.492-550 'Hotrod Renegade' no dice!

[54bore]

Alloy gets harder with age. When they are fresh sizing is much easier even with the soft ones I am doing.

I wish i would of had my Cabin tree hardness tester back when i poured this batch of bullets a year or so ago so i could have known what they were then, and what they read now on my tester, even though our charts differ, i stil would have known.

[54bore]

Again hard alloy will drop out of a mould larger in diameter. Yours are at .511 after wrapping mine are .506 to .507

When shoving them through with soft lead from .507 to .501

I don't see that much resistance at all.

Again if your lead is hard alloy the bullets will drop out larger than soft lead. Alloy depending on what the alloy is can be very tough/hard to size.

If your lead was .032 to .038 on your dial you will see a drastic difference in force needed to push them through the die.

Remember our paper is not the exact same thickness either, i have the newer stuff, I believe yours is the older thinner paper? My bet is most of the new guys getting into this are using the same newer paper like myself? I dont think you can even get that old thinner onion skin paper anymore? I see it sold on Ebay and such as 'vintage' onion skin paper. 2 wraps of My paper adds 8 thou to the overall diameter

[idahoron]

Don't get me wrong as I answer these questions. We are friends, GOOD friends. I value your friendship.


I have three kinds of paper, the newer paper and the old style and air mail paper. I sell bullets wrapped in the newer stuff.



Sometimes the root of the problem is not so easy to see. I am wanting to try to get to the root of the trouble so others don't see it as a barrier for them if they want to take up paper patching with the 500 s&w bullet. If others run into the same trouble you did I want them to get the answer to the problem.




The reason I developed this load was for guys that didn't or couldn't get a custom mould made to an exact size. They just want a cheep mould, a cheep sizer, and some paper. If they just buy pure lead and not worry about hardening at all, this load will shoot in a large assortment of rifles. I have used them or seen others that have used them in Green Mountain, Knight, Thompson center White Mountain carbines, Lyman Great Plains, Pedersoldi Missouri river Hawken, and several CVA's. A lot of testing went into this when I wrote the sticky above. When I published it I had several years of work into it. I have only seen paper strip once on me. That was on bullets that were harder than I recommend. The man that sent them to me had the same trouble and he sent me the sample to test. I tested them and tried to wrap them. They stripped on me like they did him.

Again we all change things to fit our needs. You have changed these quite a bit and they are not fitting your needs. The answer can be found two ways. Go back to known soft lead and make a batch. Wrap them and size them to .501 if you have one. Then wrap some and try them with your .499 sizer. to see if there is a difference. But you need to make sure you have pure lead or lead that is under .038 on the tester.

[54bore]

Don't get me wrong as I answer these questions. We are friends, GOOD friends. I value your friendship.


I have three kinds of paper, the newer paper and the old style and air mail paper. I sell bullets wrapped in the newer stuff.



Sometimes the root of the problem is not so easy to see. I am wanting to try to get to the root of the trouble so others don't see it as a barrier for them if they want to take up paper patching with the 500 s&w bullet. If others run into the same trouble you did I want them to get the answer to the problem.




The reason I developed this load was for guys that didn't or couldn't get a custom mould made to an exact size. They just want a cheep mould, a cheep sizer, and some paper. If they just buy pure lead and not worry about hardening at all, this load will shoot in a large assortment of rifles. I have used them or seen others that have used them in Green Mountain, Knight, Thompson center White Mountain carbines, Lyman Great Plains, Pedersoldi Missouri river Hawken, and several CVA's. A lot of testing went into this when I wrote the sticky above. When I published it I had several years of work into it. I have only seen paper strip once on me. That was on bullets that were harder than I recommend. The man that sent them to me had the same trouble and he sent me the sample to test. I tested them and tried to wrap them. They stripped on me like they did him.

Again we all change things to fit our needs. You have changed these quite a bit and they are not fitting your needs. The answer can be found two ways. Go back to known soft lead and make a batch. Wrap them and size them to .501 if you have one. Then wrap some and try them with your .499 sizer. to see if there is a difference. But you need to make sure you have pure lead or lead that is under .038 on the tester.

I agree, and RESPECT your work on this project Ron, after all you are who i followed when i got in to this. The key to success with this system is SOFT PURE LEAD, After what i just went through I wouldn't advise trying to harden the lead at all, Unless you have a good hardness tester. This EXACT batch of bullets that STUCK in my sizer last night, patched and sized fine a year ago, and they shot amazing out of my rifle! When i ran into this glitch last night it PI$$ED me off, I thought it would be helpful to share my problems, so others are aware and hopefully prevent this from happening to them.

Me being me, if something interests me i will take it as far as i can possibly run with it, I have learned an absolute TON about this stuff From guys like you, through my own trial and error, and Competitive shooters, living next to Buffalo arms has been a good and expensive thing! I have found other ways that I believe and SWEAR are much better, but they also cost more than a cheap Lee Mold to get in to.

[Saxtonyoung]

Ron is right on the money when he says that an lead alloy will age harden. Veral Smith discusses this same thing in his book " Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets".

About 10 years ago I was shooting in a muzzleloader league with a gun I built with a Green Mountain 45 caliber barrel with a 1 - 18" twist. Using a batch of lead with a unknown to me alloy I casted several hundred bullets using a Lyman Witworth mold and sized and lube them all to .450 for a bore size fit. These bullets shot incredibly accurate anywhere from 25 - 250 yards using a peep sight and 50 grains of 777. After a few weeks I was shooting at the league at the 50 yard range and about half my bullets were hitting the target sideways and not necessarily where I was aiming. I'm assuming they were not bumping up correctly to fill the grooves. That's when I learned I could use this alloy for my purposes only if they where recently cast or I needed to find a softer lead. I did finish using this alloy but re-casted bullets on a need to use in the next couple of weeks basis.

[54bore]

Ron is right on the money when he says that an lead alloy will age harden. Veral Smith discusses this same thing in his book " Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets".

About 10 years ago I was shooting in a muzzleloader league with a gun I built with a Green Mountain 45 caliber barrel with a 1 - 18" twist. Using a batch of lead with a unknown to me alloy I casted several hundred bullets using a Lyman Witworth mold and sized and lube them all to .450 for a bore size fit. These bullets shot incredibly accurate anywhere from 25 - 250 yards using a peep sight and 50 grains of 777. After a few weeks I was shooting at the league at the 50 yard range and about half my bullets were hitting the target sideways and not necessarily where I was aiming. I'm assuming they were not bumping up correctly to fill the grooves. That's when I learned I could use this alloy for my purposes only if they where recently cast or I needed to find a softer lead. I did finish using this alloy but re-casted bullets on a need to use in the next couple of weeks basis.

This is exactly what happened in my situation. Ron and i cross referenced our lead hardness sheets that came with our Cabin tree testers and they are TOTALLY different, according to the sheet that came with my Tester (bought new 6 months ago) These bullets are 8BHN, according to Ron's they are 9-9.5BHN, In case any of you bought a Cabin tree lead hardness tester from the new Company your sheet is OFF

[johnson1942]

can i ask a stupid question? wouldnt it be easier to use pure lead? also when i swage with a stiff lip and a deep hollow base the bullet is going to bump up no matter what. i think this makes every thing simple and with out the hassel. just a thought.

[54bore]

can i ask a stupid question? wouldnt it be easier to use pure lead? also when i swage with a stiff lip and a deep hollow base the bullet is going to bump up no matter what. i think this makes every thing simple and with out the hassel. just a thought.

Roger, not a stupid question at all! I now see the key to making Idahoron's system work well with the Lee 500 S&W bullet is using PURE SOFT LEAD or very close to it, after my experience i personally would not advise hardening at all, UNLESS you are very familiar with it and have an adequate tester

[Good Cheer]

Yep, soft. That's what I ran up on with the .458 bore New Englander and the .52 bore Renegade.

[charlie b]

So, did you fire the 450gn PP bullets? Did they do OK in your rifle?

I was curious if you knew the drop on those at range. I have them on zero at 100yd (80gn Pyrodex select) and will try 200yd next.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[54bore]

So, did you fire the 450gn PP bullets? Did they do OK in your rifle?

I was curious if you knew the drop on those at range. I have them on zero at 100yd (80gn Pyrodex select) and will try 200yd next.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Charlie b, i stil haven't had a chance to shoot them, they are sitting here ready to go, our weather has been junk, rain, and more rain. I plan to group shoot them the next break in weather we get

[charlie b]

Thanks. I'll be taking mine out again this week so I will see how it goes.