Accurate PC 350 Yds part 1

[popper]

How fast and what accuracy?

[MUSTANG]

How fast and what accuracy?

I'll raise you one What Range.

Seriously, has anyone bought and shot that specific boolit, and how did it perform? Data and Pics of target results would be appreciated.

[popper]

I think I've wringed all the accuracy I can from HF Red coating on 311644, 311299, RCBS 200 Sil and RCBS 165 Sil cast boolits in my .308's and they do not get the accuracy I am seeking at higher velocities to date. (The RCBS 165 Sil has performed best). I am focusing on .308 caliber

I was serious in my question. 165 Sil is supposed to be good, I don't use it though. I can't use bore rider in the AR10 & don't see any advantage to the arsenal mould above (30cal?).

[MUSTANG]

Below is a Pic of one of my RCBS 165Sil Tests using HF Red and Aluminum (Amerimax) Gas Checks. The black spotter is 3/4 inch. Velocity is ~ 1950 FPS. Range was 100 Yards, shot using a Bipod on Concrete bench with rear Sand Bag. Boolit sized to .310 in Lee Sizer. 10 Round Group which is my normal testing regimen.



This is about the best I have been able to Wring out of the RCBS 165 Sil Powder Coated with HF Red. Shot in a Remington 700 Heavy Barrel chambered in 308 Winchester. The RCBS 200 Sil has consistently been slightly larger, with the 311299 still a little larger yet, and the 311644 being about twice this size when covered with HF Red. Increases in velocity have opened groups much larger.

Attempts to Nose size, then Powder Coat have had spotty results. The "Concentric" issue becomes the problem as you get a Nice Shiny Bore Rider Sections, but it may not be concentric with the driving bands and base.

[kbstenberg]

No one has said anything about sizing the nose before PC. I am wondering if the nose would size easier if sized before and after PC?

[Dragonheart]

No one has said anything about sizing the nose before PC. I am wondering if the nose would size easier if sized before and after PC?

Actually, a lot has been said about nose sizing in the past. Nose sizing in a two step process like the NOE bushings, creates a perfect circle the exact size of the bushing. Sizing the body of the bullet with a bushing or die also creates another perfect circle, and here lies the problem. You can lay a nickel on a quarter, both two perfect circles, but that does not mean they are concentric to each other. What you end up with is a non-concentric (lopsided) bullet that will never be accurate at range because at full power and range the bullet will wobble. Short range accuracy like 50 yards it will be fair, but step it out to 100 yards+ with velocity the problem becomes apparent.

Bama has put a good deal of work into correcting this problem with his process as his PC rifle bullets are the best I have ever seen, far better than my best effort to date. His bullets, fitted to a barrel, may not be as concentric as a Match King, but they are very close and his gas checks are perpendicular and the base completely flat; about as perfect as you can get and his results show it.

[Forrest r]

No one has said anything about sizing the nose before PC. I am wondering if the nose would size easier if sized before and after PC?

It's easier to size the noses after pc'ing them. The pc coating acts like a lube & the pc process temporally aneals the bullets alloy making the bullet softer.
There's times when I want a harder alloy in the bullets I swage. I'll heat the hard alloyed lead cores the same way I bake the pc coating on bullets. This makes the hard/brittle lead cores soft enough to swage without hurting the dies. Some 45acp bullets I swage using a hard/brittle lead core. The swaged hp bullet explodes/vaporizes and the jacket is the only thing left.
[IMG][/IMG]
Hunting bullets on the other hand are better suited with a soft alloy/core. Traditional swaged bullet/soft cores for 44mag hunting loads.
[IMG][/IMG]

A bump die is your best bet when trying to resize a cast/coated bullet. Made a bump die that starts out at .311" at the base/gc of the bullet and tapers down to .308" (at the arrow) and the nose is .301". The lee 230gr bo bullet started out life with a long nose and a boattail. After a trip thru the bump die it now has a shorter nose and a gc base. This bump die is good for longer bullets/bore rider bullets.
[IMG][/IMG]

Taper pin reamers or standard 1*, 2*, etc reamers can be used to make bump dies that reform the nose of bullet to conform to the throat angle of your chamber. An extreme example with a before (top) 311314 bullet with the engrave/rifling marks. And the after (bottom) with the engrave/rifling marks. The bullets was reformed in a 3/4* bump die.
[IMG][/IMG]

I have a 3rd bump die (eagan) that is excellent for nose forming bullets.

Keeping the bullet's base/gc square/aligned with the bullets body is part of the equation, ie single body bump die. The other part is the gc/base of the bullet itself. Bama has an excellent tool that he uses extremely well to install/square his gc's. I went down a different path and changed the gc instead of changing the tool used to install/square the gc. I make my own gc's and gc makers. So I made a gc maker that makes a gc that looks like a round edged bottle cap. Tested a small round edge/more standard profile 1st (right row) and then re-worked the gc maker to make a wider, rounder gc (left row).
[IMG][/IMG]

What the wide/round gc does is fit and gc bullet base with ease. Different molds cast different sized gc bases along with changes in alloy changes the diameter of the gc shank on the cast bullets. 1 size fits all. The rounded edge of the gc does 2 things. It is self centering in a luber/sizer die. Just toss the gc in the lube die and place a bullet on it and pull the handle. The sizing die finishes the forming of the wide gc's foldings swaging the sides of the gc to the bullet with a .308" sizing die. Centered gc/centered bullet every time. The other thing the rounded gc does is makes a rounded edge on the base of the bullet.
[IMG][/IMG]

What that rounded edge does is make reloading the bullet easier/better/less run out in the case along with no square trailing edge. Pressure always goes to the least point of resistance. A square gc has to be flat and no dings on the edges or bad things happen. Rounded edges equalize direct pressure outward.

The bullet pc'ers on this website are the cutting edge with cast/coated bullets. It's only going to get better.

[popper]

The 'rounded' GC idea will force the edges of the gc against the bore harder but what effect the air under the GC has is a question. Would/could it pop the GC off?

[Dragonheart]

The 'rounded' GC idea will force the edges of the gc against the bore harder but what effect the air under the GC has is a question. Would/could it pop the GC off?

I too would question whether this design was a benefit, since we know a perfectly flat check works.

[Phantom30]

Powder load testing shows expected climb do to increased velocity over zero conditons

[Bama]

I was serious in my question. 165 Sil is supposed to be good, I don't use it though. I can't use bore rider in the AR10 & don't see any advantage to the arsenal mould above (30cal?).

Why can't you use a bore rider in AR 10? I do with my RockRiver with no issues. Is there something I am missing or should watch out for?

[Forrest r]

I too would question whether this design was a benefit, since we know a perfectly flat check works.

That's just it, it's hard to get a perfectly flat gc. Where rounded is self centering with both the installation of the gc and in the bore. The 35gr load needed to be re-tested. It has 2 fliers, those fliers were caused from loose gc's (put on while sizing to .311).
[IMG][/IMG]

Later this month I plan on making:
A .311" die for a herters 9-ton swaging press
Making another gc maker with 2 different forming dies, rounded & sq cornered.

The swaging press/.311 die will use lyman/rcbs nose punches designed for the luber-sizers & true the gc/bullet base to the bullets body. I also plan on making a sq/flat base stem, rounded corner base stem & a concave (small hb) stem. Secondary testing will be for slight compression of the bullet (removing any voids) and making sure the bullets body is round.

It all starts with getting 1 good repeatable load to use as a benchmark. Hence a repeatable load that would do 1 1/4" to 1 /12" 10-shot groups @ 100yds in the +/- 2600fps range.

You guys have been shooting/working on/perfecting your alloys, bullet selections, casting/sizing/gc installation & choice for awhile now. I'm just starting and trying to get everything dialed in including myself. As of right now The only thing that is consistent is the bullet. I'm using mixed nato brass now. The target pictured above was with mixed nato & commercial brass along with mag lr primers from the 1970's. Last year I digging thru some old ammo cans I use for storage (looking for a ammo can full of molds I can't find) and found a ammo can full of the old sq boxed cci primers (sp/lp/lr/etc). The mag lr primers I'm using has a $.50 ( a sleeve of 100) price tag on them and a box of mag lp primers has 1977 written on it).
Not trying to make excuses, just putting out there i'm not burning the best components up while I'm still in the process of dialing everything in. As the rifle gets setup/dialed in the reloading components will get dialed in.

I started wondering/testing the difference between sq gc's vs round gc's last year. What I found was I had less fliers with the rounded gc's. That told me that they are more forgiving to either my bad reloading practices or the limits of my reloading equipment. A swaging press setup to true the gc's with sq & rounded corners will make for some interesting testing.

I'm also going to use bump dies that true the gc to the bullets body. I have 3 bump dies already ( 1 for the lyman 450, 1 for the rockchucker, 1 for the arbor press) and plan on making a 4th bump die for the 9-ton press. The bump die's are designed to re-shape the nose of the bullet to fit the throat of the bbl along with trueing the bullets body, trueing the gc to the bullets body & compressing the bullet removing voids.

Anyway I actually started on this 2 years ago testing different area's of casting/lubing/pc'ing/gc's/sizing of the cast bullets. Along with testing 3 different bbl's. Without getting into any bbl twist vs alloy vs anything yada-yada-yada, the last piece of the puzzle for me was the bbl selection for cast bullets. I chose a 30" bbl with a .340" necked match chamber. I did so to test hv cast bullets.

HV ='s 2700fps+

I believe I have 2 loads to work with, that 35gr load and the 38gr load. The 35gr load had 2 fliers and the other 8 were in a 1" high by 1 1/4" wide group. The 38gr load was 3/4" high by 2" wide. I'm going to keep testing with those loads until I get rid of the horizontal stringing. Hoping to get out to do some testing this weekend with the changes to the rifle. Namely the high rise scope mounts (no more squeezing down/crawling the stock to see thru the scope) and the bedding of another inch of bbl. Along with a real rear bag.

[popper]

Bama - I get the 31-184C to feed in the AR10 (RD style with different meplat) but a true bore rider would need to be single fed, IMHO. Any error in fitting would cause trouble.

[Bama]

No one has said anything about sizing the nose before PC. I am wondering if the nose would size easier if sized before and after PC?

Yes it is easier if nose is sized before and after,just takes a little more time

[Bama]

Bama - I get the 31-184C to feed in the AR10 (RD style with different meplat) but a true bore rider would need to be single fed, IMHO. Any error in fitting would cause trouble.

You are correct but I have not had any problem when sized to .300inch

[popper]

Forrest - I see where you are going with this, interesting. I use Josh's Cu GC hat have rounded corners (but flat base after i nose first size) and Hornady, the Hornady are more accurate in my rifles.
bama - All my moulds are FN and loads are near max mag length. I purposely had the ogive cut so it ddin't stick in the bore with PC. Nose sizing hasn't worked for me - don't have the machines to make proper tools.
My moulds have the 308 ball seat design that seams to center pretty good. I did find the RD ogive works better with just enogh nose sizing to get contact with the lands. Cut groups in half for a lever gun. IMHO, full length 'bore' riding nose with the harder alloys we use at HV isn't really needed. Kinda like those rings they use on large artillery shells to seat the projectile. just enough to sit on top of the lands for alignment, then let the rest of the nosse 'slump' into the bore.

[Wreck-n-Crew]

Well i pulled the trigger on the 308 Arsenal Mold with the smaller bore rider front portion. http://arsenalmolds.com/products?product_id. I am hoping to have some accuracy results in before too long. My biggest delay will be load development since the rifle has only had 70 rounds down the tube. Most of them were just break in rounds and a few test loads.

Basically i have to develope a good accurate load with a good bullet to see how accurate the rifle is so that i have a gauge as to how accurate the cast bullets will be.

Since this thread started my interest in accurate cast rifle bullets has went from 0 to 100. Lets see what happens!

Again thanks for all contributions and to the op. I hope i will bring some similar reports of my own to add to the coated cast rifle bullet accuracy!

[Dragonheart]

Well i pulled the trigger on the 308 Arsenal Mold with the smaller bore rider front portion. http://arsenalmolds.com/products?product_id. I am hoping to have some accuracy results in before too long. My biggest delay will be load development since the rifle has only had 70 rounds down the tube. Most of them were just break in rounds and a few test loads.

Basically i have to develope a good accurate load with a good bullet to see how accurate the rifle is so that i have a gauge as to how accurate the cast bullets will be.

Since this thread started my interest in accurate cast rifle bullets has went from 0 to 100. Lets see what happens!

Again thanks for all contributions and to the op. I hope i will bring some similar reports of my own to add to the coated cast rifle bullet accuracy!

I think you are on the right track with a custom mold. A concentric bullet is the only way to achieve full power accuracy and sizing is a key factor. Molds that are made for lube are already several thousands over size and require moving too much metal when PC. I wish you success, as Bama has proven it is possible.

[shortlegs]

wached waco shoot 500 yds with cast boolit and am hooked! this thread has answered a lot of my accuracy and velocity problems with easy fix. thanks for the work and time invested and SHARING of knowledge to all that contributed! Shortlegs

[Wreck-n-Crew]

My 225gr molds are due in soon as it has shipped. However i have run into a problem. Load data! I don't have any load data for a 225gr cast bullet. It looks like i will have to work some up while checking for pressure signs. I also can use the chrono as a compass.another choice i need to make is which powder. So much to mull over.

I know H4895 is a forging powder for reduced loads which will give me wiggle room on the low end of the charges to start. However im not sure H4895 is the best powder for accurate 308 loads.

Open to suggestions. Til then, happy safe loading!