High Power Rifle Silhouette with Cast - Advice Needed

[caseyboy]

Hi All,
Anyone play this game strictly with cast out to the 500 meter rams? Where I live we shoot a short course with appropriately sized targets out to 320 yards. I have shot my way into AAA for both standard and hunter rifle with cast in a 7mm-08. Whenever I attend a full length match, I have been shooting jacketed in the 7-08. I want to put an end to my reliance on jacketed and the unreliable availability of jacketed bullets.

I have a CIL 950 (Savage long action) 30-06, a Lyman 314299 that drops bullets under sized and 400 Win cases. The CIL trigger is tuned to a nice crisp 2#s. The barrel is 22" with a 10 twist barrel. Any suggestions?


I have shot a few CLA matches with a 30-30 pre 64. The load I use on the rams is 1500fps with a 311291 175gr boolit. Have not rang a ram yet. Based upon this, and looking at ballistic tables, I need to get the 314299 up to 1800fps minimum and preferably 1900fps for the rams. It should still be trans sonic and have the same energy as the 311291 load. Paper patching is an option, but I don't want to do that unless straight cast does not work.

I am open to any and all suggestions. Real life experience would be a plus.

Cheers Mike

[Larry Gibson]

No reason you can't get a quality cast 314299 (if that bullet actually fits the throat correctly?) to 1900 fps with excellent accuracy using medium burning powders from 4895 on up through the slower powders such as the 4350s, H4831, RL19 or RL22.

Larry Gibson

[w30wcf]

Mike,
A group of us have been shooting cast bullets on the high power silhouette range for quite awhile now. 2 of the fellows use 30-06's. One uses the 311299 and the other an Eagan MX3 (I think that's the bullet). The first uses either 23 or 24 grs, of 2400 (I can't recall which - I'll double check with him), the other, 28 grs. of REL 7. Both usually average 50% or better on the 500 Meter course.

w30wcf

[detox]

My new Lyman 314299 cast with linotype has .3030 bore ride diameter and .3124 diameter at bands. Softer alloys will shrink more causing smaller diameters. 22 grains of 4759 (308 Winchester) will push this bullet to 1900fps. Pushing this bullet any faster with the 4759 has caused me inaccuracy problems. I have shot this bullet in a 1/10 and 1/12 twist and both worked good with groups size of 1 inch and under. I size my bands .0001 -.0005 under leade/free bore diameter for best results. The nose ride section needs a snug slip fit on rifling to work best in my guns. Seat bullet long and crimp just behind front band or longer. You want to make sure the front band aligns inside the leade or freebore of chamber before firing.

Once you fit the bullet properly I believe lots of medium powders will work like Larry says. He has way more experience than me.

Be sure to size your bullets strait and make sure gas checks stay on. I size and crimp on gas checks dry nose first and without lube. Then lube next

[W.R.Buchanan]

I ran across a ballistic chart in the Lyman Cast Bullet Book for every boolit that Lyman makes a mould for. It has drop tables for every starting velocity imaginable and the table for 311299 is very long. It is the only source for the BC of these boolits that I have seen and that tidbit is necessary to calculate the trajectory for any given Bullet/Boolit using a Ballistic Calculator on the computer. NO table for 314299 per se' but it should be exactly the same as 311299.

The only other way to nail the trajectory is to shoot off a rest at the four distances and record corrected elevations for the hits after you dial in the elevation for each distance based on the charts. You will have to do this anyway to verify the calculations when you shoot the steel targets. I would zero the rifle at 200 yards for my Mechanical Zero then make all my elevation moves from there.

I would highly recommend that you settle on a standard load for this gun first, based on shooting the gun on paper at 200 yards. Sighting the gun in for all of the different distances is going to be a bit of work and if you decide to change your load you will just have to do it all over again.

If you can pin down your MV you should be able to dial in your gun for all of the Silhouette distances based on those charts. I would be looking in the 1850 to 1900 fps range for that boolit.

I shoot Long Range and Rimfire Silhouette twice a month it never ceases to amaze me how guys will show up and not have their guns sighted in correctly or even have a clue what their bullet drops are going to be at the different distances. I watch them chase their sights and waste ammo, and the one I really love is making sight adjustments while shooting offhand. Very few shooters are that good!

If your gun is sighted in correctly then you might have a chance at making a Viable Windage Correction if the wind is blowing hard, however making elevation corrections on the fly only shows that you haven't got the trajectory of your load nailed down. You have to have an accurate "Mechanical Zero" to play this game, since all of your Elevation Offsets are based on that repeatable starting point. If it's not right then nothing else will be either.

I am wondering why you are using 314299 instead of 311299 in the .30-06, is the bore on your rifle oversize? Or are you going for a press fit in the barrel.

Randy

[caseyboy]

The 314299 I have drops a .3015 nose and a .313 bands boolit. Sized down to .311 it actually shoots quite well in my 30/06 which has a slightly over groove dia. of .3085. A seated round can be extracted intact, but does show good land engraving on the nose.