This is why I like PC'd boolits

[Beebee]

I've just read the entire thread. I for one am patiently waiting for Beagle to tell us one of his cool dog stories.

[Bullshop]

Love Life
You are of course right about that but all my references are to our own castings and how to make them shoot best. No way could I afford to shoot that type of commercial match bullets.
Here is an example of what I was trying to get at, I am shooting a Stevens 223 with 1/9" twist. I am shooting a surplus powder for the economy and shooting the same load at 100+% density, a compressed load.
With this load I can interchange either a 70gn swaged jacketed RBT-SPT or a 73gn NOE design boolit and sustain the same level of accuracy with both as well as the same POI. This works good for fur hunting because I have two different bullets/boolits that are quickly identifiable but that have opposite terminal performance. Which ever type of terminal performance is desired I can quickly apply either.
Its not a smoking power house loads but no slouch either at right close to 2300 fps average. An interesting aside is that the 73 gn boolit averages slightly less velocity than the 70gn bullet not to re kindle that debate but that is my general experience. Another interesting aside is that I can switch back and fourth and never change POI or group which is another point of contention about having to clean a barrel before going from one type to the other.

[RP]

who would not want to hear a good dog story will he have to prove it with facts or is this going to be a feel good story ?

[Beagle333]

Aw man, now I gotta go find some pictures of the dog or you guys are never gonna believe me.

[snuffy]

That's great snuffy I'm glad you could do that staying within your means. I have to ask why though everyone that seems so enthralled with coating seems to refuse to want to look at the performance difference that is obviously in favor of lubing at least to this point in the knowledge base of coating.
Tell me please in all the years you have been doing this have you ever settled for any one particular load that is proven to be less accurate than another? I doubt it ! On the same token why settle for a form of boolit prep that as far as I can see on average is less accurate than another? It goes against everything we as reloaders strive for in our attempts to extract the very best from our loads.

Most here know that you have to work up a load with any new boolit/bullet. As long as the gun being loaded for is a quality firearm, and the boolit is well made, you should be able to get it to shoot. By that I mean fast enough and small groups. In a semi-auto, function flawlessly as well. For the coated boolits I'm talking about, I already have accurate loads for them as grease lubed, so I know about where to start for them as coated versions.

There's a multitude of different methods used to work up a load. Mine is pick a powder that should work, load different load levels up to max, go shooting. I usually set up the chronograph to record velocities as well as all the other info they provide, mainly consistency. Targets are @ 25 yds. for handgun, 50 yds. for iron sighted rifles, and 100 for scoped rifles.

I DO know that the coated boolits are a lot more slippery than grease lubed. I drop a lot more of them while sizing and I can't store them in ammo boxes nose up, I can't get ahold of them to take them out to load a mag! Some have said they shoot a bit slower than grease lubed, theory is they slide easier, so they don't build pressure as high. Similar to the molly coated bullets did. You MAY have to increase the powder charge a smidgen.

I will be trying some rifle boolits, I already have some .223 loaded with PC'd boolits, and some 190 30 cal made and sized for a .308 rifle. The .223 is for my 1-9 bushmaster AR.

[Bullshop]

Snuffy I will be very interested in hearing from you on how well you get the rifle boolits to perform. I don't have an ar but do shoot a 223 bolt action with a 1/9" twist. So far for my 223 the heavy boolits are shooting best and specifically the NOE 73gn RNGC. Top speed with good accuracy with this gun so far is between 2300 to 2400 fps.
This barrel has only recently started shooting well after fire lapping it. Before lapping it was so rough inside it shot terrible and leaded worse. Now after lapping its settling down and doing well and no more leading. I was about to ditch the barrel but thought I should first try an aggressive fire lapping regimen and that helped tremendously but still I don't expect it to ever be a great barrel.

[snuffy]

The .223 boolit is a Lyman 225462, supposed to be a 54 grainer. Mine cast out @ 60 grains, using my range lead alloy that's around 12-14 BHN. I haven't done a hardness test lately, but it's just about COWW in casting properties.



That's the two rifle boolits I'm going to test. I also coated some 420 45/70 boolits, those are way down on my list of loading projects.

I found loading data in cast bullet handbook #3 using WW-748, 19.0 to 26.0. I had very little of it left, didn't know if I could get more. So I substituted H-335, started @ 19.0, ended @ 25.5. We'll see how that goes.

The 30 cal. is Lyman 311644CV. I have no idea what the CV means. But it has a tapered bore riding section, instead of being .300 down to the front of the crimp groove. It starts at .300, but is .308 at the bottom!? My former boss at the gunshop asked if I could cast some, then PC them. It was a brand new mold he had just got along with a new set of handles. I can't find that one in the #3 CBHB. It's pretty close to the 311334 in shape and weight, and there's load data for .308 and H-335.

I'm glad to hear you can shoot cast and J-words from that Savage .223 without worries about cleaning before changing projectiles. I have some Nosler varmegedon bullets to test, at the same range session "when I get there"!

[Bullshop]

I have that same Lyman 225462 mold and mine cast at 60gn too. I milled of the GC shank and its now a 50gn PB. I did that because I felt the boolit was too long for low velocity in a 1/14" twist. It does very well now.
The jacketed bullets I am interchanging with are hand swaged 70gn spitzer with rebated boat tail. They are swaged using 22 RF jackets so I don't know if that will make any difference than with a conventional guilding metal jacket.

[RP]

I am still waiting for the dog story.

[mwc]

I think that sales are down and can find customers, by the way what kind of tricks Can that dog do Beagle?

[Beagle333]

by the way what kind of tricks Can that dog do Beagle?

Well he doesn't do anything now... it was a dog that I had when I was a kid. Being raised a country boy on a farm, we didn't have that many choices of purebred stock to pick from as pets, so my boyhood dog ended up being an English Shepherd cross instead of a full blooded retriever as I had asked for. And so, try as I may, that dog just showed no interest in fetching my quail and doves that I downed and so enthusiastically tried to get him to retrieve. He just never showed any interest in them whatsoever. So eventually I gave up and he just filled the bill as my faithful companion instead of my world class retriever. But one day we went down to the river and he was sitting beside me and I spied a big snapper poking its head up through the lily pads and I popped it with my .22 and before I knew it, that dog bounded past me like somebody threw a pork chop down on the kitchen floor for him, and he dove out into the water, swam out there an fetched that dead turtle and brought it right back to me! I thought maybe he had gotten into the chicken antibiotics or something and was a bit touched in the head that day, but I did want to see if he might do it one more time, just so I could definitely say he hadn't accidentally spotted the turtle on his own and went out there for it. So I shot another one, and he did the same thing! And so an afternoon of turtle shooting and fetching ensued. And I discovered that if he didn't swim exactly to the right spot, I could throw rocks over toward the downed turtle and he would swim toward the splashing. It wasn't as impressive as a lab who responded to a whistle, exactly, but it was pretty darned impressive! So what if I didn't have a bird retriever.... I had a Turtle Fetcher! And none of the other kid's dogs had any tricks that even came close to that! How's that for one!?

[RP]

That is a fine story thanks for sharing I am a dog person and all of mine seem to find their own special thing to do most of the time its not what I was hoping for. Oh I know my boys would have loved to have a turtle fetcher.

[Beagle333]

That talent didn't have many practical uses, since I don't eat turtle, but it was pretty cool. I could actually use a dog like that now. I got unwanted turtles in my catfish pond and my neighbor does eat turtles, so I have to go paddle around and dip em out for him after shooting them.

[mwc]

What a great dog.

[Markbo]

Wow. I don't know if this is entertaining or a complete waste of time. But I can offer my own limited experience and I do have some questions. First 44mman has reported remarkable accuracy over a long time. Is he using anything PCd? I don't know-is he? Has he tried it? What are his findings?

Has anyone else reported great revolver accuracy using PC? I honestly want to know. Like snuffy I have limited experience of tub shaken PC only. HF red only. Handgun only. I personally don't cast for rifles. My pistol experience is 2 .45ACP 1911s & 2 .45 Colt in SAA clones. These are not my most accurate handguns but I have reams of data on all 4 and know what they are capable of with many, many different loads. My loads for initial testing were 5.0gr Titegroup under 200gr TC boolits for the .45ACP. These are very similar in shape to the Berry & Ranier plated bullets I shoot from all my 1911s with great accuracy with this load.

These particular boolits are leftovers from experimenting with 200gr loads in my .45 Colts. Never found acceptable accuracy so I quit trying and have quite a few left over.

The .45 Colt was 255gr rnfp over 8.0gr of Unique. These are also store bought boolits I have a large supply of. Like many store bought they are called "hardcast" and they are - they are quite hard and I have had leading issues in 3 different revolvers to one degree or another. The same could be said of the 200gr boolits but I believe that was more of a sizing/ fitment issues that I did minimize with proper sizing later in the revolver testing.

The .45ACP load is a standard load I use in all my 1911s for practice. They shoot around 850fps and has proven accurate (with the plated bullets) in every gun I have ever tried it in. The .45 Colt load is NOT the most accurate load I have developed in either revolver, but I was not trying to get that... I was testing the new PC boolits and I have lots of data on this load in both guns so I know what they have done with it in the past.

These on hand 200gr boolits were .452" out of the box. Prior to PCing the 1911s would chamber fine by hand with dummy loads. After coating one would and one would not so I sized them all to .451" and all was well. A very few bullets sized unevenly looking... meaning they had a bare lead area showing on one side of the driving band but not the other. I segregated all of those loads and shot them separately.

The 255gr revolver boolits started as .454". I sized after PCing. One set .454" and another .452" since I had measured/corrected chamber mouths and tested accuracy. I knew one favored one and the other favored the other. Standard stuff. All of the revolver loads chambered fine. Quite a few of the sized .452" bullets sized unevenly. Those were segregated. Oh... FWIW I had delubed all these slugs before PCing. That was a pain and took a lot of time and effort.

Quite a lot of the .454" bullets shaved a super thin ring of PC material off on bullet seating. I had no way to adjust the mouth opening with my dies and that ring scraped off easily with a thumbnail so I did not segregate those... they were all just shot as I took them out of the box.

My results were as has been reported here ad nauseum which bullshop says he has only seen from people he believes to be new to shooting or casting. Well he doesn't know me from Adam, but all I can do is report my findings. I didn't test for velocity. I probably should have but frankly it is a huge pain at the pistol side at my local range. Much, much easier on the rifle side.

The accuracy however I did check. I have 3 ring binders full of accuracy data from every gun I reload for, even for all the factory loads I have ever shot in them. These results were so close to my existing records I would consider them statistically insignificant. Even the oddball rounds shot just the same as the ones that looked perfect.

AND there was zero leading... I shot those oddball rounds last in the 1911s and in the .452" preferred revolver and not a spec. The .454" preferred revolver shot a heck of a lot more 'oddball' loads and not a spec of lead in it either.

In fact all 4 guns looked clean. 1 wet patch and one dry patch (purely out of habit) and they were clean. I could have foregone the wet patch completely and they would have been fine I'm sure. So is there any benefit? For me... meh.

I shoot outside so smoke is not a big deal. I don't enjoy lubing (I don't have a lubrisizer so I have to pan lube) but it's beats trimming cases. There was no huge accuracy improvement....a tiny bit better in one... a tiny bit worse in another... no big deal. The fact the barrels came out clean was a bonus, but it would not take long to clean 2 guns after a range session - which is usually how many I take at once.

If I start with bare, non lubed boolits that I cast out of wheelweights there is a potential benefit that I have not tested yet. HP use in these moderate velocity guns. 850-900fp with a softer alloy "should" allow HP expansion at these lower velocities but again... I have not tested that. I do know that the Ranier 200gr HPs which I have also used in 1911s with great success do expand fine at my practice loads velocity so I have hope that will be the case in both calibers.

But as usual with this whole casting & reloading hobby... more testing is needed! I hope this wordy monologue was interesting and helpful to someone.

[snuffy]

Wow. I don't know if this is entertaining or a complete waste of time. Do you mean this whole thread? Then I say it is not a waste of time. We definitely need a lot more testing to see how well PC works. But I can offer my own limited experience and I do have some questions. First 44mman has reported remarkable accuracy over a long time. Is he using anything PCd? I don't know-is he? Has he tried it? What are his findings?

Has anyone else reported great revolver accuracy using PC? I honestly want to know. Like snuffy I have limited experience of tub shaken PC only. HF red only. Handgun only. I personally don't cast for rifles. My pistol experience is 2 .45ACP 1911s & 2 .45 Colt in SAA clones. These are not my most accurate handguns but I have reams of data on all 4 and know what they are capable of with many, many different loads. My loads for initial testing were 5.0gr Titegroup under 200gr TC boolits for the .45ACP. These are very similar in shape to the Berry & Ranier plated bullets I shoot from all my 1911s with great accuracy with this load.

These particular boolits are leftovers from experimenting with 200gr loads in my .45 Colts. Never found acceptable accuracy so I quit trying and have quite a few left over.

The .45 Colt was 255gr rnfp over 8.0gr of Unique. These are also store bought boolits I have a large supply of. Like many store bought they are called "hardcast" and they are - they are quite hard and I have had leading issues in 3 different revolvers to one degree or another. The same could be said of the 200gr boolits but I believe that was more of a sizing/ fitment issues that I did minimize with proper sizing later in the revolver testing.

The .45ACP load is a standard load I use in all my 1911s for practice. They shoot around 850fps and has proven accurate (with the plated bullets) in every gun I have ever tried it in. The .45 Colt load is NOT the most accurate load I have developed in either revolver, but I was not trying to get that... I was testing the new PC boolits and I have lots of data on this load in both guns so I know what they have done with it in the past.

These on hand 200gr boolits were .452" out of the box. Prior to PCing the 1911s would chamber fine by hand with dummy loads. After coating one would and one would not so I sized them all to .451" and all was well. A very few bullets sized unevenly looking... meaning they had a bare lead area showing on one side of the driving band but not the other. I segregated all of those loads and shot them separately.

The 255gr revolver boolits started as .454". I sized after PCing. One set .454" and another .452" since I had measured/corrected chamber mouths and tested accuracy. I knew one favored one and the other favored the other. Standard stuff. All of the revolver loads chambered fine. Quite a few of the sized .452" bullets sized unevenly. Those were segregated. Oh... FWIW I had delubed all these slugs before PCing. That was a pain and took a lot of time and effort.

Quite a lot of the .454" bullets shaved a super thin ring of PC material off on bullet seating. I had no way to adjust the mouth opening with my dies and that ring scraped off easily with a thumbnail so I did not segregate those... they were all just shot as I took them out of the box.

My results were as has been reported here ad nauseum which bullshop says he has only seen from people he believes to be new to shooting or casting. Well he doesn't know me from Adam, but all I can do is report my findings. I didn't test for velocity. I probably should have but frankly it is a huge pain at the pistol side at my local range. Much, much easier on the rifle side.

The accuracy however I did check. I have 3 ring binders full of accuracy data from every gun I reload for, even for all the factory loads I have ever shot in them. These results were so close to my existing records I would consider them statistically insignificant. Even the oddball rounds shot just the same as the ones that looked perfect.

AND there was zero leading... I shot those oddball rounds last in the 1911s and in the .452" preferred revolver and not a spec. The .454" preferred revolver shot a heck of a lot more 'oddball' loads and not a spec of lead in it either.

In fact all 4 guns looked clean. 1 wet patch and one dry patch (purely out of habit) and they were clean. I could have foregone the wet patch completely and they would have been fine I'm sure. So is there any benefit? For me... meh.

I shoot outside so smoke is not a big deal. I don't enjoy lubing (I don't have a lubrisizer so I have to pan lube) but it's beats trimming cases. There was no huge accuracy improvement....a tiny bit better in one... a tiny bit worse in another... no big deal. The fact the barrels came out clean was a bonus, but it would not take long to clean 2 guns after a range session - which is usually how many I take at once.

If I start with bare, non lubed boolits that I cast out of wheelweights there is a potential benefit that I have not tested yet. HP use in these moderate velocity guns. 850-900fp with a softer alloy "should" allow HP expansion at these lower velocities but again... I have not tested that. I do know that the Ranier 200gr HPs which I have also used in 1911s with great success do expand fine at my practice loads velocity so I have hope that will be the case in both calibers.

But as usual with this whole casting & reloading hobby... more testing is needed! I hope this wordy monologue was interesting and helpful to someone. It was for me. I never could keep records worth a darn, tried many times, just not built that way. There can never be too much data.

I STILL haven't got to the range. So no new data. My poor lower back, low energy levels, and weather. Maybe on Tuesday---------!?

[RP]

Will you be recording wind speed temp and if its over cast ? Heck guys any info you care to share is great that's what this place is all about. Testing for what your looking for is one thing testing for the world is another. If you PC a bullet load it up for your needs and it works for you well you passed the test. I read and enjoy the post on what is working and what is not and apply some of that info towards my own goals. But in the end its what works for me or I just buy my ammo.

[Markbo]

Stuffy a question? Are you you going to test those rifle bullets with and without gas checks? They are tumbled right? So the bases are coated too? Do you think gas checks help anything since you should have no leading worries at any velocity

[RP]

I would like to say a rifle bullet without GCs under say 1800 fps would be fine when you pass that and get in to lets say 2500 fps the push of the powder may deform the base of the bullet causing poor performance. You may not get any leading but you may not get what your looking for either. Those speeds are just a rough guide not something carved in stone. I base this off what I have read from people that should have a very good ideal of what they are talking about and to me it makes sense. Now that info was giving on lead cast bullets but since PC is not making them harder just coating them the alloy should react the same.

[snuffy]

Stuffy a question? Are you you going to test those rifle bullets with and without gas checks? They are tumbled right? So the bases are coated too? Do you think gas checks help anything since you should have no leading worries at any velocity

Mark, because the general consensus is that lubed GC boolits just don't shoot worth a darn without the gas check installed, I'm going to do the first test with them installed. I already have them so it's not like I had to buy those expensive little buggers. I dunno, I just feel that money spent in the past seems like it has no real value. I know, if had to buy some more, the cost would be real!

I noticed they are harder to seat on the shank, because the GC shank is bigger, but not much more work. Would I try no GC if the GC'd don't shoot well? I would cross that bridge when I come to it. I don't shoot much lead boolits in rifle, my main goal is pistol and specifically 9mm because of problems with leading no matter what I tried.