Bottle Neck Cases

[ACC]

OK, I have cast boolits for my hand guns and my 32/20, but I have never cast boolits for any bottle neck cases such as my .308 or 7.62X39. What special equipment and techniques do I need to do to load them with cast boolits.

I mean from the beginning.

I have the Lyman cast boolit book but I feel some stuff is missing.

ACC

[charlie b]

Same stuff as for pistols. The biggest differences for me were the importance of the lube and bullet sizing. With pistols I frequently cast, pan lubed with whatever I had on hand and loaded without sizing or even weighing the bullets. With the rifles I size to match the barrel as close as I can. Sort by weight within tenths of a grain. I have changed lube three times to get the performance I want without leading. At 25 yd and lower velocities you can get away with a lot more than when you are trying to shoot at 300 and longer.

[Outpost75]

Basics for rifles are that plain-based bullets not having a gascheck base, should be loaded to black powder equivalent velocities not exceeding about 1300 fps. Gas-check design bullets can be used in mild loads without the GC if the driving band diameter is large enough to create a positive gas seal in the throat and origin of rifle, and relatively soft alloys such as COWW are used which will upset a bit to create a positive gas seal when relatively fast-burning pistol or shotgun powders are used.

In most military near 30-caliber rifles, a half-charge of common extruded rifle powder, which would be normal for a jacketed bullet of the same weight, will shoot acceptably with a plainbased cast bullet which "fits", if you use a 1 grain Dacron fiber filler tucked loosely into the case neck, with a pea-sized dab of white lithium grease applied over the loose fill. Again, velocity should approximate black powder loads and in the .30-40 Krag, .303 British, 7.62x54R, .30-'06, 7.9x57mm energies will approximate the .32-40 black powder load and be effective for deer hunting at woods ranges within 100 yards.

With gas-checked bullets of weight approximating the weight of the service bullet for the caliber, a powder charge approximating 65-75% of the full jacketed bullet charge should work well with extruded powders in the range of RL7, 3031, 4895, 4064, RL15 or Varget using the 1 grain Dacron loose fill tucked into the case neck, but NOT pushed down upon the powder. With GCs a "grease cookie" should not be necessary, but it is important that bullets be sized to fit the chamber throat and origin of rifling, rather than the barrel groove diameter!

The Lee push-though size die in your loading press and Lee Liquid Alox are adequate. It isn't necessary to fill the lube grooves with LLA, but only to uniformly coat bullets to a brassy color.

If using a convention al lubricator sizer an effective home-made lubricant is 1:4 ratio of Dextron ATF and beeswax, or if you do not have a source of natural beeswax, then use Vaseline 50-50 as a plasticer blended with Gulf canning wax paraffin and then use 1:4 ratio of ATF, canola or olive oil with this.

[popper]

Full power 308W will need an alloy in the COWW H.T. (~4% SB) - usually 1:10 twist, 168 or so gr.GCd. You can shoot lite loads with pistol powders. Pretty much the same for x39 but 125gr or so bullet. Normal cast expander/size/flare/crimp as you know from already reloading the 32/20.
Mould choice is major decision, go with GC mould. H4895 is a good beginning powder for 308, 4227 for x39?

[Rich/WIS]

Suggest appropriate neck expander to flair neck for loading cast, I use Lyman M dies but there are other options such as NOE expanders in a Lee flaring die. There are issues if you are talking use in an autoloader like an AK or SKS for you 7.62 X 39, need to load hot enough to function the action. Consult your cast bullet manuals for suggested load data. Gas checks may not be needed in some loads but suggest you use them in all loads, cheap insurance against leading.

[yeahbub]

My favorite cast load for the x39 is the Lyman 311466, a gas check Loverin design with lube grooves all the way up. I lube with Carnauba Red and have never had leading trouble in my chromed bore. Size them to the throat but no larger than a loaded round will freely chamber, and far out enough to lightly engrave but still be extracted without the boolit being stuck in there and pulled from the case. It's important for proper boolit alignment to be supported up front by being centered in the throat and in the back by the case neck. Neck-sized cases previously fire-formed in that rifle are good for this, but not necessary. A Lyman M-die to uniform the neck ID and open the case mouth sufficiently to accept the boolit is nice to have, but whatever neck expander you use, do so uniformly on all the cases for uniform neck tension. And, of course, the boolit has to go in without shaving lead. Mine are cast from COWW alloy, quenched from the mold, gas checked and lubed and aged for two weeks to achieve full hardness. I prefer AA2015 for these but Rel 7, 4198, 5744, 1680, data 2200 and others will work. You don't mention whether you have a specific purpose in mind, but Lee's information on alloy hardness and chamber pressure would be good for determining what loads to begin with.

There is another cast boolit option for use in rifles which opens a whole range of improved performance and which will leave your barrel lead-free every time with reasonable attention to detail. It will widen the range of alloy hardness which is useful and increase the velocities at which cast boolits can be driven. It is the original jacketed boolit, namely paper patching. The same cast boolit designs can be patched, sized and used. If this sounds like an interesting option, check out the Smokless paper Patching category on this site. There are reams of information on how it's done to be found there.

[quilbilly]

I thoroughly enjoy shooting CB's in both my 308's. I really don't do anything special for the lead or lube but I do recommend gas checks to simplify things. Both of my rifles have the same twist rate but couldn't be more different in the loads or bolts each barrel prefers. One barrel prefers 130 to 165 gr. gas checked boolits at higher. velocities (1800+) while the other prefers heavy-for-caliber (190 gr+) boolits loafing along at 1400 fps or less and even a 200 gr plain base that is subsonic (a total hoot to shoot). My lead alloy isn't that hard being 2/3 pure and 1/3 hard birdshot added with a little extra tin. Bottleneck calibers take more experimentation but are very satisfying to shoot well when you get the load developed. The powders listed above by yeahbub all worked well and I would add Red Dot to try if you are seeking a subsonic load but be super careful with it by double and even triple checking for mistakes since the charge is so small.

[Winger Ed.]

What special equipment and techniques do I need to do to load them with cast boolits.

Beyond what has been said and what's in the Lyman book-
About all I can add is to be real picky about your castings, and don't be bashful about rejecting ones that aren't 'just right'.

Consistency is a bit part of accuracy.
You'll be expecting very good long range accuracy out of the rifle loads.
Any little flaws you see in the boolits will take away from that one way or another.

[bmortell]

ill just add they are pickier, theres times I wanted to add 100 fps but doing so makes the groups go from 2 inches to 2 feet, and other times where the same velocity with a different powder will make groups 5 times bigger. where as my revolvers seem pretty happy with whatever

[MostlyLeverGuns]

Mechanically, the case neck will need to slightly flared/expanded to seat bullets without shaving lead. Handgun dies are set-up for this, bottleneck dies normally are not. A Lyman 'M' die, a Lee case expanding die, or an NOE expanding plug in a Lee Expanding Die body is normally used for this. The expander diameter is dependent upon the bullet diameter you are seating. You can use almost anything with a reasonable taper to expand the case mouth, punch shank, closed needle nose plies... I use/prefer the Lyman 'M' die or the NOE expander plugs that provide a 'step' inside the case neck for seating. Depending on the rifle a very slight 'crimp' to remove the flair of the neck may be needed for smooth feeding, just enough to keep the case neck edge from catching on the edge of the chamber. I would start with a .310 bullet diameter in the .308. There are many methods to determine 'proper' bullet diameter, but simply trying .310, maybe .311 and .309 will probably save much fussing. I don't usually use plain base bullets in my rifle cartridges, gas checked bullets will get you to accurate shooting more quickly and provide velocities that will work at longer ranges. Once you are getting under 2 MOA groups at 100 yards, then plain base, paper patch, special alloys and lubricants MIGHT be needed for 'FUN'. I have had good results with bullets purchased from Matt's Bullets and Bullshop along with bullets I have cast. I am not trying to match jacketed bullet performance with cast boolits, it can be done but first the basics. Don't let the 'gurus' make it sound too hard. I run cast in a couple Savage 99 .308's, .300 Savages, .358 Winchester, .32 Special, .35 Rem, .303 Savage. Most shoot under 1.5, with pleasant shooting (light recoil, low muzzle blast) moderate velocity loads.

[charlie b]

Do be picky about castings, BUT... I do two loads for my .308 One is for longer range and one is for plinking/practice at 100yd. Right now I only cast the Lee C309-180 bullet with gas check (powder coat first, add gas check, size).

Reject bullets, due to weight, wrinkles, incomplete fill out, etc that get to the PC phase are used for the plinking loads. My current recipe is ~8.0gn of Blue Dot. Gives just under 1000fps and frequently gives me sub moa groups at 100yd, even with 'bad' bullets.

The long range bullets are carefully inspected and weight matched. 23.8gn of IMR4198 gives me right at 1800fps and MOA or better accuracy out to 300yd. Am working on some more refinement to get MOA at 600yd.

Some folks can get higher velocities by different methods but I am happy with sub-2000fps loads with the heavier bullets. I might try a >200gn bullet and see if it does better at the longer ranges. I also have not tried cast in the M1 Garand. That is next up on my list.

PS you can try fillers if you want but I found that they made little difference or made things worse. For some more powder choices the Lyman Cast Handbook gives a lot of useful loads.

PPS and there are these guys
https://castbulletassoc.org/match-results

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

First thing I'd recommend, is to decide on what your goal is.

After you've read and understood what the Lyman cast bullet handbook has to offer, then I'd search out some specific articles on that topic/caliber. Like these...

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...Rifles-Article

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...pringfield-M1A

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...on-the-7-62X39