.308 High Velocity at 500 yards.

[oldblinddog]

Yes, very good shooting Larry.

[Love Life]

Great job, Waco! Have you tried additional sorting bullets with a comparator? That's an avenue I would approach after doing your weight sorting tests. I'd also measure the fired cases and adjust my sizer to just push the shoulder back a bit to chamber. Not all at once though. I like to do one variable at a time.

[waco]

Great job, Waco! Have you tried additional sorting bullets with a comparator? That's an avenue I would approach after doing your weight sorting tests. I'd also measure the fired cases and adjust my sizer to just push the shoulder back a bit to chamber. Not all at once though. I like to do one variable at a time.

Hey Dick. Long time no talk. I will sort boolits by measuring from gas check to Ogive with a comparator as well as weight sort. Cases will be sorted as well. This fist run was kinda to see if I could even do it. Things will get refined from here.

Good to see you back and posting LL.
Walter

[waco]

Great job, Waco! Have you tried additional sorting bullets with a comparator? That's an avenue I would approach after doing your weight sorting tests. I'd also measure the fired cases and adjust my sizer to just push the shoulder back a bit to chamber. Not all at once though. I like to do one variable at a time.

This batch of boolits tested were sent to me by RunFiveRun. I just loaded them as is........
I have the same mold now. Waiting an a batch to age harden a bit.....

[runfiverun]

good job Larry.

okay this thread [minus our bickering] shows this isn't that hard.
no voodoo doctors were called in.
no super special 6 part alloy.
no fancy pre-cooked and re-gelled lubes.
simple reloading tools were used.
a pretty good bullet design was implemented and some different powders we all probably have on the shelf were used.
the bullets all got out to 500 yards in a reasonable group size without flinging off into never land.
the best and greatest rifles, scopes, and rests weren't used and they both were able to shoot pretty darn well.

hopefully this gives you guy's on the fence the prompting to look at what was accomplished pretty easily here and give it a go for yourselves..

[geargnasher]

Yes, good job indeed, to Waco and Larry both, I mean it.

It wasn't all that long ago that any claim of 2.5 MOA linear to 500 yards at 2250 fps mv from a bone-stock action/barrel available to any of us at Walmart immediately resulted in a deluge of posts and technical data showing it can't be done, and some would even accuse the person of fibbing. Later, when enough people learned to do it, it was ok, as long as they were the right ones saying so. Now it's a look here, anyone can do it, and that's OK! My how times have changed for the better. And someone wrote earlier that they hadn't. Well, it looks like they have. I gave Larry a blast more than once years back (it's on the forum) about if he'd just learn to hand-load like some of the rest of us were doing, he could get the results we were getting and wouldn't have to spend so much energy questioning veracity, telling us 1900 fps was all we could get with precision, and fighting with us about RPM! Yes, Larry, I was rattling your cage with those comments, but I kinda meant it, too, you weren't doing this stuff back then with normal twists. Now you are, and have shown a time or two more recently, it's good to see.

Hopefully those old days are past us now, because all I ever wanted is what Waco wants, and a lot of others want also: Take a store-bought rifle, throw it in a decent stock (or just bed it properly), put some good glass on it, put together some strong loads, learn to shoot it, and go have fun banging steel whatever without any drama....and further....be able to come here to share or ask for simple assistance getting better at it when we run out of ideas or experience to get past a hurdle. Maybe that's possible now? I sure hope so.

Before anyone sputters "Bbbbbbutttbbutttbuttt the 14 twist shot better, so the RPM theory is true!!", please take a breath and just mull this over: The custom rifle didn't shoot all THAT much better, the 10-twist, 24" Argie still shot a pretty decent, controlled, consistent 500 yard group with what's probably linear dispersion and near the transonic point at the target, and at the same time we got an ordinary dude shooting a factory 22" rifle here who started the thread and he's using some basic loading tools and a store-bought rifle shot off a bipod out of the back of his truck, with not any prior HV cast experience, and still bang 12" steel at 500 yards (and group as well as a lot of factory hunting ammo, at some impressive cast bullet velocities), and I at least think that's pretty cool.

Gear

[geargnasher]

no fancy pre-cooked and re-gelled lubes.

Heck, I done it WITH fancy re-gelled lubes that scored in the 30th percentile against the lube Larry and Waco and a bunch of other HV shooters are using, so yeah, you can do it with stuff you can buy cheap from White Label no problem.

Just don't try to hit anything with it the first couple shots on a cold morning, or after you pull the heat-soaked rifle and ammo out of your 140°F trunk.....

Gear

[Rcmaveric]

Nice job and good video. Impressive. Farthest I have shot is 200 yards. Keep up the good work.

[Hannibal]

You guys are gettin' better, but I'm still thinking a 'group hug' is not going to happen any time soon.

All kidding aside, I can not help but notice that a little bit of courtesy and civility goes a long way. I hope the trend continues. Disagreement about approach and methods has never been the problem. A lack of common courtesy and disregard of civility has been the problem.

And I REALLY hope no one is 'shining everyone on' and poking pins in voodoo dolls elsewhere. (AHEM!)

Nice shooting, fellas. You're gonna inspire me to resume experimenting if this continues.

[Larry Gibson]

geargnasher

Your right, I did learn along the way just as I said earlier in this thread. I did learn you, me or no one else is going to get the old standard cast bullets with short bearing surfaces and a long nose to do what has been shown here at 2265 fps from any 10" twist. The reason for that is the RPM Threshold. Some of you still don't want to believe that and that's fine but the proof is there. I began learning what could be done when I started using the 311466 in 10 and 12" twist .308Ws more than 8 years ago. Higher velocity with linear group dispersion at longer ranges proved possible.

About 8 years ago I was given the take off 14" S&L twist Palma barrel by a gunsmith friend. That barrel was put on a byf M98 action with no "custom" work done on it other than D&T and welding on a scope friendly bolt handle. It still has the military trigger in it I tweaked. The stock was the 1st attempt at a fiberglass stock from a mould made using an old original Savage 112V stock. The maker had thrown the stock in the garbage and I fished it out. I bedded the byf action in it, installed an accessory rail, spray painted it black ($1.95 rattle can) and put a leather lace on butt pad on it. The barrel was screwed in and tightened up with no lathe work needed. The chamber headspace was about .005 short so I finished reamed it with a 7.62 M118 reamer. No truing or anything else "custom" done. If I showed up in goodsteels shop with it he'd probably throw me out.

Anyways most of my HV instant success with the 311466 in both my M70 Match rifle with 12" twist and in the Palma 14" twist rifles has been posted on this forum in numerous threads. Yes, I tried other bullets that were purported to give excellent "bughole" accuracy at HV. I even bought one of 45 2.1s designs in a mould from starmetal. It fared no better at HV than any other with a bore riding nose. I tested many lubes at HV and posted a report here. I changed powders, primers, cases, NS'd, FL'd, different alloys with different percentages of tin and antimony, even got some babbitt sent to me to try. None made any of those older designs or newer designs with shorter bearing surfaces and bore rider noses perform very well above the RPM Threshold, especially in 10" twist barrels. With some of those things done you could push the Threshold up a bit but not nearly as far as Waco and I have demonstrated. To do that it took a cast bullet of proper design, good casting technique, good loading technique, a proper lube, a proper alloy and a proper slow burning powder. Nothing voodoo or witchcraft there just using what is needed.

The 311466 was/is an excellent bullet for HV shooting in any twist from 10" to 17" but it has one flaw. When it was designed there weren't the modern lubes we have readily available today. Thus the lube grooves are to deep and too large. It has a long for bullet length bearing surface and a short non-bore rider nose. It is still a very useful bullet for successful HV shooting.

The next leap forward was goodsteels 30 XCB design. Myself and runfiverun had input into that design. My input was at least 65% bearing surface, the smaller shallow lubes grooves and no bore riding nose. The first XCB was a flat meplat truncated nose design made by Accurate. It performs quite well up through 2400 - 2500 fps in a 14" twist but not above that. I didn't test it in faster twists as I was interested in the highest velocity of 2600 - 2700 fps that the 311466 had proved successful at. I conversed with goodsteel about a proper ogive for the redesign and also with Al Nelson at NOE. NOE makes the proper HV 30 XCB. When Al made my mould I requested it be cut in a 4 cavity aluminum mould for #2 alloy dropping them at .310 - .3105…..my mould does exactly that.

The NOE 30 XCB met instant success in my 14” Palma rifle giving consistent sub 2 moa (usually close to 1.5 moa) up to 2700 fps. I finally, after a thousand+ 30 XCB test rounds settled on the 2600 fps load as used in the test yesterday. However, it wasn't until I paid attention to my "bell curve" weight sortment and how those weight sorted bullets shot that I discovered I could cast better bullets. Learning to cast bullets so the weight sortment was not a bell but was a plateau that ended abruptly was the break through. Using such weight sorted bullets the Palma rifle has given many sub moa 10 shot groups at 100 yards and moa accuracy at 300 yards. Also, as seen yesterday, it and the 10" twist rifle does quite well at 500 yards with the better cast bullets.

Still there was considerable resistance to the concept of controlling RPMs for much faster HV cast bullet shooting. Also the lingering quest of just how fast a ternary alloyed cast bullet could be pushed while maintaining 2 moa accuracy or better with linear dispersion at longer range. Both Bjorn and I put our money where our mouths were and had goodsteel built rifles (.308W, 30x60 XCB and 30-06 XCB) with longer barrels having 16, 17 and 18” twists. With those we pushed the NOE 30 XCB accurately to 3200+ fps holding 2 moa or less. In my own 30x60 my standard load is the NOE 30 XCB at 2900 fps with moa accuracy to 400 yards (was going to test yesterday at 600 yards but the wind picked up to 12 – 14 mph. A 10 mph crosswind will push the XCB bullet at 2900 fps 66” (5.5’) at 600 yards. I’ll wait for a less windy day thank you. Those high velocities are possible by controlling the RPM and good loading, casting techniques.

Waco is doing well, I told him that. He is at the point where he can do better. To do so he needs to cast better bullets as suggested by the bell curve of his weight sortment. I intended no criticism of his or runfiveruns bullets. I was just suggesting waco could probably cast better. A plateau weight sortment would demonstrate that. To do so may or may not require a change of alloy also. I found #2 alloy to be the best for a ternary alloy at HV. #2 alloy also gives the most uniform cast bullets as evidenced by weight sorting. Waco may also want to try other powders. Don’t know on that as I didn’t test IMR4831. That remains to be seen. I mean no criticism of Waco as I continually strive to do better also. We never know when the next “break through” will come.

As a point of discussion; I perceive there is a big difference between 2265 fps and 2600 fps (difference between the 10" twist and 14" twist rifles). We consider the 300 fps difference between a "standard" cast bullet load at 1950 fps and a "HV" 2250 fps to be a great leap forward. Thus I also consider the 335 fps difference between the 10" twist and the 14" twist velocities to be a great leap forward.....just a matter of perspective is all.

It’s good to see in runfiverun’s last post he agrees with what I’ve been saying for years……it’s also good we may come to an agreement also. I really don’t expect you to extol the facts of the RPM Threshold. It would be much better for all concerned if the bickering stops and we just post factual information based on testing. You say you’ve “not gone where waco has gone” ….perhaps you should, maybe runfiverun too? Who knows, you may discover the RPM Threshold is alive and well yet can be pushed up a bit…..as both Waco and I have demonstrated. You might also be inclined to use a slower twist barrel to really shoot accurately with consistency.

Let us all endeavor to learn more as we go along and share that information here.

[runfiverun]

500 yds just ain't my thing.
I don't need it for hunting and 300 yds is the length of my range.
I concentrate on getting to the 1-2-300 yd mark as quickly and as accurately as possible.

on our Wednesday night shoots I compete with guy's shooting a variety of rifles many of them are 6PPC or 243 ai type rifles that have triggers that cost more than my rifle and scope combined.

every now and then I manage to pull off a win at the cooper shoot at 100 [cooper is a circle slightly smaller than a dime, closest to the center wins] or the x shoot at 300 [x shoot is a 3/4" tall X closest to the cross on the X wins]
beating those F-type, custom built, and BR type rifles with a home spun cast bullet at 23-2400 fps is a lot more satisfying [to me] than hitting a target at 500yds.
the second week in a row that I won the cooper shoot I got a pic in the weekly paper,,, shooting/hunting is a thing around here.

so you can see why the XCB rifle was something I was so excited about.
it was the first time I ever had a rifle re-barreled.
I was lucky that I had got a barrel from a friend just before he passed away, otherwise I wouldn't have even been able to participate in that.
no clue who made it I was just lucky and happy to have it.
after all this time I haven't even shot 20 rounds through the rifle because I want all the right parts on it when I do start shooting it.
I'm slowly saving for a new trigger and maybe a heavier bench type stock one day.
until then I will shoot what I have available as best as I can with what I got.

[oldblinddog]

Nothing wrong with that. I agree. Not many people have access to any kind of shooting area much beyond 100 yards that isn’t cost prohibitive. At the range that I have close to me the longest range is only 100 yards. However, I often shoot on the 50 because the benches on the 100 suck. They are adequate for a quick 3 shot group for the annual deer hunt... The benches on the 50 allow much better testing/chronographing. My club range has 100 and 200 yard and a 500 meter range as well as other ranges, but it is a 3+ hr drive which means it is a day trip. With my schedule, I have to use the day I get so it becomes an infrequent trip if the weather/winds are bad.

Over there on the left is my rifle expert badge which means I have shot for score at 500 meters (as well as 200 & 300) and that with an M16A1. There is no mystery to it. But I want to test my rifle’s limits.

[Love Life]

Hey Dick. Long time no talk. I will sort boolits by measuring from gas check to Ogive with a comparator as well as weight sort. Cases will be sorted as well. This fist run was kinda to see if I could even do it. Things will get refined from here.

Good to see you back and posting LL.
Walter

I look forward to the results! I stopped at 300 yards with that bullet in a Schneider poly twist barrel. I figured the time I spent trying to push the envelope was cool, but I hate to not shoot a rifle to it’s potential and ended up going to my matchkings, lol. Thanks for posting the results for us!

[dverna]

500 yards is a long way off. The longest range I have access to is 300 yards and that is about as far as I feel I can make an ethical shot.

I admire what some of you have done at long range with cast bullets. It is amazing.

Great job guys!

[tomme boy]

So what does everyone think of the heavy trace of the bullets? High humidity day and perfect light? Or something else?

Keep it up Waco. Make sure to video it when you get another day of shooting. Much better to watch than listening to a bunch of old men argue about the contour of their barrel.

[runfiverun]

I think vapor trail like you see on the wing of a sprint car as it enters a corner at 80 mph or so.
they are going what 115-120 fps.

[waco]

I think there was a bit more going on there. Looks like smoke to me. We have another video shooting at the same target, same place, same time of day with very similar weather conditions. We were using jacketed bullets in the 6.5cm.
Check it out and see the difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEzMdXuC4O4

[oldblinddog]

So what does everyone think of the heavy trace of the bullets? High humidity day and perfect light? Or something else?

Keep it up Waco. Make sure to video it when you get another day of shooting. Much better to watch than listening to a bunch of old men argue about the contour of their barrel.

That is a vapor trail left by the bullet creating a vacuum in the air as it travels. The pressure change created by the vacuum causes the vapor trail. I see those in the scope in .22 BR. You can watch the bullet all the way to the target.

[tomme boy]

I know what a vapor trail looks like. And something else is going on with the cast bullet trace. The vid of the 6.5 cr is a classic demo of a trace. You can't always see it. Depends on the weather at the time you are shooting,

I am thinking the lube is being atomized and leaving the "smoke" trail. Maybe, mabye not????

[Hannibal]

I think it was an anomaly of the conditions on that particular day. If you can reproduce it, then things will become much more interesting. Meanwhile, I think if it were me, I would be focused on hitting that target at that distance with the same or better regularity.

I apologize if that seems 'snarky', as that is not my intent. But I can't tell you how many times I thought I was 'on to somethin' only to discover that those results were the exception and not the norm.

The only thing I've ever been able to consistently 'lobb in' like that were 22LR at 300 yds. But I freely admit, I got no smoke, vapor or any other trail. And I am not a videographer, so unfortunately you'll just have to take my word on it. Sure was entertaining to see those bullets arc in there in the late evening sun, though. And it was repeatable. Years apart, not just days. I make sure I do it at least 1 day every year, 'cause it makes me giggle like a little girl.

YMMV.