Cast bullets in .223

[leadman]

I have shot lino bullets in the 223 and 22 K-Hornet at 3,000 fps. As Jim said the accuracy is not as good as around 2,300 to 2,700 fps, depending on powder and cartridge.
The 22 K-Hornet does better at 2,700 fps than the 223. I think it might be the amount of powder needed to get equal velocities or the 3" longer barrel on the 223.
Lino shoots much better than bullets that are water dropped or heat treated to try to get equal hardness.

[camaro1st]

the new style bator, alloy is water dropped ww. col is 2.035 any longer and against the rifling.

Camaro1st, do you have the old style Bator or the new one? What COAL are you loading to? What lead alloy are you using?

Thanks,
Jim

[JIMinPHX]

Save the samples and see what the measurements are a week or two from now, please. ... felix

Felix, I have plenty of samples. I'll try to remember to check 2 of them again next week. If I forget, please remind me.

Thanks,
Jim

Camaro, thanks for the info.

[felix]

Jim, my memory is worse than yours, I bet! If the spread of hardness remains the same, then, for sure, water dropping does still work as intended even with that small of a boolit. Hopefully, your test allowed each air dropped boolit remain all alone (i.e., not in a pile where neighborhood heat would have an effect in slowing the intended reaction of each.). ... felix

[badbob454]

i have a 16" ss barrel carbine lenth, standard spring and buffer ar-15 with 200 +or- a few rounds through it. i am water dropping my bator cast boolits, with gas checks. I am getting good cycling with 21grs of imr4064. i started low and worked up on a load. manual cycling and checking for any signs of pressure problems then it was cycling on its own. no leading and 5rd group at 1.5" off hand@50yrds. Dont know how fast they are flying but i can't see them.

probably @ 2250-2300 fps with the bator and 21 gr of 4064 a guestimate looking at imr powder listings

[JIMinPHX]

Hopefully, your test allowed each air dropped boolit remain all alone (i.e., not in a pile where neighborhood heat would have an effect in slowing the intended reaction of each.). ... felix

Actually, I drop my "air cooled" boolits into a cardboard box that has an old shirt in it for padding. That does slow down the cooling a little. I do still have my early rejects from the first few pours, before the mold started throwing good boolits. Those were just dumped on the bench, out in the open air. They have some wrinkles in them, so they were a little cool to begin with, but they did cool in open air. I can check them too.

[CWME]

Guess I will wade in with my latest tries with 223 on the AR-15 platform. Goal was 100% function/feed from the mag.

20" "full size" Colt 1-7 H-bar barrel.
Saeco 221 60Gr boolit, WW air cooled with Lyman Orange Magic lube, Hornady GC. (PITA by the way, have to aneal GC to get them on)

Started with 18 GR H 4895 and went to 19.5 GR. 19 GR Gave 90% function of bolt. 19.5 GR gave me 100% reliable function.

Testing in my shop at about 10 yards offhand into my bullet trap. Shot out the 3/4" bull of the test target. No idea as to velocity or longer range accuracy. This was a function test only but looks like it has promise.

No leading aparent in the barrel.

[JIMinPHX]

Orange Magic worked well for me as a short range pistol lube, but when I used it on rifle boolits at longer ranges, my accuracy was not the best. Changing to Carnuba Red or Lyman Super Moly shrunk my groups by about 50%. I don't know, but I suspect that some of the Orange Magic comes off during flight, but not all of it, & that makes the boolit unbalanced. That's just a guess though.

[PatMarlin]

Bruce Drake,

When you have found the load that works best in your rifle, and you are getting good groups, but with occasional fliers, try what Harvey Donaldson suggested in his book "Yours Truley Harvey 'Donaldson" Harvey wrote that when he would get a flier when he felt that everything was right with the cartridge, he would remove that cartridge case that produced the flyer from the rest of the cases that did produce good groups. He said that by doing this, his groups would become much smaller.

Ken.

You know why? A good reason could be the (ID) diameter of the primer pocket. I read on how primer pockets- not cleaning, but uniformity in the ID effecting accuracy. Not talked much about at CB.,

I've been wanting to start a thread on it.

[GabbyM]

Yes get some LARS carnauba red or some other lube of better quality IMHO.

Most of all. Saeco put out a bunch of off spec 223 moulds a couple years ago. I have one I’ve not sent back. They had short gas check shanks. In a 22 rifle mould gas checks should push on when using Linotype alloy. Or at least 2/6 alloy. Softer alloys will make smaller diameter bullets so checks should fit easier. You may want to give Saeco a call. 22 bullets are a challenge to be sure and for the mould manufactures they are a real test.

My preference for a 22 bullet mould is a Lyman due to the steel they use for there moulds.
Cast iron blocks just do not have the precision surface finish and erode after use to make a larger bullet. With 22’s that is an issue that does not come into play with larger bullets. Aluminum and brass is good also.

[GabbyM]

You know why? A good reason could be the (ID) diameter of the primer pocket. I read on how primer pockets- not cleaning, but uniformity in the ID effecting accuracy. Not talked much about at CB.,

I've been wanting to start a thread on it.

One of the first tools you need IMHO for accuracy in a rifle is a primer pocket uniformer. I buy the carbide tools from Sinclair. Then a flash hole deburr tool. Which is a No. 1 center drill for US brass.

For military brass I’ve an RCBS tool with the point of it’s #1 C drill ground short. I run that in the flash hole from the top before attempting to de prime. This removes the common burr from punched flash holes and almost prevents broken de cap pins when de priming military brass. Reason for grinding the #1 C-drill off short is so it does not hit the primer anvil or bugger up the flash hole. You just need enough deburr to prevent the decap pin from being deflected from the flash hole. Or bringing a burr into the flash hole with the pin. Both issues will break your de cap pin.

Since this is a 223 or 5.56mm NATO thread I stuck this in.
Salvaged Mil brass needs some work to get it ready to shoot.

[JIMinPHX]

My preference for a 22 bullet mould is a Lyman due to the steel they use for there moulds.
Cast iron blocks just do not have the precision surface finish and erode after use to make a larger bullet. With 22’s that is an issue that does not come into play with larger bullets. Aluminum and brass is good also.

This is the first time that I've seen this opinion posted. Could you please expand on that a little? I'm interested in finding out more details on that subject. I had always thought that cast iron was a good material to use. I have also been told by some people that Lyman molds are made from a high quality grade of cast iron. Others have said that they are made out of leadloy. If you know which metal Lyman actually uses, please fill me in on that too.

Thanks,
Jim

[GabbyM]

This is the first time that I've seen this opinion posted. Could you please expand on that a little? I'm interested in finding out more details on that subject. I had always thought that cast iron was a good material to use. I have also been told by some people that Lyman molds are made from a high quality grade of cast iron. Others have said that they are made out of leadloy. If you know which metal Lyman actually uses, please fill me in on that too.

Thanks,
Jim

Not sure what the exact alloy of a Lyman mould block is. When you cut them you get fairly long chips with a little curl. Blue color. Saeco uses cast iron that machines into crumbled pieces almost as small as gray cast iron. I’ve a lot of Saeco moulds running in a casting machine. The bullets all grow over time. All these moulds were purchased within the last three years. It’s highly possible the iron saeco uses of late is of lesser quality that in the past.

With my Saeco #223 mould I was getting usable bullets for about the first 2,000. Then the shoulder of the check shank eroded and the shank diameter enlarged. Now a gas check will not fit all the way on the shank before hitting the shoulder and you can hardly get them on the fat shank anyway. I’ve tossed that mould in a box with a couple other Saeco moulds. The corners crumbled because the cavities were either cut with dull tooling or to hard of a feed rate. In other words the surface finish was not good enough for a casting mould. As long as employers think just any monkey off the street can run a CNC machine we’ll see this level of work.

Take a look at the Lyman 225646 with those thin groves in the nose. You’d be hard pressed to get that feature machined in the cast alloy Saeco uses. I’m not out to totally trash Saeco. I’ve a lot of there moulds making nice bullets. But there again. One of my most used ones is a #068 SWC 45 ACP bullet. It started life dropping bullets just shy of .452”. I used a C punch to peen dimples on the mould face to Beagle it out a bit. Those dimples are gone now and the bullets come out round and over .453”. I don’t have records but that mould has probably dropped 100,000 bullets. It has a nice blue shinny finish now and is probably stabilized. The bevel base has shrunk from original and is small now. However it’s concentric. I’ve a couple bull’s-eye shooters running them who can shoot one hole groups under 2” at fifty yards. I’ve a set of eight magma #68 moulds but still run that single Saeco as it makes superior bullets. That’s a secret so don’t tell anyone OK.

I’ve a few H&G mould that are cut from a cast iron alloy. They are nice and smooth like one would wish for. I’ve never cut on an H&G mould.

Anyway that’s my personal experience with the moulds. BTW I’ve machined hundreds of thousands of tons worth of cast iron parts from assorted alloys.

For 22’s I’d just stick with Lyman ,RCBS or one of the custom shops. Saeco can make a good one if they’d just do it. Lyman and RCBS are easier to return product to also.

Saeco put out a bunch of these #223 moulds with fat short check shanks. One of our members from Kansas bought one in four cavity after he shot some #223’s I swapped him for. He returned it for a good one and they told him over the phone they’d had a run go out like that. I should return mine but it’s been two or three years.

[JIMinPHX]

Gabby, I'm sorry to hear that you had a run of bad luck with Saeco. I always thought that they had a good reputation.

If you ever get to thinking that you might want to trash that mold, send it my way instead. I've been kind of wondering what kind of performance I could get from a plain base boolit in a .223 & a mold with an eroded GC shank would be a perfect candidate for getting reamed out to plain base.

Thanks for responding to my question.

Jim

[camaro1st]

jim if you get that mold from gabby would you let me know how the plain base works out? i have been wondering myself.

[stubshaft]

Lyman claims its blocks are made of a special formula malleable cast iron.

[camaro1st]

jim those are very nice looking boolits (jealous here) have you tried hollowing out any of the new style bators?

[PatMarlin]

Why is the Remington called a 222, and the Remignton 223 called the 223 when both calibers are 22cal-.224?

[JIMinPHX]

jim if you get that mold from gabby would you let me know how the plain base works out? i have been wondering myself.

Anytime that I do something interesting like that, I almost always post my results here. Even if I don't get that mold from Gabby, I may try the same thing with a few cavities in the new Bator that I just got.

have you tried hollowing out any of the new style bators?

I haven't tried that yet, only because I haven't tried to do anything with the Bator that would be likely to benefit from a hollow point.

I'll try to remember to do a few when I get back into the shop again, just for the heck of it.

[Flash]

Why is the Remington called a 222, and the Remignton 223 called the 223 when both calibers are 22cal-.224?

The 222 Remington started life as a sporting round and Remington tried to position themselves for supplying a round to the Military with the 222 Remington magnum. The military tested the mag in the 700BDL back in the late 50's but sent it back to Remingtom for improvements hence, the 223 which is a hair under the 222 mag by being shorter and lighter. I guess when you're dealing with millions of rounds of ammunition, saving space and weight is a good thing. The designation of 223 over 222 mag had to be made otherwise, it would appeared as the same thing. I guess there were too many rounds on the market which had the 22 prefix so Remington came out with one better, the 222.