350 Legend and Cast Boolits

[tomme boy]

But how many were lost because the bullets did not expand at all? The only bullets that are working good are the poly tipped and the all copper custom bullets.

[cwlongshot]

I have shot Hornady 165's and 170's into wet pack.

The 170's only marginally expanded at 2200 fps. IMHO they need closer to 2500. Beyond attainable in the Legend.

The 165 is much better and more typical of the FTX. It expanded pretty well almost 1/2 its length and almost doubling it's diameter. Also
Fired @ 2200 fps.

My cast RD 190's cast at 15 BHN mushroomed the nose but nearly left the 30" box.

CW

[Oldfeller]

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Following on with the errant thoughts, a LEE push through .356" sizer (throws out .3565" powder coated bullets) has some useful features. The resizing portion of the hardened steel die is way down at the bottom of the thing, next to your press ram. There is a heck of a long hole on top of this action, which is machined to a known, regular size.

Yep, the rest of it is a machined, fully hardened .469" bored column that is 2.12" deep. This provides a useful feature for the powder coated bullet tip splitter as proposed.

Spin the bodkin point in your mini lathe and carefully grind the flutes down to a slip fit to the long .469" free bore at the top of the LEE push through resizing die. A dremel would work for the short strokes of this grinding, but a 41/2" grinder would do for the rough removal work. Final slip fitting could be done with a fine diamond file ......

For folks with larger more capable lathes, firmly thread mounting the bodkin point into a half inch piece of steel stock followed by lathing and grinding the assembly dead true to .469" would be nice, but that would be completely beyond what I can do with my equipment. This piece of steel stock need to have a carefully known shoulder cut into it where it reduces down to .469". More on this shoulder later ......

Following along with the "keep it simple" philosophy, push your bullet into the sizing portion of the .3565" functional sizing die using a custom pusher that parks it in 3-D space using the full ram extension of your LEE Classic (or other very robust press) at a fixed distance that is then fine tuned by simply screwing the die body in and out. This fine tunes and controls how far the bullet nose form sticks out of the sizing restriction and makes the bullet impale itself onto the bodkin point to the same user selected depth every time, controlled by the .469" bodkin shaft diameter and shoulder.

A good shoulder stopping point could be just short of the bodkin blades hitting the hard die steel of the LEE push through sizer ...... you can dial in any penetration short of this point at will by adjusting the entire die body in the press using the mounting threads.

So, during piercing the bodkin point and steel holder assembly gets pushed up by the intruding bullet tip and the bodkin shouldered shaft assembly rides up freely until the press ram toggles to the locked condition. A knee pushed up against the push handle will be plenty enough to hold the press locked in the full up position while a small ball peen hammer taps in the heavily oiled bodkin point assembly until the bodkin shoulder assembly seats on the top of the LEE push through die.

It is my hope that the gear oil on the tri-form bodkin point (helped by whatever polishing is needed on that tip to allow for ready retraction) will allow a ready vertical retraction of the tri-form bodkin's tip piercing point. A small flat screwdriver "jacking point" can be Dremel'd into this mild steel bodkin shaft assembly stopping shoulder which will provide more than enough leverage retraction action on a stubborn insertion.

Now, for the sake of best balance rotate the piercing bodkin assembly and do a last tap or two in each of the three possible cutting blade orientation positions. This would not take long to do off a polished and oiled bodkin tip and hopefully this step normalizes all balance issues with the pierced tip form into the bullet mass. It also tends to correct by normalizing out any running clearance slop conditions or out of round conditions or blade to blade thickness variation effects that still remain in your homemade tooling.

Now change the pusher to the longer stock LEE pusher (they snap in and out the ram just that easy) and push the bullet the rest of the way on through the die. So now you got yourselves a bunch of opened up tulip forms to inspect for internal casting voids and other internal flaws (you know you are gonna want to look at them, jest because you always wanted to know about those internal casting voids all along).

Final repacking of the bulged jacked open tulip tip assemblies will take place during a resizing pass through this same die, but a first pass through a rough repacker reformer die may well be needed. Butt first push through off a pin form hitting the bottom of the split tip is the technically correct way to do this, but I suspect just going nose first using a shallow angle aluminum cone form that ends in a .360" hole would be plenty good enough for the initial repacking.

The "starting throat" of the LEE push through sizer will accept up to .360" (and some extra in small change after polishing) and the LEE .3565" push through die will pack it all back down to final .3565" size in the final sizing restriction portion.

Once again, theoretically during that final resizing pass in the .3565" push through zone will result in all of the mating surfaces of the balanced split form get forcefully remarried (with an oiled surface remaining on each of them).

This idea has the advantage of being cheap and easy to do using the standard LEE push through die features.

[Oldfeller]

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I ordered the rod stock and the bodkin points and I have begun considering the various tool post grinding mounts that others have invented that are shown out on the net. Bodkin points are coming in from China and will be 1-2 months getting here, so there is no hurry.

Also, I am firming up on my cavity form choice once I have the tip splitter built and once I have tried it out on my stocks of P Flados bullet forms.

Best repacking consistency would come from the simple ball end mill round nose form as they would get squeezed back together tightly right up to start of the radius, which means maximum consistency in the finished ready to shoot bullet.

I already know the round nose form feeds well in my gun and since I don't have to mess with large hollow points or large flat meplats it simplifies the feeding issues a good bit.

A set of splits that go just a little tiny bit past the end of the round nose and just a tiny way down the length of the body would be both "feeding strong" and most likely able to withstand the spin factors involved. Such split forms would extend into the body center by over a quarter inch of additional center penetration.

You can rough estimate the initial MAXIMUM TEMPORARY BLOSSOM expansion form by .355" + 2x the tip penetration distance into the powder coated bullet. "Folded over" post erosion expansion will likely be closer to .355" + 1x the tip penetration distance into the powder coated bullet. If the petals do come off completely, then you will wind up with .355" plus a slight rounding mushroom effect and you will pick up 3 new damage pathways from the flying spinning petals.

Note: if the tips pop open in the air due to spin forces you will clearly see this action on the target holes, if so you just powder coat the tightly closed forms one more time and final size them again, with the extra layer of poly coating acting as additional retaining jacket to hold the slugs together during firing and flight.

[Oldfeller]

How goes the automatic garden? Pretty good, wife is harvesting sugar snap peas, green beans and the very first of the squash.

We have a TON of butter bean blossoms and tomato blossoms, so I spray them weekly with calcium spray so the blossoms will set into little goodies and the fruit to food will get expedited.

She just now realized that although the garden is relatively small, it means a lot of daily work for her.

[Oldfeller]

It is not obvious in the picture but the dremel mount is trapped and positively located by the two heights of the tool post slide it is attached to.

Quick update:

The rod stock and the dremel mount (made from a roll bar light mount no less) are here and the dremel grinder tool post mount is done now and it turned out better than "crudely cobbled together" which many of such things actually are.

I took my lathe chuck apart and cleaned it up good and oiled up the jaw gears, the internal drive gears and large jaw driver worm gear after trash removal and original machining burr removals. Put it all back together and r/o measures .002" which is "better than good enough" for a 3 jaw mini-lathe chuck.

Grind job on the lathe chuck jaws has been postponed for now as "not really needed".

Also, what I did realize is that my tool post compound slide adjustments had simply vibrated looser and looser over time all the way to the point of being sloppy, so to hold the tool post grinder stone in 3-D space a good bit more reliably on an interrupted grind job I spent the 40 minutes tuning the compound slides back to "relatively stiff" again.

Well, I am equipped for the 3 blade bodkin points to show up any month now ........

[Dapaki]

Oldfeller, is that a 9X19? Mine went out of spec this spring with a good 0.0100" r/o so I had to re-cut them to bring them to 0.001" r/o once again.

Is the grinder what you are using to true up the chuck jaws? If so, why not just capture a solid section of drill stock in the deepest flat on the jaw set and use a boring bar to center the jaws? It's fast and accurate.

[dverna]

This has been an interesting read....

A lot of work and experimentation that will help others on a similar quest.

I would never make the journey as I have so little patience and talent yet I can appreciate those qualities in others.

[Oldfeller]

My lathe is a 7x10, I wish it was a 9x19 .....

Viewing several person's YouTubes of their truing efforts, most of these wind up worse off after cutting because the jaws are so loosely held by the chuck body that gripping round stock at the back end of the jaw simply rocks each jaw assembly in the body recesses and INCREASES NET TIR r/o after you are done with the grinding or boring bar.

When simply removing dirt and trash can take you from .016" down to .002" you are simply shooting craps with a jaw grinding or a jaw cutting operation. Too much slop room exists in the chuck for this trash to build up inside the chuck body to this degree, and this same jaw movement while clamping at the back of the jaw is guaranteed as well.

Main planned use of the tool post grinder is to fine fit the bodkin point into the LEE push through sizer long deep top hole.

In the case of the bodkin tip splitter, I will simply chuck my .625" rod stock, and without un-chucking it end drill and tap the threads to mount the bodkin tip then lathe turn the length controlled reduced portion of the .469" shaft --- all on the same center off the same chuck up using a live center in the drilled & tapped hole.

Even in a short turning length, spring back in the chuck, the bed, the carriage and deflection in the stock itself will give a slight diameter change (getting tighter towards the chuck jaws) even when using a live center to support the initial drill and tapped hole..

While leaving the original chuck up still intact, use JB Weld to coat the threads of the bodkin point then tighten it firmly, then coat the butt end of the shaft and the start of the bodkin form with the bulk of the remaining JB Weld batch. Let it cure for 48hrs.

Carefully scratch mark the excess bodkin blade portions then remove all the excess blade material with a hand held grinder, stopping a little short of the line that was marked. Then put the dremel mount on the tool post, turn on the dremel and remove the remainder of the blade steel to do a tight slip fit in the .3565" sizing die .469" top hole.

I am tempted to use a sanding loop of very fine grit wet or dry cloth backed paper to co-finish both the shaft and the bodkin blades during final slip fitting to the hardened die steel ....... this sanding loop method will remove very little material rather slowly while any r/o in ether piece of the two part shaft tends to get normalized to some degree.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Well I just had my first go round with 350 Legend in an AR.
Loaded some Lee 358-200 with CFEBLK and some with Win 296.
I was impressed with the velocities. Running 1800+ from a 16.5” barrel.

However I couldn’t hit the target board ��

My educated guess is that the alloy was too soft. Though it works well for my 357 magnum loads this is a little hotter round.

So I’m going to use some richer alloy and water drop it. I did really like shooting it though. I think this will be my new favorite AR cartridge

What alloy are you all using?

[tomme boy]

Did you gas check it?

[Michael J. Spangler]

No. It was hi tek coated.
I know that won’t give me the best accuracy but compared to my 357 ammo this was terrible. I run 358156 in the magnum without checks with much better results than this. Again I’m think alloy is the issue.

[mehavey]

See https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=57

The 358-200 was designed for use with a gas check -- which also serves to give you a clean/uniform base upon muzzle exit.)
(Don't leave home w/o it)

[Michael J. Spangler]

See https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=57

The 358-200 was designed for use with a gas check -- which also serves to give you a clean/uniform base upon muzzle exit.)
(Don't leave home w/o it)

Ok so let’s say I have a plain base 200. What alloy would you use? I hate gas checks.

[Dapaki]

COWW works for me.

[Michael J. Spangler]

COWW works for me.

Do you water drop at all?

I’m trying to stop with the 200 grain bullet as I feel I might as well use the most weight possible. This helps keep velocity down to acceptable for fast speeds and still give me the most energy at those speeds.

[mehavey]

IF you actually have a plain-base L358-200, then Lyman#2 w/ the barest/thinnest ALOX coating
will still work out best (~2,000fps out of 16" using a gas check)

But if you're actually shooting the Lee w/ the rebated gas-check shank naked/exposed then I suggest
gas cutting is still going to rain on the parade -- no matter what alloy/coating.

[Michael J. Spangler]

IF you actually have a plain-base L358-200, then Lyman#2 w/ the barest/thinnest ALOX coating
will still work out best (~2,000fps out of 16" using a gas check)

But if you're actually shooting the Lee w/ the gas-check shank naked/exposed then I suggest
gas cutting is still going to rain on the parade -- no matter what alloy/coating.

I’m going to ream out the gas check shank. I’m not worried about gas cutting. Hi-Tek basically makes the bullet into a plated bullet. I’ve shot GC bullets without GC and with coating with decent results. I’m thinking it’s the alloy. I do have some more with this softer alloy. I will gas check them and shoot them to see how they work. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.

[mehavey]

Clean/sharp-edged/uniform base will buy you quite a bit of improvement.
And I've never gone higher than Lyman #2 in anything from high-speed (2,500fps) 223, to larger (2,000 fps) 30 caliber.

[tomme boy]

Hitec does not stand up as well as powder coat does to speed. And you just saw that. Put a check on it and stop trying to get around basic cast shooting practices.