Ideal hardness for 45/70 Boolits

[montana_charlie]

After firing a round, measure the inside diameter of the mouth on the fired case.
If your bullet diameter is not (at least) as large as that dimension, it can probably be called 'undersized'.
Most Pedersoli chambers will accept a cartridge with a .460" bullet seated in it. Shooting the fattest bullet that will chamber smoothly is the 'best idea' in my book.

However, when using a 'soft' bullet of 10 BHN or less, and propelling it with black powder, the bullet will bump up to seal off gases if it is even only 'close to' the groove diameter of the barrel.
If there is any doubt that the bullet is expanding fast enough, seat it so that it is in contact with the rifling lands.
That will retard it's movement long enough to get obturation.

In your quest to discover the cause of your leading, there is a project that you can use to fill time between target matches.
Using Cerro-safe to make a cast, or soft lead to make an impact impression, create a model of the interior of your chamber ... a chamber cast.
(discussions of those processes are prolific on this site)

This may (probably will) show your chamber to be notably longer than the nominal 2.1 inches expected in a 45/70 chamber.
If such is the case, compare the length of a fired case with the actual depth of the chamber.
Any gap between the case mouth and the chamber end can act as a trap for lead that gets peeled off of a bullet as it leaves the case.

In this situation, peering through your barrel (as suggested earlier) may show leading in the front of your chamber which 'smears' on out through the leade and into the bore.

If you are afflicted with 'short brass', there are two remedies for large gaps.
Stretch the cases you have now, or buy 45/90 brass and trim it back to the dimension in your chamber cast.
If the gap is less than 25 thousandths, leaving a grease groove (or half of a grease groove) exposed right at the mouth of the case might tame the beast.

CM

[loadedbutbroke]

OK I have slugged the barrel with a soft lead bullet.


The Bullet on the left is the slug (ignore the base I dropped it while taking the pictures) the one on the right is an identical soft lead cast bullet. The third bullet shows the impressions made by the lands and the grooves. If you enlarge the images then you can see the marks quite clearly. Note on the third bullet how the lands have cut deeper at one point and gone further onto the nose.

Measuring the slug was quite difficult. I used dial calipers and a conventional micrometer. The Grooves of the barrel measure .4555 and are consistent over the length of the slug. The Lands on the barrel measure Max.451 and Min.4505 The impression of the rifling looks pretty consistent all round the slug with one cut slightly deeper as shown in the picture at the noes.

Now the Boolit used for the slug measures Max .459 Min .457 which means it is not completely round. I believe the casting is widest at the spru line and indeed this is almost exactly where the deeper cut is on one side.

I went on to measure other harder bullets I have made from this mould and they came out Max .459 min .457 The same as the soft. Now I have not as yet tried the 25:1 or 30:1 as I don't have anything made up.

Taking it that the bullet should be .001 or .002 larger than the bore does this mean the bullets I am using are too big? Could this be causing the leading? Is the slight oval shape of the bullet making a difference? (I believe this rifle to be very little used until I acquired it, I have put approximately 7-800 rounds through it )

I will be looking at the deposits of lead and lube issue next time I shoot.

Adrian

[725]

Two ingots of wheel weights, one ingot of pure lead, and a golf ball sized piece linotype works for me. Hard enough for some speed and pure magic on deer & wild boar.

[Southron]

Lyman moulds are made by the "Cherry Method." A cutter in the shape of the bullet is made up and is rotated while the two blank mould blocks come together. When the blocks meet, the cavity in the bullet mould is made.

After cutting a number of moulds, the cutting edges of the Cherry becomes dull and has to be re-sharpened. Each time the cutter is re-sharpened, it becomes incrementally smaller, hence, over time with sharpening after sharpening of the cavity, the bullet cavity in the mould becomes smaller and smaller.

So, the size of the bullet cavity inside of your Lyman mould depends when it the 'life cycle" of the Cherry it was cut. IF you have an undersize bullet, you can "Lap Out" the mould as much as Two Thou. of an Inch-but before you do that you have to "Slug" your barrel to determine your True Bore Diameter. Then you know what size the bullets cast by your mould have to be.

Do you size your bullets??? Bullets come out of a mould at slightly different sizes, so all cast bullets need to be sized.

PETROLEUM BASED LUBES AND BLACK POWDER DO NOT MIX.

A good black powder lube is made my melting 60% real Beeswax and 40% Bore Butter together.

Instead of lubing just in the grease grooves, try dipping your entire bullet in melted lube and then setting the bullet up on its base on aluminum foil for the lube to cool and harden.

WEIGH ALL OF YOUR BULLETS AND SEPARATE THEM INTO "LOTS" OF PLUS OR MINUS 1/2 GRAIN. Of course. the bullets that are too light, even though they look good have a hidden air bubble in them-so they go back into the casting pot so the lead can be recycled.

GOOD LUCK!!!

[montana_charlie]

Taking it that the bullet should be .001 or .002 larger than the bore does this mean the bullets I am using are too big?

No.
That 'one to two thousandths larger' thing is really for bullets fired from smokeless loads which cannot bump up a bullet in the same way that black powder does.
Smokeless loads need a bullet that obturates the bore before the round is fired ... especially when harder alloys are used.

For your purpose, any bullet that chambers freely is not 'too fat'.

CM

[loadedbutbroke]

Southron wrote

Do you size your bullets??? Bullets come out of a mould at slightly different sizes, so all cast bullets need to be sized.

PETROLEUM BASED LUBES AND BLACK POWDER DO NOT MIX.

Hello Southron, I do not re-size as I was advised not to many months ago and apart from that I cant afford the equipment! I notice that others say use the largest bullet you can that will chamber so for now I am going to leave the bullet as is.

Your second point about the lube is quite correct, I know this as I once loaded my .577 Snider with minié bullets lubricated with Liquid Alox. A few shot well but the clean up afterwards was appalling in took about 6 hours including soaking time to get the fouling out of the barrel. The black crud seemed to be welded to the bore and nothing including black powder solvent would touch it, my arm still aches from all the scrubbing! Anyway because of this I tried the lube I now use which has the consistency of a stiff waxy 'Vaseline'.


It does not set



Here it is applied to a reject bullet, I can get more lube into the grooves with care. The guy who makes it wont tell me what is in it more than to say there is some petroleum based product but I think there is a lot of bees wax in there too.


I like this lube because it is easy to apply and gives me good result with the fouling. I swab through after nearly every shot and the barrel stays good and clear. When I get home doing the bore takes no time Except for the fact with a tight patch lead starts to come out, scrubbing will produce more tiny flakes . And the last time I shot with 74grn load some quite big pieces came out.

Toymaker :-Second, next time you shoot your rifle - when you clean 1) use a tight patch with solvent from the breech and just scrub the chamber, don't go onto the rifling. Pull it out and check for leading. 2) use a tight patch with solvent from the breech and scrub the first 4 inches up the bore cleaning the rifling. Pull it out and check for leading. 3) use a tight patch with solvent from the muzzle and carefully scrub the last 4 inches down the bore cleaning the rifling. Pull it out and check for leading.
If 1) has lead it's probably chunks caused by the bullet getting shaved as it enters the rifling. A recent Pedersoli issue. It will stop as the edges wear. Try moving the bullet up so it just engages the rifling. Otherwise it's not a problem unless you notice it builds up and degrades accuracy.
If 2) has lead it's probably threads caused by the bullet stripping as it engages the sharp edged rifling. It shouldn't build up, won't impact accuracy and will stop as the rifling wears a bit.
If 3) has lead it is caused by the lube running out before the bullet exits the bore. Try a different lube or a bullet with bigger lube grooves.

The above makes a lot of sense to me so next time I shoot I will do as Toymaker suggests and this should show if the lube is the problem. Unfortunately I am not shooting for another two weeks.

Thanks for your input and all the information on the Lyman moulds. I have been weighing my bullets to within a grain, I shall try going down to a half as you suggest. Once I get the Alloy right I hope that this will be easier.
Adrian

[Toymaker]

loadedbutbroke - more and more I suspect your lead issue is #1. The odds of #2 are decreasing from what I've read to date. #3 is unlikely because your concern is more about the lead than accuracy.

With my rolling block I've shot 1 round and then cleaned it completely to get an idea of how much lead was being left. Then I shot 40 rounds and cleaned. Looking at the patches I had to say that the amount of lead didn't change from 1 to 40. As to accuracy, all 40 shots were well within a 3 inch center circle at 100 yards with a 405 grain bullet. In fact, shot #40 overlapped #1.
I've repeated this test with a 500 grain bullet and got a smaller group, again with no increase of lead between 1 shot and 40 shots.

Keep going. You're doing good and on the right track. Too bad you can't shoot more frequently. LOVED visiting your beautiful country on many occasions on business and pleasure, but after a week my sighting eye starts twitching

[country gent]

Loadedbutbroke, It may sound off but try pan lubing those bullets ( stand bullets in a shallow pan and melt lube to flow into grooves), It looks like from your picture your not getting full grooves. A simple cutter can be made from a fired case ( if you dont want to sacrafice a 45-90 use a 45-70. Use a fired case drill out the flash hole to .250 or so for a pin or bolt to eject bullets. Chamver case mouth with inside tool to almost sharp edge then lightly flare mouth .005-.01- bigger in your die. This allows case to help push lube into gooves and hold it there. Use a fired case and lube will be slightly larger in dia than bullet again insuring comlpetely filled grooves. When you get the first pan full done dont remove the lube cake just continue to set bullets into existing holes add enogh lube to replentish and remelt into new batch of bullets. I do this in a double boiler type set up. A bigger cake pan on burner a couple small supports to keep pan of bullets of bottom water to level of lube or there abouts. Heat on burner till lube is molten, shut off and let cool to room temp. remove pan from water and set on towel with the above cutter remove bullets from lube cake. Store pan in large ziplock or plastic bag when not being used.

[cajun shooter]

After looking at your picture of a lubed bullet, I'll stand by my first posting. You seemed to take offense on what I posted for some reason. Even though others posted the very same thing about slugging your bore and looking at your lube.
Your rifle barrel is most likely running out of lube and again I say that based on the information(picture) that you posted.
If you would fill each groove by pan lubing and using a Kate cutter, some of your problems may become less so.
You may also want to try a few bullets from another mold. I hope you are able to overcome this bump in the road, we all have them and that is the interesting part of bullet casting. Good Shooting David

[loadedbutbroke]

Hello David

I did not take offence at your original post and I am sorry if I have given that impression. Earlier posts also said I should slug the bore and that is eventually what I did as it appeared from yet more posts that the size of the bullet maybe to blame. As it happens that can now be ruled out.

Regarding the lube I agree it needs to be looked at but I was going to wait until I have shot again to determine if my current arrangement is the cause of the problem. It may well be.

However, last night, I did some more work on the Alloy I have been using and think that I may have initially made mistakes in the way I was measuring the hardness resulting in too hard a bullets. The next lot I make will be at a genuine 25:1 and therefore when I test with my existing load/lube/positioning etc. it is going to be interesting to see if the lube is at fault.(incidentally I usually fill the grooves better than the ones in the picture which I did hurriedly with a reject bullet as I had no others to hand).

So I am eliminating problems one at a time; the contributions made by everybody have been very valuable including of course your own and the next thing to look at is the lube as you suggest by seeing where this leading is coming from in the Chamber/Bore.

I hope in turn you have not taken offence at my response to your first post, looking back on it, it is a bit clumsy, all I was trying to say was I am taking each issue one at a time.

Very best wishes and good shooting.

Adrian

[Frank V]

loadedbutbroke
Several black powder shooters I know have told me they have very good luck using a lube called SPG. It is designed for BP, I've used it quite successfully with smokless loads in handguns. It's available from several sources including I think, Midway USA.
I've also used a solution for cleaning handguns after shooting black in them that I got from one of Mike Venturino's articles. He uses Windex (with vinegar NOT ammonia) I find it in our local Safeway store. I mix about a cup into a half gallon milk carton filled with water. It simply eats BP fouling & makes cleanup a breeze.
Good shooting.

[loadedbutbroke]

So I recently shot 25:1 alloy Postell as previously described. I kept a good eye on the bore as I went along but found it impossible to see any leading at all. However on clean up I did as suggested and looked to see if I could find lead at different locations in the barrel. Not easy as the bore looked completely clean and mirror like before I started. however while at the Chamber end all I could find was a further blackening of a patch (as you get with lead) the only tiny bits I got out would appear to be at the muzzle. I had to scrub first to get these to come out on a tight patch.

I had a chat to a couple of more experienced shooters and they did not think that the amount of lead was exceptional in fact compared to some quite good.

So why was I getting so much lead before? my feeling is that I had been using too hard an Alloy. Approx BHN 10 rather than 6-7 BHN for the last load (according to my pencils).So maybe as others have suggested the bullets have not been sealing up the bore as well as they should.

This next shoot at 1,100 &1,200 yrds should show more as I have upped the load to 72 grn. The bullets will be from the 25:1 batch.
The lube as before.( for now anyway)

Cheers to you all Adrian

[drinks]

If all else fails, try a mixture of 50-50 bees wax and peanut oil for a lube.
I knew some old timers who used nothing else and were quite happy .
I use an alloy of 12-14 BHN even in my 405gr HB load.
No leading with LBT soft blue or Lar's red lube and no animals walk away, either.

[Toymaker]

Loadedbutbroke - Here's a follow-up from a shooting session last Sunday and Tuesday. - Remember, my rifle is a Pedersoli Rolling Block, 45-70; I took a 30:1 (BHN 10) bullet (Lyman 457-193) and put it in the chamber. Then I pushed it into the lead and drove it 4 inches or so up the bore. Then I cleaned those 4 inches - guess what I found. Little slivers of lead. Hope I can explain this so it's understandable ... the back edges of the rifling, not the sides that guide and twist the bullet, is perpendicular to the bore and sharp. They are not tapered. The bullet goes into the rifling and these edges act like scrapers, shaving off slivers of lead.
I had cast some bullets (Lyman 457-193) from pure lead and loaded them with my usual charge. I fired 5 and cleaned the rifle. I mean I CLEANED that rifle. (The guy next to me said "If that's not a smoothbore, it will be.") No slivers. Then I fire 20 rounds at 1 minute intervals (at our Ram Bash it takes about a minute for your turn to come up again). Then I cleaned. (guy next to me says "There he goes again.) NO SLIVERS. I was dancing a jig.
The guy next to me finally asks what I was doing, so I explained the issue. He says "Oh, yea. That happens, even with jacketed bullets. Once the edges wear and get polished a bit it'll stop." We talked some more about it, but all I could think of was "Where was this guy 6 months ago?"
BTW - my groups were under 2 inches at 100 yards off the bench.

[powderburnerr]

if that is a pedersoli you will need a 460 bullet or thereabouts I am betting , they are bigger than us made guns.

[country gent]

I use 20-1 in my 40-65, 45-70, and 45-90 currently with good results little leading and very good accuracy. I did experiment with 30-1 a couple times. You may want to experiment with 16-1, 20-1, 25-1, and 30-1 to see what the rifle likes. With real black powder the softer alloies obtrate better sealing bore and gipping rifling better. A good lube desighned for Black Powder helps also. A good fitting bore riding bullet may work for you also

[loadedbutbroke]

Toymaker writes

Remember, my rifle is a Pedersoli Rolling Block, 45-70; I took a 30:1 (BHN 10) bullet (Lyman 457-193) and put it in the chamber. Then I pushed it into the lead and drove it 4 inches or so up the bore. Then I cleaned those 4 inches - guess what I found. Little slivers of lead. Hope I can explain this so it's understandable ... the back edges of the rifling, not the sides that guide and twist the bullet, is perpendicular to the bore and sharp. They are not tapered. The bullet goes into the rifling and these edges act like scrapers, shaving off slivers of lead.

More excellent stuff; thank you for taking all this trouble, I assume it is useful for you too!

My rifle is a 32" Pedersoli Sharps (Silhouette model) which I assume is pretty similar if not the same as your rolling block in the bore department. I get what you are saying about the edges of the riffling and may well try your experiment with the soft slug to see what I get. I have no real idea how much ammunition has gone through my rifle as I got it second hand, having said that it seemed as new when I got it.

I fired 5 and cleaned the rifle. I mean I CLEANED that rifle. (The guy next to me said "If that's not a smoothbore, it will be.") No slivers

This is one of those strange things too, I can clean my barrel and have it visually spotless, leave it a day, come back to it, give a scrub and a tight patch and voila more black patches and some more little pieces lets call them splinters will come out. Try it again and the same thing! In fact like your buddy I do sometimes worry that I might damage the rifling with all the cleaning. (perhaps I should get some Hoppe's No 9)

BTW - my groups were under 2 inches at 100 yards off the bench.

Sounds pretty good to me, if only I could get some range time at a suitable range to try this myself. Unfortunately the nearest range which has a hundred yard lanes is closed (due to bullets bouncing over the top!!!) The NRA (British version) will not allow Black powder cartridge rifle on the Zero range at Bisley. I will make inquires to see if I can get together with some friends to hire another range at Bisley later on.

Saturdays shoot was marred by strong wind blowing left to right and then veering to head on so it makes it very difficult to judge the accuracy of the ammunition especially as I am not too brilliant at reading the wind. However I did as well as most, Saturday coming will really show the capability of rifle and ammo at 1,100 and 1,200 yrds, unfortunately the wind is predicted to be strong again ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

All the best Adrian

[loadedbutbroke]

I use 20-1 in my 40-65, 45-70, and 45-90 currently with good results little leading and very good accuracy. I did experiment with 30-1 a couple times. You may want to experiment with 16-1, 20-1, 25-1, and 30-1 to see what the rifle likes. With real black powder the softer alloies obtrate better sealing bore and gipping rifling better. A good lube desighned for Black Powder helps also. A good fitting bore riding bullet may work for you also

Hello country gent thanks for your advice again, the last time I made up the alloy I did use a 25:1 mix accurately measured. It seems to be a lot better than my previous attempts which came out too hard. The reason I think I got it so badly wrong was, cutting a long story short, that I was not doing the 'pencil test' for hardness correctly so I went back and corrected all my earlier work (having re-read the article on this site and watching the video clip) and discovered that I was underestimating the hardness of my batches of lead by up to 4 pencil grades or approximately 8 BHN. Below is a rough chart I made up following the reworking and including the last couple of shoots (see red type).

Boolit Cast from Lyman Postel Mould

Cast pure lead 5B

Cast from 25:1 Lead Carefully measured.

Cast from 4B lead in pot

1:20 tin lead Alloy

Harder lead

Lymans no2

Ingot of Lynotype

Slug from Bore

Batch April 15

Batch shot 11/4

batch shot9/5 25:1

Pencil

<6B

5B

4B

3B

2B

B

HB

>HB

<6B

>5B

<3B

<5B

Approx BHN

5

7?

9?

10

13?

15?

Molly 15 Lyman 16.6

>18

Approx BHN @ 1.75 intervals

5

6.75

8.5

10.25

12

13.75

15.5

17.25

say 7.75

Notes

Early batch. Bullets too hard. Leading

Mix Approx 25:1

Mix Approx 20:1 or harder. Shot with 74grn #4 heavier leading

accurate 25:1 mix shot with 60grn #4 Some small pieces lead Apparently nothing unusual

Max Dia Grooves

0.4555

Min Dia Grooves

0.4555

Max Dia Lans

0.451

Min Dia Lans

0.4505

Dia Max

0.459

0.4588

0.4588

0.459

Dia Min

0.457

0.4568

0.457

0.457

To explain everything to the left of slug from bore is the scale I have tested out, everything to the right are actual shoots. Sorry it does not come out so well on the forum, it comes out fine on Excel.

So things are looking better, I take your point about the bore ridding bullet which I think you also made in an earlier post. I will consider this having established I can go no further with the Postell.

So many people have now posted about the lube including Frank V, Southron, Drinks and of course yourself that I am going to have to do something about it but I want to see how my existing arrangement works at the coming long range shoot with the extra load. Last shoot was not at all bad.

Thanks once again to everybody for the suggestions, hope you are not getting bored with me,- good shooting- Adrian

[Frank V]

Interesting reading following what you fellows are experiencing.
Thanks.

[montana_charlie]

Remember, my rifle is a Pedersoli Rolling Block, 45-70; I took a 30:1 (BHN 10) bullet (Lyman 457-193) and put it in the chamber. Then I pushed it into the lead and drove it 4 inches or so up the bore. Then I cleaned those 4 inches - guess what I found. Little slivers of lead. Hope I can explain this so it's understandable ... the back edges of the rifling, not the sides that guide and twist the bullet, is perpendicular to the bore and sharp. They are not tapered. The bullet goes into the rifling and these edges act like scrapers, shaving off slivers of lead.

More excellent stuff; thank you for taking all this trouble, I assume it is useful for you too!

My rifle is a 32" Pedersoli Sharps (Silhouette model) which I assume is pretty similar if not the same as your rolling block in the bore department. I get what you are saying about the edges of the riffling and may well try your experiment with the soft slug to see what I get. I have no real idea how much ammunition has gone through my rifle as I got it second hand, having said that it seemed as new when I got it.

In an earlier post I suggested that you make a cast, or an impact impression, of your chamber.
Had you done so you would know that your chamber does not resemble the description of Toymaker's rolling block ... not even close.

A cast (or impression) will give you the actual dimensions created by the guy who handled the reamer when your barrel was chambered, but a general description of the Pedersoli Sharps chamber is:

- Chamber depth, from case head to transition angle, is 2.129" (almost 30 thousandths longer than the nominal '2.1')
- The transition angle at the end of the chamber is a 'very gentle' 10 degrees, 12 minutes, 14 seconds from chamber mouth diameter down to freebore diameter.
- Freebore diameter is .460", cylindrical, and .236" long to where it meets the beginning of the leade.
- The leade angle is 1 degree, 11 minutes, 37 seconds per side ... about the lowest angle you are likely to find in a currently produced Sharps.


If you can visualize the topography of the metal from that description, you will understand that there is no "back edge" anywhere in the barrel that could 'scrape' lead off of a bullet as it passes.



Again, how the factory worker handled the reamer will determine how close your chamber matches this nominal description.

If you want a bullet that is designed to fit the Pedersoli Sharps chamber throat, that would be the 460-550-Pedersoli/Gunn/Trenk bullet commonly called the PGT.
http://www.bpcr.net/site_docs-result...enk_bullet.htm

CM