold seems to be okay for my .375 H&H Encore I found out today. Bore on that is .365" and groove is .375," so I'll just make a smooth sided hollow point mold for the 38-55 that casts about .376". Them H&R people deserve to be out of business. Good guns if you make your own barrels!
If you've got a drill press with a vise on the table and can center the drill on the blocks (not as easy as it sounds without a table feed, or DRO), then all you have to do is make a drill formed to your desired point design (again you need to know how to sharpen it, you could shape it with a grinding wheel in the lathe, and use a dremel tool to sharpen it). Pre drill the cylindrical part of the mold (bearing surface of the boolit a little small, and finish with the formed drill. Probly to start small, and maybe ream out to cast close to the desired size (a thou or two big, maybe even will be fine - size them to exact size.
Maybe go to a slightly slower powder in that load? Or altrnatively maybe use a filler to further avoid deformation with a little bit faster powder.
We need somebody/something to keep the government (cops and bureaucrats too) HONEST (by non government oversight).
Every "freedom" (latitude) given to government is a loophole in the rule of law. Every loophole in the rule of law is another hole in our freedom. When they even obey the law that is. Too often government seems to feel itself above the law.
We forgot to take out the trash in 2012, but 2016 was a charm! YESSS!
Whoo-hoo! It's raining boolits at the ranch! Thanks folks!
The mail lady dropped off a box from windrider919, and a few hours later the BBT dropped off a box from pdawg_shooter. The bench is covered in misc. 458 cast right now. I also had a batch of 350 grn that I was experimenting with paper patching; sitting out to dry. It's going to take a few weeks to work through all of this. There is lot's of boolits and powders in the queue at the moment. I am also working on getting pictures of all of this, and the process as well. Working on documentation from A to "Bang!" to go along with it.
Speaking of shooting stuff with a cast 458... I've read some pretty amazing stories about what a heavy, slower moving cast bullet does for hunting big and / or dangerous game. That "shooting the bull" story sounds about right. And, like we were discussing earlier, consistency is more important for accuracy than velocity. Once you get the trajectory worked out it is easy to hit the target, all other things being equal.
Hey windrider919, have you stuck a micrometer on those patched bullets that you sent along? I snagged one and pushed it into one of the "ready to load" cases on the bench. The bullet was a very nice fit into the case. Not a firm thumb push fit, just an easy one. They resemble nothing so much as the "post paper patch sized" 405 grn bullets that I did with Sno-seal and velum paper.
It's very interesting to compare the paper patched boolits made by the three of us. You can literally pick them out by feel. Very interesting indeed. I have already wrapped a patch on two each of the boolits that I received for comparison.
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OK, so I have eight boolits sitting here next to me... Two each from windrider919, pdawg_shooter and two each patched by me from the kindly donors. I'll call them W1 & W2, P1 & P2 and M1 & M2. Let's see what we can see.
W1 is the windrider design, patched with 16# paper soaked in 25% was and water. The patch is very tight and translucent. It is noticeably thinner than the other two samples. The average diameter over the patch is 0.460" +/- 0.0005". W2 is un-patched, but lubricated. Same-o, same-o shape, etc. The un-patched diameter is a very consistent average of 0.452" + nothing / - a few ten thousandths at most.
P1 is a lyman? I'll have to look it up earlier in the thread...anyway it is patched with 16# paper and lubed. It is 0.461 -3" in diameter. P2, the un-patched version is 0.452 minus a little in diameter.
P2 has about 0.125" more bearing surface than W2. P1 has a twisted and trimmed tail, W1 has a folded tail.
Now the one's that I patched using the donor boolits and my paper / technique; M1 is a pdawg boolit, double wrapped with 16# paper, wet have a diameter of 0.462" +/- a smidge. M2 is the windrider boolit, double wrapped with 16# paper, wet have a diameter of 0.462" +/- a smidge. M3 - 4 are same-o, same-o.
The 405 grn boolits (weighed out at 420 grn.) that I was shooting into 2" with are sized to 0.452" double wrapped with 16# paper, wet had a diameter of 0.462" +/- a smidge.
Given all of that, what does that imply? Not sure yet, the sample size is still too small. But given what I do know so far it seems that cast to size is better than sized to size. I'm also guessing that patch material, patch treatment(s), patch application technique etc. are less important than final patch thickness / patched boolit size. I am going to put forth a theory... I don't think the boolit gives a rat's tookis about the patch. If the patch separates the bore from the lead, and comes off cleanly at the muzzle, then all is well. The rest is voodoo... I am starting to think that the BOOLIT, it's shape, size and weight, neck tension, crimp or lack thereof, seating depth, powder and all the other variables are more important than the patch. I'm thinking that if the patch, in smokeless paper patching does two things, keep the bullet off the bore and fall off cleanly at the muzzle, then that's that.
Anybody want to poke a few holes in the theory?
Last edited by offshore44; 04-28-2011 at 09:10 PM. Reason: Added comparisons of eight boolits...
Fit matters most I think. Neck ten, crimp, depth are probably more dependent on which powder and load density.
I'm just the welder, go ask him>
I think that, based on the limited sample the Sharps gave me last weekend, that the most critical element was the boolit diameter (mine was bore + .00015). Next was the powder charge (best results so far were at 37gr Varget for a 515gr boolit). It got worse if I put any more of a taper crimp on the case than was necessary to chamber the round. I couldn't spin any of the boolits in the case given a moderate grip. This was the amount of 'crimp' needed to keep the boolits from moving in/out of the case whilst transporting them to the range. Previous outings with bore diameter boolits were unsatisfactory with other variables the same. Accuracy increased when the charge did for the last batch. I'll have to check what the charge density is on that load. I hope to do more testing this weekend.
"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." A. Brilliant
On a sort of related issue - one that may have relevence to low neck tension - I used to load for my 22 hornet without sizing the neck and that using Lil'Gun powder. Other folks found that with that powder a good neck tension or crimp was necessary for accuracy together with weaker pistol primers. Well, I had no neck tension at all and I used small rifle primers (Federal, which are softer and less intense than other small rifle rpimers). My trick was to use a heaver for hornet bullet and stoke the powder in and compress it. The theory was that the heavier bullet gave the equivalent of neck tension to ensure good ignition. My hornet was very accurate and very powerful for a hornet. (The bullet was seated in a paper towel cup and sealed with 'waxy-lube').
Rest In Peace My Son (01/06/1986 - 14/01/2014)
''Assume everything that moves is a human before identifying as otherwise''
Hold that thought 303guy...and bbqncigars. I think we are on to something there.
I have been told repeatedly, and believe, that the 458WM is a "special case" when paper patching. but we can get back to that...
Discovery 1: I was messing about with the CZ last night, putting different dummy rounds into it. What fell out of the chamber? Two nicely compressed, very hard very small half rings of paper. Bare slivers, as it were. They were big enough to effect bullet alignment when seated, I'm sure. One of the posters on this thread mentioned that this could occur, and that it would make the recoil feel like a proof load...plus cause great inaccuracy. It has something to do with the mouth of the cartridge not being all the way into the chamber, leaving a small gap that fills with paper residue. This is my first experience with that. The last ten rounds that I shot had no goop of any kind on them. Just the fuzzy / fluffy as wrapped and dried paper patch. This did not occur with the 100+ rounds that I shot on the previous outing, where the patch was lubed with goop. This may be one hole in my patch theory already. Some sort of "something" may be required to keep patch material from building up in the gap between the mouth of the case and the end of the chamber. The CZ is a DG / Safari rifle with a generous chamber... I'm thinking that it is time to break down and make a chamber casting so I know exactly what is going on in there. Anyone have any advice on that process? I have the stuff to do it, from Rotometals, but the thought of pouring molten metal into my rifle makes me a little uncomfortable. To say the least.
Discovery 2: The windrider design bullet seems to seat differently in my CZ than in windrider919's rifle. Windrider919 seats with 1/4" seating depth, and slight contact with the leade. I seated one of his boolits in one of my cases just enough to not have it fall out. Single feeding it into the chamber and gently closing the bolt seats that design 1/8" into the case. Windrider919 does have a customer chamber reamer though...
Discovery 3: pdawg_shooter's bullets have a large meplat on them (0.300"), and they display the same feeding issue that the Oregon Trail cast boolits did. They single feed just fine, but catch the feed ramp edge when fed from the magazine. Not all of the time, but enough to be an issue in a hunting situation. There was boolit set back from feeding. No crimp was used though, so the setback may not be a real issue in the grand scheme of things. Good looking hunting boolits though!
Discovery 4: Enlightenment is painful. It's easy to jump to conclusions, and just as easy to be wrong.
I haven't even started to look at wads and filler yet either. Other than making a wad cutter from a 300WM case, that failed after cutting two wads from a milk jug. Nice looking wads though.
QUOTE: "I'm thinking that if the patch, in smokeless paper patching does two things, keep the bullet off the bore and fall off cleanly at the muzzle, then that's that."
IMHO the patch has 2 jobs. 1; Keep the lead off of the bore. 2; Support the bullet. If the bullet distorts under acceleration in the barrel you will have NO accuracy. That is why it can be a real bitch to get nose riders to shoot good. Unless you size it down and patch it back up.
45 AUTO! Because having to shoot someone twice is just silly!
Point well taken...
Let's see if I understand your thought on that...please bear with me for a moment.
The givens are: Lead is compressible, paper is compressible.
So, let's say that we are shooting a load that generates 40,000 psi, the lead has a yield strength of about 14,000 psi at a BHN of 14 or so. The paper has some compressive strength that is above lead, but may be lower than 40,000 psi.
So, the pressure of the burning powder is applied to the heel of the PP projo and is greater than the yield strength of lead by some factor. The paper compresses slightly and then holds the dimensions of the lead stable at that point? Once the paper and lead are stable, the pressure of the burning powder doesn't compress the paper - lead any longer and pushes the assembly out the muzzle? OK, I can buy that...the paper does two things and mechanically must do a third to be successful. Keep the lead off the bore, keep the boolit distortion uniform and within reason, and go away properly at the muzzle. The paper can also help more perfectly align the boolit with the bore when the round is chambered. That's four things. I'm calling my theory dead at this point.
Man, I wish I had access to a ballistics lab...and a good bourbon distillery.
The good news is that I achieved hunting accuracy very rapidly with all of the good advice that I received here. 2 - 2 1/2" groups at 100 yards are well within what is needed to reliably kill game. The bad news is that the 80 - 20 rule still applies. Getting that last bit of accuracy / cutting the group size in half again is going to take 80% of the total effort put into this.
I think that I'll lay off the theories for awhile and stick to paying attention in class.
Offshore44,
I'm curious, what type of shooting rest are you using with the 458WM?
Best regards,
CJR
Well CJR...it's pretty sophisticated to handle the recoil and all...
It's an aluminum folding camp table with a folding camp chair. You know the kind that the top rolls up, and is made out of aluminum strips? I have a wooden box made out of 1 x 4's with a sand bag on top. I've been using it for so long now; that I don't even notice how rickety it is...
I'll add that to the shooting pictures when I get them going.
My .458 is on a 1:22 twist Douglass barrel. I lengthened the throat and give the rifling a 11* lead in taper before I installed it. It does NOT shave paper.
45 AUTO! Because having to shoot someone twice is just silly!
Shooting cast and Paper patched is fun!
The wife and I headed out to the hills this weekend, again, for a little camping and shooting excitement. The weather was beautiful. High 60's to low 70's, clear and the winds were calm. We found a new spot to park the truck or pitch a tent that is pretty secluded. The wife was a little concerned about getting the 'Bourbon in, but it is nothing the old girl (the truck, not the wife) couldn't easily handle. Didn't even rub the frame or the axles. We saw lots of Deer, some Elk and some Bear sign, plus lots of tracks. Somebody had a horse up there recently, judging from the tracks that we found. Fairly small horse though, well shod. I thought that I saw some kitty tracks, but they were pretty washed out, so I won't swear to it.
But on to the matters at hand.
I discovered a lead mine! There were some pretty spectacular patch failures on the crimped 458WM that I shot. I use a Lee Factory Crimp die for my crimps, and the untreated 16# cash register roll paper failed pretty consistently at the crimp. I seated the boolits so that the crimp was on top of a lube groove land. This was not a hard crimp...more like a medium - light crimp. The cartridges were fed from the magazine. There was a 50% chance that the paper patch was cut on the first round, and 90% chance that the rest of the rounds in the magazine would have a cut patch from recoil on the rest...round #5 was always cut. This happened to the 350 grn, 405 (420 grn) and 465 grn boolits. I can pretty safely say that the combination of that paper and treatment (none), that crimp and those bullets are a no go from the magazine at this point. Minimal setback if any at all with the crimp. So that was a positive.
Boolit set back... I had a bunch of PP rounds loaded where I didn't crimp. These were the 350 and 405 Saeco's, sized to 0.451 - 2" and patched with 16# CR tape paper. No goop. The recoil would set the boolits back into the case all the way to the start of the lube grooves in five rounds. That's a little more than 1/4" on the 405 grn boolits! Abysmal failure right there. I have some boolits to pull after that little adventure. The cases were once fired and sized so that I couldn't push the boolits into the case with my thumb (just barely). Case ID measured 0.458 - 9" before seating for a boolit that has an OD of 0.461 - 2" as patched. That right there is a problem for hunting.
Single feed accuracy... Since I was experiencing boolit set back, and didn't have any tools with me to address that issue because we were traveling light, I went to single feeding the un-crimped boolits. WOW!!! I was very impressed with the accuracy, to say the least. The 350 grn boolits would consistently cloverleaf with 1/3 to 1/2 of a boolit diameter overlap on the holes. The only rifle that I have that even comes close to that level of accuracy is an uber-target .22 made back in the late 50's. Those 350 grn paper patched boolits have a jump of about 3/8" to the rifling as well. They just can't be seated out far enough to cut that jump down much without falling out of the case, being a gas check design. But shooting tight cloverleafs, who cares, right? The groups on the 405's were a little bigger, you could see paper between the holes most times. Call them 1 1/2" outside to outside. Something else is going on there, and I suspect that it is the alloy I used to make them. It's probably a little soft. IIRC they have a BHN of about 9 to 9.5. The 350's have a BHN of 14.5 or so. (Lee tester) The wife was shooting her Super Seven (Brno 7x57mm) and was getting cloverleafs and one hole groups. This lead to a little competition later in the day...We were shooting standard clays on the berm at 100 yards. Most clays out of 5 rounds wins. The Super Seven was breaking clays, but the 458WM was turning them into vapor. Lots of fun...
An aside... I had the .44 mag pistol out as well this weekend. I shoot plain based cast from it. Lyman #2 alloy, Blue Dot powder and whatever cases and appropriate primers are laying around. It's my beater hand gun for close range wildlife protection duty in bad weather or generally nasty conditions in the hills. You know; rain, mud, sweat, crud etc, etc. I carry it when I don't want to subject my good 1911 to abuse. Nothing like a revolver for reliability in that situation. Here's the deal though...I was pretty reliably busting clays at 100 yards with it as well, even with the mundane loads I had for it. I'm guessing that the group size was around 3 - 3 1/2" or so. I chrono'd these loads at 1,300+ a hair fps one time. I guess that I better get a higher quality lube and pay more attention to loading for this thing...it seems to show some promise.
The oldest daughter and her boy friend went out shooting on Saturday morning while we watched the grand kids, before we headed for the hills. She made her boyfriend dig up one of my PPCB's from the berm while they were cleaning up the junk on the range. It turned out to be one of the water dropped wheel weight with 2% tin added bullets that windrider919 was talking about earlier. Almost no deformation at all on that thing. The nose was scarred a little from impact with the berm, and the base had barely discernible marks from the paper patch on it. I found that interesting. I haven't cleaned it up and measured it yet. It may be interesting to see what the journey down the barrel did to it.
In conclusion... The Lee push through sizer seems to do a good enough job on getting my GC bullets to a size that works for paper patching. Once my Hornady New Process seating die was honed out to the correct size for the PPCB's it does a very good job of seating the boolits straight and square. The Lee universal flaring die does a good job of putting the correct flare on the cases for loading PPCB's. H4895 gives 95 - 100% loading density and seems to be working fine for me right now with 350, 405 and 465 grn PPCB's. The Lee factory crimp die is a good one to crimp these boolits with, but not with the 16# cash register tape. It worked OK with the 100% rag velum though, if you were careful. Crimping leads to accuracy degradation and barrel leading if not done absolutely right. Boolit jump to the rifling didn't seem to bother the 350 grn PPCb's all that much. They shoot as well as I can, in other words. Alloy DOES make a difference in accuracy. A PPCB made from lead with 2% tin added can be shot at 2,240 fps from my rifle with hunting accuracy, and makes a really big hole on the other end...hits like the hammer of Thor in fact. Shooting the 458WM from the magazine is not conducive to ultimate accuracy, though you can easily obtain hunting accuracy with a little help from your friends. WATCH FOR BULLET SET BACK! Paper Patching and in fact, shooting cast boolits generally, is fun and pretty cheap entertainment. It is a useful skill to have, generally speaking.
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| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
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