I've been casting for a few years now but I feel like a neophyte compared to most of the posters here. I know just enough to get some decent looking bullets but I seem to struggle with getting the whole show put together into a real production
I bought this old Marlin around 5 years ago and I've been shooting it with Meister cast bullets sized to .380 in both starline and winchester brass. I've done well at the cowboy silhouette matches with it and I'm headed to new Mexico next month for the NRA nationals!
I was running low on Meisters and it kills me to buy something I can make myself so I purchased a new mold from accurate molds. It is a 38-250B 3 cavity aluminum. I ordered it with a request to drop .382 with Lyman #2 and that's exactly what I got.
So I made 200 of these on Saturday and then I realized I only have a .378 size die for my Saeco lube sizer. I don't remember what my bore slugged at- it was a while back but I know I chose the 380s for a reason. Anyhow...
I loaded up 20 of these with my usual load: all sized to .378 in winchester brass with lyman gold lube and met my friends at the range yesterday.
These were shot offhand at 50 yards with an old lyman #1 tang sight on the rear and a 17A up front.
I got a little bit of leading, but I failed to clean the bore from my last match, so it could have been from the prior 65+ rounds. I'm now trying to figure out what to do. I can order a 380 site from buffalo arms, but it is a special order item. I have a neighbor with a lyman 450 so I am considering ordering a 380 lyman die since they are on sale at midway. Then I could size and lube them to 380, at least enough to get me past the big match next month.
Today I started wondering about shooting these as cast so just went out in the shop and loaded a dummy round with the as-cast .382 and it actually fell into the chamber when I tried it in the rifle. I guess that means I could pan lube them? I've never tried that before.
What say the experts here? I'm thinking maybe I should load another 20 @ .378 and shoot them with a clean bore and see if they lead up?
TIA
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