200 gr bullet performance

[Blammer]

Ok, this was a bit surprising, to me at least.

I have a 35 remington Contender.

I loaded some 200 gr FP cast bullets with 10 gr Unique. A very accurate plinking load. Just for grins I set up 7, 1 gallon milk jugs in a row at 20 yards and shot into them.

I would have bet money that I would have recovered the bullet, but nooooooo, it punched through all 7 of them and out the back one.

Found a perfect 38 cal hole in and out of all of them.

I think the lead is a bit hard....

May have to up the velocity if I want to hunt with them....

I'm hoping to find a mold of the same dimensions, then I can make my own and maybe make them softer.

Below is a pic of the bullet but it's loaded in a 357 mag case instead of the 35 rem case.

[MtJerry]

Blammer ... do I know you from another forum?

If so, I have a Lyman mould that drops 200gr round nose bullets (hollow point) that would shoot well in your 35 remington.

[Marlin Junky]

Blammer,

Is that SAECO 351? I like the looks of that boolit. What velocity were they doing and how'd they group? I just got back from exercising the .357 H-R (22" barrel) and discovered that it'll shoot 1", 5 shot groups at 75 yards with RCBS 35-200FN and DP-68 (AKA WW-680/WC-680/AA1680) and I wasn't even getting a good burn due to (more than likely) a total lack of crimp and standard pistol primers.

MJ

[44man]

I would not worry about making them faster. Make them expand a little instead.

[Blammer]

MtJerry- I dunno, I visit, predator master, 24hr campfire, and about 6 others to name a few. I am always Blammer. (aka Darrell)

Talk to me about that bullet you have and the mold! I'm all ears!

Marlin Junky- I bought the bullets from NBC a while ago. I'd like to find the mold...
as far as the velocity? I'll have to chrono it sometime later. The groups? I have shot 5 almost into the same hole, I'd measure it to be about .4, but that was at 20 yards. It does well out to 100yds but drops quite a bit due to slow velocity.

[garandsrus]

Blammer,

I have the RCBS-200-FP mold and shoot the boolit in a Marlin 336. I shot some with 9.5 gr Unique for an average velocity of 1273 fps and at 11.5 gr the velocity was 1416. Both loads had very low extreme spreads and SD's.

This mold is commercially available as a two cavity gas checked. If you would like to try some, let me know...

John

[Marlin Junky]

Marlin Junky- I bought the bullets from NBC a while ago. I'd like to find the mold...

I don't own #351 yet (maybe I should order one) but your boolit looks like it may have come from SAECO #351.

BTW, at near 1400 fps RCBS 35-200FN traversed a 9" long section of a 4x4 stud today, hit the ground and ricocheted down range with a mighty "twaaang" The un-annealed Hornady gascheck made it to the 6.5" point before separating from the boolit... I was impressed. The RCBS 35-200FN was cast of 15+ BHN metal and sized to .358".

MJ

P.S. I pulled a picture of SAECO 351 off Midway's website and it looks to be a good match to your boolit above.

[Blammer]

Garandsrus- thanks, incoming PM..

[Lloyd Smale]

I know that same bullet loaded to 1600 fps shot through both shoulders of a 220lb boar that my girlfriend shot. Pig took one leap and piled up deader then a stone. Bullet was cast out of 5050 ww/lyno and did a suprising ammount of damage internaly. Some of that could have been due to bone framents but it was impresssive never the less.

[Bass Ackward]

Meplat size vs hardness vs strike velocity and of coarse medium. Slight change of one of those variables will often throw unexpected results even with jacketed.

Whether expansion is desired or not, testing is the most under utilized tool for most hunters. Which is why you run into guys that always seem to have the wrong setup for the game they are going after.

Hunters seldom test and understand the limitations of their launching system. They feel better going on .... "trust" of the company's research on a particular bullet. And if they do test, the test is almost always up close. Too much work to move the medium on out.

So for jacketed, more velocity and more power has become the easy out for most. As a result, we got the magnum craze. For cast, hard and wide provides peace of mind as .... the best we can do.

Regardless of philosophy or bullet material, always test.

[Blammer]

Marlin J- thanks! I'llhave to put it on my wish list!

[Marlin Junky]

Bass,

One of the reasons I bought the .357 H-R was to test .35 Rem., .358 and .35 Whelen downrange ballistics without setting up targets at 200 to 300 yards. It's nice to have a whole family of .35's at one's disposal and the .35's are definitely a good bunch to own if one is a boolit nut.

MJ

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Marlin Junky

You make so much sense you're scarin' me. Aside from my .54 muzzle loader and my shotguns, all the bores in my guns are .35.

Blammer,

If you go to Mountain Mold's website they have a bullet designing program that lets you control most of the dimensions, and the program draws the bullet for you. The only "drawback" is that they all have to have a flat meplat. However, that's exactly what your boolit looks like. I wouldn't doubt that in 15 minutes you could have a look-alike of your boolit. And Mountain Molds offers 4-cavity molds to boot. They're fairly reasonably priced. If you can afford a Saeco or RCBS, a custom-made Mountain Mold ain't much more.

[Blammer]

Black Jaque- I'v see Mountain Molds design program, it's pretty neat. I'llhave to look at my options.

[Marlin Junky]

I've decided to try substituting SAECO 352 (248 grains) for RCBS 35-200FN while using my same 21 grain charge of DP-68 because I got a tremendous amount of unburnt powder using the latter boolit at 15+ BHN. Other new parameters will be a little softer alloy used in the casting of SAECO #352 (approx. BHN 14) and if I can dig up some small rifle magnum primers, I'll use them too. I won't be able to cover the lube groove with .357 mag brass while seating 352 on top of 21 grains of DP-68 so I'm going to trim a few SuperMag cases back to 1.43 or so inches.

Maybe some of you guys can plug these numbers into QuickLoad and estimate what kind of pressures I may be dealing with.

MJ

[Lloyd Smale]

I use that 248 grain seaco in my 356 I dont have the mold for it but my buddy Frank at mount baldy sells them and does a great job casting them. I shoots so well as he casts it and i dont shoot enough of them to justify casting. Its the best shooting bullet of any kind in my 356

I've decided to try substituting SAECO 352 (248 grains) for RCBS 35-200FN while using my same 21 grain charge of DP-68 because I got a tremendous amount of unburnt powder using the latter boolit at 15+ BHN. Other new parameters will be a little softer alloy used in the casting of SAECO #352 (approx. BHN 14) and if I can dig up some small rifle magnum primers, I'll use them too. I won't be able to cover the lube groove with .357 mag brass while seating 352 on top of 21 grains of DP-68 so I'm going to trim a few SuperMag cases back to 1.43 or so inches.

Maybe some of you guys can plug these numbers into QuickLoad and estimate what kind of pressures I may be dealing with.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

I use that 248 grain seaco in my 356 I dont have the mold for it but my buddy Frank at mount baldy sells them and does a great job casting them. I shoots so well as he casts it and i dont shoot enough of them to justify casting. Its the best shooting bullet of any kind in my 356

Yup,

It shines in my wide grooved 336A too. 39 grains of DP-74 and we're off to 1.5 MOA land with receiver sights... over 2400 ft-lbs. of muzzle swat too.

I could use some help from the QuickLoad guys... I need to hit the loading bench tonight... please see post #15 above.

Thanks,
MJ

[Marlin Junky]

I decided to go with 22.0 grains of DP-2200 behind SAECO 352. Results next week. I'm also going to try a case full of DP-68 behind RCBS35-200FN. I'll be cutting .357Maximum brass back to 1.43" and seating to barely cover the lube groove. I'm almost positive there's enough throat to do this. If .360DW cases are anything like .357Mag cases in terms of wall thickness, they should have a little more capacity than a Maximum case shortened to 1.43" and I should have ordered some a week ago. Oh well, I'm saving a couple bucks by cutting down old Maximum brass and if I like what happens I may ream to 35-30 Winchester instead of .357Maximum. I don't think I want to bother with the Herrett unless I can do one significantly cheaper than a 35-30 Winchester.

I'll start another thread on the .357 H-R next week.

MJ