Yesssss! I got .460!

[44Blam]

I bought a new Marlin (Remlin) and it slugged to just under .460. So, I have an RCBS sizer to .459 and those boolits shoot great, but I got my Lee sizer today that is .460... Time to size/shoot some boolits!
Attachment 211694

[Wayne Smith]

Size a couple of boolits and double check before you celebrate too much!

[white eagle]

all my Lee push through dies were on the money

[OS OK]

Your .459" sized casts were shooting great in a bore that slugs just under .460"? ... That's a bit ambiguous ... How did you lube?
Tumble, Lube Size with special blend or PC ?

Were you casting with No.2 Lyman or even harder?

Notice the chart...sizing different alloys will result in different size casts, alloys softer than No.2 will size smaller than the die. When you shove smaller than bore casts down the bore they usually lead from gassing...unless you PC them after and don't size again.

How were you doing that?

[reddog81]

What gun is this? I read the title and assumed Marlin came out with a .460 S&W. however those should slug at .451 or a little bigger. Did you get the .45-70? That should be closer to .459.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

I was under the impression that the 460 S&W was a 458 cal?.?...

[reddog81]

.460 S&W uses same sized bullets as 45 Colt or .454 Casull. .451 up to maybe .454 depending on the gun.

[knifemaker]

I size my 45/70 boolits to .460 and get consistent groups of 1 inch to 1-1/4 inch at 100 yards. I have several friends that have Marlin 45/70 guide rifles and they also found the best groups when sizing to .460. The marlins I am talking about were all JM Marlins before Remington absorb the company. My LTD-V has standard lands and grooves and not micro-groove barrel.

[44Blam]

Your .459" sized casts were shooting great in a bore that slugs just under .460"? ... That's a bit ambiguous ... How did you lube?
Tumble, Lube Size with special blend or PC ?

Were you casting with No.2 Lyman or even harder?

Notice the chart...sizing different alloys will result in different size casts, alloys softer than No.2 will size smaller than the die. When you shove smaller than bore casts down the bore they usually lead from gassing...unless you PC them after and don't size again.

How were you doing that?

This gun is brand new, so I'm trying to figure out what it likes... It's an 1895 Marlin and it's a 45-70. So far I really like this gun.

The first 50 rounds were lube/sized with Ben's Red. That stuff is awesome, but messy if you screw up. Then I tried Powder Coating. I might be hooked on the Powder Coating...I like it and I like having coloured boolits...AND I like not having to deal with lube... So the next 50 rounds were all HF Red PC.

The Alloy I am creating is about as close as I can get to #2. I've got some lead that comes out about as hard as WW lead (so assuming 3%, 1%, 96%), and I am melting 2lbs lino, 4 lbs lead and .25lbs tin. This should give me about 5% sn, 5% sb and 90% pb. My hardness tester is not very accurate above about 10 bhn, but the rejects I tested are certainly above 14-15 bhn.

The alloy size is interesting - I'll have to pay more attention to this stuff and measure more often!

Anyway, by "shooting well", I laddered some PB and GC boolits with Varget - the hottest loads being 54 grn under a 405 grn GC boolit. Those were compressed and kicked like Chuck Norris. I am sure that I don't want to shoot a box of 50 of those in a go. The lightest were PB boolits with 40 grn Varget. Those shot very easily. I found that I had good accuracy with the 40 and 50 grn Varget and at 54 grn it seemed that the accuracy was a little wild - but that might be an operator issue.

I also included 6 rounds with some Trailboss - I think that was 15 grn - those are fun and accurate as well. I'll make more of those for when my wife wants to shoot it.

On the second 50 -- the PC'd ones: They were all PB boolits weighing in at 405 (actual was 401-402 grn of the ones I weighed). Those were a ladder of 4198 starting with 30 grn -> 32 grn of IMR 4198. That was the min/max listed in Lee's book... Those all shot without a lot of recoil and I got some really good groups. Based on what I have read about the PC, etc I feel pretty confident that I can up that charge by a few grains with no real issues...

My next group is 50 500 grn PB boolits under 38-42 grn of Varget and anther set of 405 grn GC boolits under 43-46 grn of 4198. These are all PC'd and they were sized .459.

I'm gonna have to do a casting session to get some more boolits to size in my new die...

I love learning what my guns like to shoot!