First rifle cast.

[Eric H]

I am using a lee 180 gn. mold I baught at a yard sale. It is for my 30-06 and 30-40. Still need to test them though. After casting, Gas check, and lube . they were weighing between 179 and 179.8 I used a mix of WW. and some already fired cast from range scrap. Im guessing they are fairly hard. Still need to get a hardness tester.

[JeffinNZ]

Excellent. What powder do you intend to use?

[Eric H]

i added the picture, I am trying unique, trail boss and some 4831. Its what I have . Still cant get alot of powders yet around here. The lube I use is rooster jacket. I use it on all my pistol Boolits with no problem. that or 45 45 10 . wich I finnaly have been able to get it mixed right.

[Eric H]

Shot these out of my sons 30-06 today. Loaded up 20 With 15 grains of unique. My boys and I couldnt believe the lack of recoil and yet the acuracy was good and no leading. We were shooting out to 200 yards at a steele plate. I have some trail boss I want to try next. Just need to find out the charge weights. My oldest is itching to kill his deer in Idaho this nov. With some of these.

[sthwestvictoria]

Looks great. You don't have to seat them at the crimp groove, you can safely seat them a bit longer if it helps accuracy in your rifle (and they fit in the magazine and load). It can be safe to seat cast bullets long and even touching or engraving the rifling which is counter to advice for jacketed bullets. You generally don't want them so long that the top lube groove is exposed as the lube will gather pocket fluff.

I would place a chronograph ahead of a hardness tester in terms of tools for the caster IMHO. Have you looked at the sticky about testing hardness with a pencil?

[Eric H]

Yes , I told my better half I need a chrono for christmas. I can definatly see how it is a must with trying to develop a good load with cast rifle. I never thought a few grains of pistol powder would send that boolit flying out 200 yards to the steele gong target. I use rooster jacket as a tumble lube on those. I checked out some pan lube videos , and there is a member here that makes the cookie cutters for the boolits. So many cool and awsome tools I must have. its hard to prioritise sometimes.
I wish I had my camera to catch the smile on my youngest sons face. He thought the old 30-06 was going to hurt.

[sthwestvictoria]

I checked out some pan lube videos , and there is a member here that makes the cookie cutters for the boolits. So many cool and awsome tools I must have. its hard to prioritise sometimes.

Well you don't even need a cookie cutter, I just use a silicone baking mold and pick up the lube/bullet cake when cooled to a plastic consistency and push the lubed bullets out backwards with thumb pressure:

[Eric H]

Never thought of that. Those look like some nice boolits. Look like mine. Is that from a lee 180 grn round nose mold

[shadowcaster]

Did you use any dacron on top of your powder when you loaded them?

Shad

[Eric H]

No, but after reading about it in a thread, I plan on doing it for the next set. will any dacron fiber work, or does it haft to be a specific type. I have quite abit I use for some of my fishing flies

[shadowcaster]

No, but after reading about it in a thread, I plan on doing it for the next set. will any dacron fiber work, or does it haft to be a specific type. I have quite abit I use for some of my fishing flies

As I understand it.. any sort of polyfill will work. Dacron is just a brand name. The stuff I used is just the cheap basic polyfill pillow stuffing.

Shad