The saga of cast boolets in 222 Remington.

[P Flados]

Wow... I was trying to size the bullet to fit the chamber...You are sizing the chamber to fit the bullet.

Dale

Not quite. The chamber adjustment was actually just me trying to make "the best of a bad situation" with my limited tooling. A good chamber will have at least some throat. Mine has none. With the "as found" chamber, any amount of bullet over say 0.2245" would have just shaved off. My bullet fit is still on the fat side (probably bigger than I need) but now there should be no shaving.

Even though my chamber may not be "ideal" by normal standards, I like the way the marks look on a chambered round when I pull it back out. The boolit is not touching any rifling, but a little bit of the the taper on the boolit is mating with the lapped in taper at the end of the chamber.

I am getting some amount of sizing (mostly about a 0.0005" reduction across where the boolit is biggest) of my medium soft boolits during seating in the case. After I give "as cast" an honest chance, I will probably try to fab up something to do some test runs for bullets sized down some. This will be a low (time only) investment to see if some other diameter works better.

I did get 15 rounds loaded. Boolit seating was light, smooth and generally felt great. I used 3.2 grns of Promo (Red Dot equivalent). This is about as low as I can go before I start worrying about poor metering from my measure. It has worked pretty good for me in other "pop gun" loads. Before next weekend, I need to figure out what to put in the other half of my brass. My Titegroup would be the obvious choice, I just do not "feel" that it will do any better at this point.

[w30wcf]

P Flados,
Thank you for the update. I hope your testing goes well.

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Thought I would post a pic of the .22 Cast bullets I have known.....



w30wcf

[castalott]

Which of those bullets shot the best? If I was to guess just on groove riding diameter vs length, I would say 225415 old style and 225462... If the diameters were correct, the RCBS 55 might work also...

How far was I off?

Dale

[runfiverun]

I have run the RCBS 55gr boolit up towards 2800 fps.
their 45 would do well also.

[castalott]

I have run the RCBS 55gr boolit up towards 2800 fps.
their 45 would do well also.

Do you remember group size?

[runfiverun]

under 2" at 100 in the regular 9 twist AR's.
the heavy barrel 8 twist done better.
the Ruger Varmint done around 3/4-1" at 100 but shot well enough for ground squirrel hunting.
the same 223 load [22.5 grs of IMR-4895] done well in the 22-250 and 220 swift also.
I burnished the nose section in my mold right in front of the drive band and got it to 219 and the drive bands pour to just over 225.

[w30wcf]

Which of those bullets shot the best? If I was to guess just on groove riding diameter vs length, I would say 225415 old style and 225462... If the diameters were correct, the RCBS 55 might work also...

How far was I off?
Dale

Dale,
Yes the old style 225215 (51 grs.) was the heaviest bullet that shot well in the Hornet. The heavier ones were too long to fully stabilize in the slow twist. The NEI and 225438 shot very well at also. The RCBS bullets were given me from a friend to try but the bases weren't the greatest.


w30wcf

[P Flados]

Well, I am giving up in trying to get 222 cast flat side plinkers to work in my 10" contender barrel.

I tried various diameters (0.224, 0.226 & 0.228 as cast), a couple of powders & numerous charge levels. I started with a 46 grn, made a second cavity to drop a short 25 grn and reworked the 25 grn to drop 29 grn. All with similar bad (5 - 15 moa from 5 shots) results.

I was real hopefull when I started given how easy it had been to get a good 30 Herrett plinking load from a short little 55 grn flat side.

Today I shot a couple of 222 loads with my 29 grn flat side boolits. More than 1.5 inch of spread at 30 ft. Then I swapped over to the 30 Herrett with a 2x scope and put 3 in one little ragged hole Then I swapped scopes (all of the 222s had been with my 4x) and fired one more > 1.5 inch spead group from the 222.

[racepres]

And My Old Octagon Contender 222 works real well with a 60 gr pointed gas checked Boolit.
Sorry don't know the Mold, as I bought these..I put them over about 6 gr of Unique and have a Blast with it.
Rather mild load that shoots nice for me. if I need more A$$...I have a 221 Fireball, or if I really wanna shake the Bushes...the 22-250...but, I shoot the 222 much more!!!


Edit; looking at the pic from w30wcf, I would say I am shooting the RCBS 55...HTH

[castalott]

Sorry to get to this late..... remember to use book data..not mine...

We had a another test session but it didn't go so well... I'll only show the best such as they are...



Ray shooting his rem 700 HB Varmint Special.. 45 gr NOE WFN with Lee tumble lube sized .225. Powder was 3.0 gr Unique. It was less than an inch outside to outside but not as good as some....



Ray with 700 again. 45 gr NOE coated with 4 very thin coats of Hi Tek sized .225. 6.0 grains Unique. Throw out the far right hole and there are 8 in just over an inch & 1/8th outside to outside.




This was my CZ Lux with NOE 45 WFN sized .225 & tumble lubed. Powder was 5.0 Unique.

The group is a wild 2 & 5/8ths inch horizontal spread. Strange, the outside ones printed first and then the holes started snuggling up into the black square.

I am beginning to think it takes 5 or more rounds to condition the bore for a real group test...

[castalott]

Winter is coming on and I will have time to play with this again. I hope you all are as excited as I am... Dale

[wmitty]

Yes sir; it's time to get back to working on these loads!

[arlon]

Castalott, thanks for the effort on this thread. I have 3 .222s, early Ruger #1, Remington 722 and a 10" Contender. I have not tried cast in them but do have a few molds in .22 (Lyman 225438 and 225450). I'm getting inspired to play with them and cast bullets.

[castalott]

I'm glad to return...This has been the most fun shooting in years... And I am trying to make something useful and frugal... appeals to my % of Scottish blood!

But I must admit I am not very good at this... hasn't stopped me yet!

Dale

[castalott]

Too much work this winter...Hope to start soon

I ordered this..

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product...021ovfsj4h9k30

and I can't get it to load...I am so helpless with a computer...

Anyway it looks like someone really thinks like I do. ( That should scare the daylights out of them.) I hope this slug is really what I want....

Al called me today ( Sunday) because I had messed the order up and he needed some clarification. He caught me in a deep nap and I was confused... I'm sure he thinks I am an idiot and he may be right.


Thank You, Al, for fixing my mess up!

[wmitty]

Looking forward to seeing your progress with this boolit...

[castalott]

Ok...Got the mold today and cast some.....




I see at least one that should not have made it thru inspection. These were cast of 50/50 WW/ pure and weighed 53.0 to 53.5. I know some of the variance is the 'whiskers' from pressure casting. I washed this mold 3 times with my special soap and water but still had one cavity with a blemish on the nose. Finally the pot temp was set to"High' and boolets were produced....

The boolets were pretty round ( only .005 from round). I do wish my rifle was not 'tight' necked. If I can load these as cast ( just TL'd) and they shoot....well...happy dance!


Oh...my alloy, my mike, my technique... I could be off as much as 1/2 inch...lol....

[castalott]

better pics....




and another...





sized ....




note damage to base when sized nose first...

[castalott]

another pic...



Note the flaired base as the bottom boolet was drove into the muzzle... You can see the rifling marks on the nose. This boolet should stay straight in the bore if I can chamber it...

[castalott]

Remember you can click on these pictures for a larger view....



This is a closer view of the damaged base...

This is a little better view of the sides after sizing to .225




edited to add...sized in Lee push thru dies...