Lee 277 135 RF

[sigep1764]

Does anyone know what Lyman top punch works with this boolit? The cross reference charts on Lee molds does not list this boolit.

[sigep1764]

Cast a bunch of these today. Lots of rejects even after scrubbing the mold twice. Im sure any and all oil will burn out. I started running it quicker and a little hotter towards the end and things got better. Ive found the double cavity molds lose heat quickly. It was throwing acceptable boolits by the end, but I only kept about a hundred after inspection. Nose came out .269 and the driving bands came out .279. Got a .278 H&I die that I can open up if I need .279. This is my first rifle mold and the first goal is The Load of somewhere between 10 and 13 grains of Red Dot. Once I figure that out, move to a slower powder and work up and so on and so forth til I get to 2200fps. In all reality I just want a fun accurate soft plinker that might be used for a little hunting.

[sigep1764]

Forgot to mention the gun, a Winchester Model 70 in 270 Winchester, my first rifle. Its a 2002 vintage with a polymer stock and the scope it came with. Only shot about 200 rounds through it. Been using a CZ455 and Savage B22FVSR to practice.

[Rcmaveric]

I use the RCBS 529. Puts a small ring on the nose which i fixed with the hot glue trick. Just fill the nose punch with hot glue and wait for it to cool. Then install the sizer die and nose punch. Put in a bullet and get it started enough to be all centered up. Now hit the hot glue with a lighter till its molten. Put some spit on the bullet so it doesn't stick to the glue. Then seat the nose punch on the bullet nose and wait for it to cool. Once cool you can trim the glue to make it pretty and now you have a nice gasket that wont damage your noses. I just happen to have a stick for fixing my fishing pole eye-lets. I couldn't find an exact cross reference for it and searching around led me to picking that one. I want to say it was an article on another random web site from google searching. Good bullet in 270 Winchester. I have shot several thousands of them.

[Rcmaveric]

I clean a new mold with dish soap. Then rinse liberal with brake parts cleaner. Then run it hot to burn off what ever is left. It takes a few hundred for a mold to "season" and easily drop good bullets. May need smoke it once or twice. Scraping the edges of the cavity with an exacto knife can help it drop bullets also. Also store the mold with desiccant so you never have to clean it again and it stays rust free.

Casting with two molds helps keep temps more stable and let you cast faster. You can always dip the corner of the mold in lead for 20-30 ish seconds to preheat hit. Working with a preheated mold can let you cast good bullets from the get go.

Red Dot produces a decent moa ish load that is pretty light. 2400 was better and par with Reloader 7 in accurracy. Reloader 7 i push at 2050 FPS with sub MOA accuracy and easily performs out to 200 yards. 270 winchers is my baby and what started it all leading me down this rabbit hole. Its a Savage Axis II with a synthetic stock and Weaver ballistic scope.

[sigep1764]

Thank you sir! I looked up the 529, its for a very similar boolit, the RCBS 270 150. It is now on its way from Midway. Shipping is always quick with them, but they are only 3 hours away! 2400 and Reloader 7 are not in my inventory of powders, but the next time I am at Cabelas I will pick some up. Waiting on gas checks and a die set for right now. Haven't decided but the Lyman 3 die set plus an M die are looking nice.

[sigep1764]

I clean a new mold with dish soap. Then rinse liberal with brake parts cleaner. Then run it hot to burn off what ever is left. It takes a few hundred for a mold to "season" and easily drop good bullets. May need smoke it once or twice. Scraping the edges of the cavity with an exacto knife can help it drop bullets also. Also store the mold with desiccant so you never have to clean it again and it stays rust free.

Casting with two molds helps keep temps more stable and let you cast faster. You can always dip the corner of the mold in lead for 20-30 ish seconds to preheat hit. Working with a preheated mold can let you cast good bullets from the get go.

Red Dot produces a decent moa ish load that is pretty light. 2400 was better and par with Reloader 7 in accurracy. Reloader 7 i push at 2050 FPS with sub MOA accuracy and easily performs out to 200 yards. 270 winchers is my baby and what started it all leading me down this rabbit hole. Its a Savage Axis II with a synthetic stock and Weaver ballistic scope.

Do you seat to the top driving band or do you seat the boolit out?

[Rcmaveric]

I measured my seating depth of my chamber from the bolt face to the leade. Then subtract. 002 off that. Depending on case neck length, the first lube groove may or may not be covered. I convert brass to .270 win. by necking parrent case brass up or down then neck turning the cases. 270 case necks tend to be long enough and others tend to be a a thousand or so shorter. Doesnt affect accurracy.

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[Rcmaveric]

I use Lee Dies and the Lee unirversal expander with the NOE insert.

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[Rcmaveric]

One is Red Dot and the other isn 2400 at 100 yards. The big orange target is reloader 7 at 100 yards.

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[sigep1764]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thank you. I made one dummy and it chambered seated at the first land with all lube grooves in the neck. I want to try this first then if the chamber will allow to seat longer.

[Rcmaveric]

Seating into the lands always plays havoc with pressure spikes for me. You want to get some velocity before the lead is over pressured. So give that bullet just a smidge of jump. I couldnt find an accurate load to save me life till i backed it out of the lands. I settled with .002 and was happy with rhe results. I am a hunter and paper puncher, not a bench rest shooter.

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[sigep1764]

Ive shot about 200 rounds of Lee 277 135 lubed with supermoly and checked seated at 3.11 with 2 lube grooves above the neck. 10 grains of red dot. Hovers around .5 to 1 inch at 25 yards. This is with a scope that cannot focus the cross hairs at 25 yards and fixed parallax at 100 yds.

Next try is the Lyman 468473. Seated at 3.077, middle and bottom lube grooves in the neck with orange magic, top lube groove unlubed(cannot get the boolit deep enough into the Lyman 4500). Ladder test shows 12.5 grains red dot going three shots into one hole with two pulled. Will load more of this for more testing next week as well as swapping on a Mueller 8-32x40 scope from my CZ455.
This is all at 25 yards, the closest 100 yard range is 30 min away and closed for renovations this summer. The next closest is an hour. After this load is sorted, Ill make the trip. Ill take both loads and see what happens. No chronograph, all loads from the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook 3rd edition.

[Rcmaveric]

I would measure my chamber.

Close the bolt. Insert a wooden dowel and mark the dowel at the muzzle. Remove the bolt and insert a bullet and gently hold it into the lands with a pencil. Reinsert the dowel down the barrel from the muzzle. This is the part where growing a third hand helps, but you mark the dowel resting on the bullets nose. Becarefull because you don't want the bullet forced into the lands, you just want it resting. If your curious you kind of push the dowel and pencil and play with the feel to make sure its a gently seat. Then mark the dowel. Now remove the pencil, bullet and dowel.

The marks on the dowel rod are your max seating depth that put a bullet into the lands. Now measure that distance and subtract about .002 inches off that. That will be your starting COL. Load up a dumby round and check its feading and chambering. You can even load up a few dumbies to check the cycling. Make sure the feeding is reliably and the chambering is easy. You shouldn't have to force a bolt closed. If you have to force a bolt closed check your bullet for engraving and if there is engraving then seat about another .001 to .002 inches and try again. Repeat if neccassary. If you bolt is hard to close and you don't see engraving then check your case neck diameter and compare to a pound a cast of your chamber. You may need to resize better or case neck turn. Or check for sholder set back. Another method to see what the problem is to smoke the dumby round or cover it marker. What ever is rubbing and casusing you bolt closure problems will rub off the carbon or marker. Let you know if its the case neck or shoulder.

My opinion and only my opinion: Seating into the lands causes a major pressure spike and i prefer a slight jump down the throat and into the lands. Gives the bullet a more gentler launch and lets me shoot at higher velocities.

Changing COL will affect your chamber pressures. Its better in my opinion to measure what my guns max seating depth is, then stick with that. That way i have a constant to which i can adjust from. Varrying your seating depth if extreme enough can be like varying charge by .1 to .3g. Its better to only fiddle with one aspect of a load at a time and keep the rest at a constant. That way if it doesn't work you know exactly what caused it. If it does work you know exactly how to recreate it.

50yards is a little better than 25. Atleast you checked to see if they were leading. .25 inches at 25 yards is MOA i think. .5 inches at 50 yeards, 1 inch at 100 and so and so forth. Not all groups are good a certain distances. So keep that in mind. I hunt so all my loads get tested at 50 to 200 yards. Because those are the distance i will be shooting game animals.

[sigep1764]

Maveric, good advice. I seated each type of boolit long to see where the engraving started on the boolit. I backed it off the length of the engraving on the boolit plus a couple thousandths. I am not seating "into the lands". The boolits are sized to .2785-.279. I haven't even scrubbed the barrel. Just wet patches, red dot is a little dirty, and then 3 or 4 tight dry patches. This is after 300 rounds and accuracy has not dropped off. I am super happy not scrubbing the bore. I am thoroughly convinced groups at 25 yards will be half in size by switching scopes. There is literally two sets of crosshairs no matter where the focus or magnification is set on this scope. The rifle was purchased as a package with this scope 16 years ago. At 100 yards its serviceable to an extent, but is a limiting factor. Im inclined to test the Lyman boolit more as it is miles above the Lee in easiness to cast. It is simply a wonderful mold. I am not stuck on Red Dot, I just buy it by the 8lb jug and always have three of them on hand as it is my go to for 9mm. I want to try some slower powder, either 2400 or 748 when I get the chance. However, red dot is showing a lot of promise in this rifle

[Rcmaveric]

Your on the right path. Whats your throat diameter?

My rifle has a .280 throat. Sizing to that gives me the best accuracy.

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[sigep1764]

My Lyman .278 h&I die was only 2765. I got it opened up to 279, but stopped as there is a little bit of lube getting by the pushrod. The slug measured .277 so I tried 279. I can open up the die a little more but not before I get a heater! That hard lube can sure make a mess overpressured but works nicely with heat. The heater is currently bolted to the star sizer and my bench. I don't have room for the lyman on the bench so it gets c clamped to the kitchen table when I need it. The little woman loves that...

[Rcmaveric]

Use what ever works when it comes to sizing. I sized to .278 for the longest time then tried the .280 that fills my throat and was surprised. It was a whim aftee reading a few sifferent articles.

I like softer lubes. Bens Red worked good. Simple lube worked great until it got hot here. I could tweak the simple lube if needed but i was just testing various baslines. I am switching over and testing the SL-68B in all my guns. If the results are good i will try the SL-71. I dont want to have to fight a hard lube in my sizers and hard lubes can cause leading. Temp swings and long shot strings here in Florida can really test a lube.

With Red Dot loads two coats of 45/45/10 is working pretty good. With red dot your peak pressure quickly and falls off quickly so your not gonna get a lot of velecity. So its not gonna run your lube to the extreme.

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[sigep1764]

The range guys were looking pretty hard at me the first time I uncased the rifle. Like "Why in the world would he shoot that at an indoor 25 yard range?" I told them what I was doing and they said, well, I guess it could be done, and walked away except the muzzleloader guy. He's a little younger than me and brought his ML into the range for me to shoot the trip before. Id never shot a flintlock muzzleloader anything before and it was a hoot! I flipped the safety on and said here , try it. He couldn't stop smiling after he pulled the trigger! We went through 60 rounds in an hour.

When you fire it, it feels like its just barely pushing out the barrel. Its so much fun and easier on the shoulder. I can shoot 20 rounds before the barrel warms up enough to not touch it, but it never gets searing. Cast loads have made this rifle something fun to shoot and cheaper to get some trigger time behind it. This is mostly what I've wanted, accuracy afterwards. Looking like we're gonna get it all.

[Rcmaveric]

Different powders will heat the barrel more. 2400 loads arent that bad if you pace it right. Reloader 7 and 4198 can hear barrel quickly.

Yeah shooting red dot loads are like shooting a 22LR. Supposedly good small game loads aswell. I havent tested that theory because havent chronoed the load. As long as its around 1200 fps it wont blow a rabbit up. Just knock a whole in it.

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