I think George must have been here....

[mattw]

I have been helping my 17 yo daughter learn to cast and reload. She loves to shoot an AR in 223 and the old AK-47. I had not bothered to find components for the AK as I did not shoot it often and really did not enjoy it. She spotted it and wanted to try it and really liked it. So, a plan was hatched... work her into reloading and casting for it as the AR is not the best candidate for cast bullets. Now mind you... I only had dies as I would prep cases when I found them in hopes of someday reloading them.

George must have heard about this little adventure. We were gone for a few days and when we came back we discovered a problem!

We got home and found all of her Swiss Miss dark chocolate was gone and package wrappers were everywhere! Our useless fat guard cats were well fed as evidenced by the tuna cans in key locations. I was worried about intruders until I found a beautiful NOE 314-129-SP in brass sitting on my desk! I swear Alex thought someone broke in and left us gold!

Well, what does one do with a new mould??? You put the kid to work! Lots of complaints about weight, so I had to crib up a mould guide for her.

I had never used a brass mould, so we both learned that the mould needs to be really hot and and the lead needs to be hot! Ran the old RCBS pot at 720 and got good results. Still have problems with some work trails and not releasing the bullets upon opening. I think more heat and more casting sessions with the blocks will help. We got several made and coated with Smoke's powders. The humidity was really high so the coats are not perfect, but will work!

Notice they are safe, gentle bullets in pastel colors?

Next step is to work up a load for maybe 2230S.

Thanks George!

[Jniedbalski]

I have the same mold. Shoots good but I got the aluminum one

[mattw]

What load, if you don't mind....

[BrassMagnet]

What load, if you don't mind....

Enquiring minds need to know!

[Jniedbalski]

It’s been a while but I think I used BLC2. I know the kids liked them in my sks. They said it was more of a push than a kick. I don’t remember the load but I know it came from using the lee reloading book if that helps.

[BrassMagnet]

It’s been a while but I think I used BLC2. I know the kids liked them in my sks. They said it was more of a push than a kick. I don’t remember the load but I know it came from using the lee reloading book if that helps.

I didn't find any cast data in the Lee Second Edition. More info would sure help. Can you find your load data tag?

[Jniedbalski]

I should of said my lee book or my Lyman cast bullet book. I am almost positive I used Blc2. I used that powder with my jacketed hunting bullets. I also used BLC2 with my cast but don’t remember the charge I used. If there is not a lead bullet load listed with BLC2 I used the load I was using with my hunting bullets. I did have a lot of that info but recently cleaned house of all the extra stuff I haven’t used for awhile. I looked up BLC2 with a 150 gr bullet from Hodgen’s site. It showed a range of three grains from start to max. I can tell you I always start at 1 grain lower than listed starting . I would of started one grain lower then at start grains then one grain higher where I stoped at. Hope this helps

[Jniedbalski]

I should of said my lee book or my Lyman cast bullet book. I am almost positive I used Blc2. I used that powder with my jacketed hunting bullets. I also used BLC2 with my cast but don’t remember the charge I used. If there is not a lead bullet load listed with BLC2 I used the load I was using with my hunting bullets. I did have a lot of that info but recently cleaned house of all the extra stuff I haven’t used for awhile. I looked up BLC2 with a 150 gr bullet from Hodgen’s site. It showed a range of three grains from start to max. I can tell you I always start at 1 grain lower than listed starting . I would of started one grain lower than at start grains then one grain higher where I stoped at. 27 start to 29.5 max listed on hodgens site. So I would of tried 26 gr 27 gr and stoped at 28 gr . If I remember I used the 27 to 28gr the most Hope this helps