Stock Rifle HV "HOW"

[vzerone]

Range day today, cold and sunny. 43 degrees is cold down here in SoFla. I didn't last very long, but I managed to shoot a few strings with the Ruger GSR rifle with the 1:12 FN barrel. Today I had changed a few things: I used Lapua Palma brass (small rifle primers). Cases were virgin, full length sized and chamfered. Primers were Remington Bench Rest 7 1/2. All bullets were NOE 165 XCB, alloy was linotype.

Today I used two ball powders, LeveRevolution and H-414. The LvR loads were taken from Larry Gibson's excellent writeup on the NOE forum where he tests velocities in 10 and 12 twist rifles (remember Larry?)

After shooting a bunch of loads in my heavy XCB rifle (tested cast bullets coated with liquid moly), I shot these groups with the Ruger (5 bore conditioning shot were fired first):
Attachment 159048Attachment 159049Attachment 159050Attachment 159051

As you can see, accuracy was good right up to 2500 FPS, anything above started to scatter. The H-414 loads didn't shoot well at all; I'm including them to show the speeds reached.

So in my rifle the linotype bullets certainly trumps the softer alloys, no doubt about that.

I'll probably be taking a break from this forum; the banning of two good friends has certainly put a damper on my interest in Cast Boolits.
I have learned a lot here, and corresponded with a bunch of high quality people, and I wish all of you the best of luck in your shooting.

bjorn, nice shooting. I never liked H414 with j-words or cast.

Hate to see that you're not going to be on much.

[popper]

The shrinking dia. theory if hydraulic lube force is interesting but also consider the GC boolit hitting the bore. Like a drill bit that grabs when almost through the metal, different twist force. Also the inertia of the nose stretching the boolit, friction difference. I PC and although no lube in the groove, #2 does OK until fps is high enough to strip.

[runfiverun]

those are match jackets and not always match cores.
and even smaller J-4 [22 cal] jackets will sometimes vary in weight by about .2grs. [the jackets weight is in the 15gr range]
the factory's do not weight sort everything they do.
but I have/do, and you will find those occasional jackets or swaged cores that just do not measure up.
sorting the core-jacket weights and adding them together for a final finished weight before making the bullet usually gives you the most consistent results.
but you have to look for those anomalies in the jacket or the core and not use them.

[TXGunNut]

Very interesting results, Bjornb. LVR results are pretty impressive, show lots of promise. Thanks for taking the time for photos and posting your results.

[vzerone]

I agree with you Popper on the fliers they are part of the group good bad or indifferant in my opinion.

On the shrinkage of the Bullet Dia that Goodsteel mentions I concour with him. As there is no evidence of gas cutting on his, another member (yes I know whom the member is and will let him announce his own observations), and Larry Gibson. These fine gentlemen are at 2900 fps for this test.
I spent several hours at Goodsteel's today we spoke of different ways to validate this occurrence. Harder alloys was discussed, we both agreed that "we" should stick with the originally noted alloy. Larry Gibson was the first one to note it.Goodsteel was on the quest to document it by capturing the bullet in the sawdust box. The question I have is with the faster twist is will we be hitting that as well along with overspin and precession which we are attempting to overcome by better casting and more attention to detail. Or will that issue be at the same velocity or a lower velocity as the slower twist .
Is the shrinking of the bullet the cause of the fliers or is it badly casted bullets that look fine to us visually. Just food for thought.
Hydraulics

Here is a picture of a section of Goodsteel's bullet on the CBA forum. You said there was no gas cutting. Remember I was not able to see the rest, or the whole, of the bullet, but you had better take a look at the section I cropped. That, sir, is gas cutting.

[vzerone]

Same with Larry Gibson's bullet, which I also can't see the whole of the bullet. There's two gas cuts on this if you can find them. One of them looks just like Goodsteel's.

[popper]

they go fuzzy when trying to enlarge but I would expect cutting from small boolits - he could lube with canola oil to verify. Dip the boolit and wipe excess of the GC, load & shoot. Works to 2700 in 308W, no leading. As it doesn't fill the L.G., no hydraulic pressure. IMO it's alloy plastic failure and limits HV success. I understand wanting to stay with a standard alloy BUT?

[vzerone]

they go fuzzy when trying to enlarge but I would expect cutting from small boolits - he could lube with canola oil to verify. Dip the boolit and wipe excess of the GC, load & shoot. Works to 2700 in 308W, no leading. As it doesn't fill the L.G., no hydraulic pressure. IMO it's alloy plastic failure and limits HV success. I understand wanting to stay with a standard alloy BUT?

On the first bullet on the bottom of the groove is a little like tear or like the letter L fell over to the right...that's it for that one. On the second pic
the same tear or L fell over except this time up on top. You can clearly see them on the pics that are on here before enlarging. Also on that second bullet that deep horizontal groove may be a gas cut too, but the other two are definitely.

[popper]

Vzerone - my concern/question - Tim thinks the incomprehensible lube film(?) is shrinking/stretching the boolit. My thought is different BUT it doesn't make any difference if the alloy is 'shrunk' going down the bore, accuracy can't be good, GC comes off, etc. Does that force an fps/pressure limit on the alloys we normally use? Or is it a lube limit? combination? Does a 'plastic' coating help or hurt? I don't know but would like to find out. His test definitely shows us something is going on that we (I) didn't know before, that is problematic.

[vzerone]

Vzerone - my concern/question - Tim thinks the incomprehensible lube film(?) is shrinking/stretching the boolit. My thought is different BUT it doesn't make any difference if the alloy is 'shrunk' going down the bore, accuracy can't be good, GC comes off, etc. Does that force an fps/pressure limit on the alloys we normally use? Or is it a lube limit? combination? Does a 'plastic' coating help or hurt? I don't know but would like to find out. His test definitely shows us something is going on that we (I) didn't know before, that is problematic.

popper....again one test does not prove a thing. When he fires and collects many bullets and they all exhibit that, then and only then is he getting anywhere. Let me say I've been at the same velocities they have (and more) and I'm not losing gas checks. I don't believe Larry Gibson's gas check showed melted soldered alloy on the inside bottom of it from either powder combustion heat or friction heat. Here's a very easy to understand explanation of that. Have you ever recovered rifle bullets that still had lube in the grooves? I'm sure you have as many of us have. You must definitely find lube in revolver/pistol recovered bullets. How does that lube stay there if Larry Gibson claims the combustion heat or frictional heat melted the alloy, but lube doesn't get totally melted away. Grant you I do find many bullets that don't have lube on them too. The time period that the bullet is exposed to the heat is in the micro seconds. I know many of tired of this old time explanation (me too) but the old thing about run your finger through a candle flame slow then repeat it fast sure is the truth.

I think you had about as good explanation of why that gas check shank was smaller as anyone. Like I said I'd have to see that on dozens of bullets not just one. That's the problem with these self proclaimed experts....one test is proof for them.

[popper]

Don't remember Larry saying combustion or frictional heat melting Pb. Pressure heat! Tim has the rig to do the testing, I don't.

[vzerone]

Don't remember Larry saying combustion or frictional heat melting Pb. Pressure heat! Tim has the rig to do the testing, I don't.

It's been said and I'm not going to scour through many post on three forums to find it again. Pressure heat sounds plausible.

Larry Gibson also stated on the CBA forum that his recovered bullets showed gas cutting:
LMG
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Inspecting the lands and grooves we see evidence of several things occurring during the internal ballistics. Let us reiterate these bullets were pushed to 2900 fps with a pressure of 50,000 psi.

Here we see an example of some gas cutting on the edge of the rear drive band in front of the GC of the bullet.

***I'm not copying and posting the bullet picture. Heres the link: http://castbulletassoc.org/forum/vie...m_id=63&page=5

[TXGunNut]

Let me say I've been at the same velocities they have (and more) and I'm not losing gas checks.-vzerone

Care to explain your theories on that? Sounds like to me that will be one of the keys to attaining HV with acceptable accuracy. Dunno what to think about lead melting before lube other than to say maybe lube and lead react differently to heat. I think they're using 2700+, care to share your HV lube preference?

[vzerone]

Let me say I've been at the same velocities they have (and more) and I'm not losing gas checks.-vzerone

Care to explain your theories on that? Sounds like to me that will be one of the keys to attaining HV with acceptable accuracy. Dunno what to think about lead melting before lube other than to say maybe lube and lead react differently to heat. I think they're using 2700+, care to share your HV lube preference?

If you are asking why I'm not losing checks then I'll direct towards that. One is I make my own checks and they fit my bullets precisely. Of course it would be very difficult to produce checks with an edge like Hornady and I wish I could, but my checks fit very tight. I use a check seater. I've mentioned before I find them in the backstop dirt even after they've passed through my wood backer board.

I'm also a be advocate of shotshell buffer. This product does a lot of things. It provides a cushion start when the powder gases slam that bullet. It insulates it from the powder heat. It keeps the bore clean. There are some other things I won't go into at this time. I edited to add that the buffer also seals the gas from getting around the gas check.

I try to use the slowest burning powder I can that will get me the results I want which is the velocity I want. There are times I'll use faster powders because I can't get enough slower powder in the case.

These things alone are enough to get you HV shooting with accuracy. As I mentioned in an earlier post there is no single magic procedure.

[TXGunNut]

Good tips, thanks. Is there a lube that's working especially well for you?

[Love Life]

Would a soap lube work well for this application?

[vzerone]

Something interesting about lube. I know you guys keep hearing mention that Wilke's Check article on the forum recently. Well what was interesting is they covered the lube they used for those very HV test and it was LBT Blue. Okay so what's interesting? I know of some people that had that lube analyzed and although they didn't get the total description it was soap based. I like and use the soap lubes. I've read the articles on this forum in past on making soap lubes and all through the multi-million thread on this forum called the Extreme Lube thread. LOL The three Amigos came up with some good lubes. I believe Runfiverun was part of that. From what I hear Geargnasher's SL-68 series of lubes are very good. It's easier to make too. Interesting too in that Wilkes article is that they did try Alox lubes and they failed. They were good to a certain point, but after that the quit working. I know some have said that Javelina will go a long ways, but I never found that using it. Jon the moderator here has made soap lube too if I'm correct. I think you all should at least try a soap lube and a known good one. Remember it's not the magical one thing that will turn your cast shooting into a match competition winner, but it sure will help especially in keeping your bore lead free.

[vzerone]

Mike, do you want to discuss techniques for successful HV cast shooting or sit around and argue about silly definitions? Tell ya what, I'm going to leave that up to YOU and all the other people who know so much more about this stuff than I do. I'm outta here.

Gear

I'm saying the same thing. You guys can learn all you want to know about HV shooting from sgt.mike. I'm outta here too. Thanks for the heads up Geargnasher.

[popper]

We (I) have been thinking that boolits are always under compression when fired. Tim's test got me to wondering, maybe tension (shrinking dia.) plays a part too. If you look at his pic. closely you also see alloy sheared off the front band sticking to the leading edge of the rear band - I've seen it before and it is stuck good - sometimes. The 30XCB L.G. is 0.006 deep but the rifling doesn't even come close to touching the bottom of the groove. Is the boolit acting like silly putty, shrinking,and reducing the contact with the lands, causing stripping earlier? Or nose band and GC only good traction in the barrel? He is to use moly lube and repeat to check for hydraulic action. Interesting - maybe we don't know all we think we do?
edit: I ESPC for rifle so no lube problem, also never see evidence of a lost GC - never have been able to recover a rifle boolit - I did try once - no boolit, no GC.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I should have replied to this post sooner, but didn't because what I'm about to say is seemingly common sense to me and figured everyone else would just already know.

JWT makes a nice list of what to document for HV, for the beginner(like me)...whether online in a report or just on paper at the time of loading and shooting. Not necessarily if you are successful, although it is good for repeat-ability, but mostly for troubleshooting the problem/s you may encounter. I've loaded some preliminary rounds 30-06...not quite to HV, but to the edge. I may not shoot them for a month or so, due to weather...If I didn't document the small details, I would have never remember them all.

I would suggest that you shoot what you have. If it's a completely stock gun say so, if it's had modifications then report that. I believe that as the number of experimenters reporting in increase that trends will begin to emerge.

Sgt. Mike brings up good points regarding the content of report out postings. Any report out should include enough information to allow for duplication of the experiment (scientific method). To that end I would suggest including the following in reports:

• Gun
  
  • Make and model
  • Barrel material, length, twist rate, bore and land measurements
  • Chamber and throat information if available
  • Customizations in barrel, bedding, and chamber
  • Sights
  
  
• Boolit
  
  • Mold make and number
  • Alloy
  • Lube
  • Heat treating
  • Gas checks
  • Age
  • Hardness and how measured
  
  
• Brass and Load Assembly
  
  • Brass maker
  • Sizing details (full, neck, etc)
  • Trim length
  • Neck expansion
  • Any alterations to neck thickness (turning/reaming)
  
  
  
  • Powder type and quantity
  • Buffers
  • Seating die type
  • Crimp
  
  
• Shooting Conditions
  
  • Temperature
  • Wind
  • Bench, prone, offhand
  
  
• Target Results
  
  • Distance
  • Velocity and how measured
  • Group (number of shots and size)

Pictures of the boolit and target should be included where possible.

I will be dedicating a Steyr Mannlicher Model 1950 Bolt Action in 270 with a 1:9 twist to this experiment. I have fired many tens of thousands of rounds of lead in handguns but I am just starting with lead in rifles.

To all of the more experienced members that are involved please be patient with us newer guys. You have laid a foundation that the rest of us can and want to build on.

There are those who come and go from this thread (and website), that's fine I guess, we have 40,000 members, I'm sure there is a couple members here that aren't commenting in this thread that have some HV experience.