Cast and the .308 Win

[Kraschenbirn]

...I may go ahead and buy a Lee .311-200 mold to play with as well.

FWIW, that Lee mold has a long, bore-rider nose that you may need to size down to get it to chamber when seated with the GC flush as the base of the case neck. At least, that's what I found with my Savage M10 (24" fluted barrel). From my mold, boolit nose casts .3015+ and bore dia. inside lands is .300.

Bill

[charlie b]

Thanks. The RCBS and Lyman both also have long noses but they are .301".

PS The gas checks for the 311299 are well below the casE neck. Not the bore portion that is the problem, it is the short throat. The 165SIL is just at the base of the neck.

[charlie b]

Loaded up some more of the 165SIL bullets. Got the same results for the most part, just at 1" at 100yd.

I also shot some at 400yd, trying to stretch things a bit. The two groups measured just at 4" each. Very happy with this so far.

[robg]

Size my boolits .309 and gas checked.Lee boolits and push through sizer.

[charlie b]

Loaded up some of the Lyman 311299. Decided to try IMR4895. 30, 21, 32 and 33gn. The 30gn load got me a just at 1" and the others were worse than that. Based on bullet drop at 200 the velocity of the 30gn load is about 2100fps. I am going to try a few lighter loads to see if it will tighten up a bit.

[charlie b]

I have been having some success in getting sub 1 inch groups with a Lee 6 cavity clone of the Lyman 311041. Boolits drop at .311 from 10:1(ww/lino) My load is 17g of 2400 Velocity is 1650fps. I occasionally get a flyer that opens the group to 1.5 inches or so, therefore I am experimenting with different amounts of lubrication in the grease grooves.The thought is that I may be experiencing lube purging?

Is that one of the 7.62x39 bullets? Tumble lube or std grease groove version? I had thought about ordering one of those just for grins cause of the 6 cavity mold.

[Shuz]

Is that one of the 7.62x39 bullets? Tumble lube or std grease groove version? I had thought about ordering one of those just for grins cause of the 6 cavity mold.

No it's a real close clone of the Lyman 311041 that has been around for years.

[charlie b]

OK. I just did not see anything else in 6 cavity molds that Lee offered.

I kinda waffled and ordered the 180gn Lee mold just to see what it does compared to the Lyman and RCBS.

[Shuz]

OK. I just did not see anything else in 6 cavity molds that Lee offered.

I kinda waffled and ordered the 180gn Lee mold just to see what it does compared to the Lyman and RCBS.

Charlie B--My guess is that the Lee 6C clone of the Lyman 311041 that I have, was from a group buy some time ago, and is not, of course, a catalog item.

[charlie b]

Thanks, that would be my thinking too.

I got some Lee 180gn cast and loaded up to see what they do. I am going to start with 29.0 of IMR4895 just for grins.

Interesting is that they cast smaller dia than the RCBS. The noses are .300 and the bodies are between .308 and .309. The .309 sizing die barely touches them. I could load them out where the base of the bullet was at the base of the case neck, same as the RCBS 165SIL.

These I used Lyman orange lube and then an overcoat of 45-45-10.

[Forrest r]

I don't have the lee 6c 311041 mold but I do have the 6c tl312-160-2r mold. It makes a pile of bullets in a hurry that will do 10-shot moa groups in my 308w using 2400 powder. Same bullet/same rifle holds +/- 1 1/2" 10-shot groups when I heat them up to 2600fps+ using h335.

[charlie b]

That's good to know.

Do you use straight LLA or another mix?

[Forrest r]

I've shot them with traditional lubes and pc'd with gc's made out of al from my home made gc makers.
[IMG][/IMG]

1st I tried using lbt blue lube by itself on those bullets. Not enough lube.
[IMG][/IMG]
Then I used the same lbt lubed bullet and put a layer of 45/45/10 on them and the groups tightened up, 1 1/2" 10-shot groups.
[IMG][/IMG]
Same bullet with pc. The pc'd bullet has higher velocities then their traditionally lubed counterparts. 1 1/2" 10-shot groups.
[IMG][/IMG]

Same pc'd bullet doing 10-shot moa (upper left)
[IMG][/IMG]

The alloy I'm using is +/- 14bhn:
3 part pure lead
1 parts mono-type
2% tin

The bullets are water dropped then age hardened putting them in the +/- 20bhn range.

[charlie b]

Thanks for that. I am considering going the PC route at some point.

Shot some of the Lee C309-180 bullets. Lubed with Lyman orange. 29.0gn IMR4895 with 1/2gn dacron fill. They did stay on the target, but, it was 8-10". I think I am pushing them too hard. I will down load and also try the IMR4198 that works well with the RCBS bullets. Will try without the dacron this time as well.

What is the nose dia on those bullets?

[Forrest r]

The nose on that bullet is a 2r octive

[charlie b]

I mean the measured dia. My rifle throat is short so the nose has to be .301dia or less.

[Forrest r]

That bullet is not a bore riding design. The 2r nose tapers out to the full diameter of the bullet. Hence if you size your bullets to .311" then the nose tapers out to .311". Your lee 170gr bullet is a bore riding design, bore riding nose with drive bands. The TL312-160-2r bullet has nothing more than a body and a tapered nose. There's no difference between the tl312-160-2r and a jacketed fmj bullet except for the taper of the nose (2r/3r/4r/5r/etc)

The 2r means the radius/nose of the bullet is 2 times as long as the diameter of the bullets body (2 x .312" ='s .624" long nose).

[charlie b]

Thanks for that. The pictures of it looks like there is a bore riding portion which concerned me.

Kinda like the 230gn that has a 5R radius. It has a short section in front of the crimp groove that is straight bore dia of .300. It looks from the pics that the 312 bullets have the same straight portion and I just wondered if it is .300 or larger.

[charlie b]

Got back out to the range with the Lee C309-180 bullets. Different lube this time. Cast bullets, installed gas check, run through Lee sizer (.309). Pan lubed with Ben's Red and sized again. Then tumble lubed two coats of 45-45-10.

Five different loads. My plinking load is Blue Dot and so I tried 8 and 9gn. This is loaded in cases that have had the primer hole enlarged to prevent shoulder setback. Then IMR4198 since it worked so well with the RCBS 165SIL. I tried 24 and 25gn loads. I also did one load of 24 gn with 1/2gn of dacron filler.

Results are below. I am REALLY happy with the 8gn of Blue Dot as that is a really cheap load to shoot. The 24gn of 4198 is also promising and will become my longer range load.



PS I find it really interesting how much cast bullets respond to changes in powder and OAL. One grain difference and it can blow a group all over.

PPS the target grid is 1" and all groups were shot with the sights at the center of the red dot.

PPPS the lead alloy is hardball, about 16BHN.

[charlie b]

An update on my cast bullet shooting. Still working with the Lee C309-180 but have been powder coating them. I use the shake and bake with Eastwood blue powder, gas check and size after baking.

A couple of things I was surprised at. They are clean. Of course no leading at all, but, only takes 4 patches to clean the bore. Still using IMR4198 but have also tried IMR4895 and it seems to do just as well. If I do my job these are all just under MOA with some going much smaller, with a few being 1/2MOA. I have been boosting the velocity a bit to see where it starts to go south. So far 2200fps is still doing ok but the loads under 2000fps still show best groups. Keep in mind my barrel has a 1-10 twist and I am still using hardball alloy without heat treating.

One other thing is the Blue Dot plinker load. It is turning out to be very accurate. Even out to 200yd it is still much better than 2MOA. I haven't tried 300yd as the drop is 100inches and any wind at all will drive it off target a lot. Velocity is right around 1100fps (calculated based on bullet drop). The target below was a sight in so I only shot 2 or 3 round groups.

200yd


Typical 100yd group


Documented a few cold bore shots and this is also typical. First shot or two are a little high.


Blue Dot plinker load