Anyone with experience loading 266305 in sweede?

[LWSTARKS]

I have come into a Lyman 266305 mold 4 cavity and played with it some and made these...

I'm curious if anyone has cast this slug and loaded in 6.5 Swedish either it. What kind of accuracy should I expect? What powders used?

Thanks in advance

[Yodogsandman]

Everyones 6.5x55 is different, they slug out at different diameters in the throat. Accuracy will depend on the fit in YOUR RIFLE. It looks to have promise, though! Look in your manual for a similar weight boolit and try some Unique powder for about 1400-1500 FPS.

If you can clean all the oils out of your mold and preheat the mold before casting, your boolits will come out much better. The mold probably wasn't hot enough and that's why you have those wrinkles. By just casting as fast as you can without looking at the boolits as you cast (at first) will help get the mold up to temperature, too. Be sure to leave a big sprue puddle on the sprue plate, too. That will keep the sprue plate hot, preventing rounded edges on the bottoms. That is a nice looking boolit for the 6.5!

[aspangler]

I use that boolit in my Swede. I use IMR 4831 43.5 grains. Don't know the velocity but it shoots one hole groups at 100 yards.

[44man]

The only rifle I have not tried cast in is my Swede so this is of interest, keep more loads coming.
One day I will have a mold.

[Yodogsandman]

I use that boolit in my Swede. I use IMR 4831 43.5 grains. Don't know the velocity but it shoots one hole groups at 100 yards.

WOW! That's impressive! I only use 44 gr IMR4831 in my full powder 140 gr jacked bullet load.

[W.R.Buchanan]

"Dutchman" is the resident expert on shooting Swedes. He has written about shooting cast many times.

Things I remember are that M96's have close to 1:8 twist rates needed to stabilize the long bullets that were loaded in them at the time. This makes these guns in a class by themselves as no other vintage Military weapons had twist rates that fast. The 1:10 rate common to most .30cal. guns tends to run boolits best in the 1600-1800fps range.

As a result you can't run Boolits too fast. IIRC I think he said 1300 to 1400fps gave the best results. anything faster than 1500 was all over the place. YMMV

Randy

[james23]

I know I'm late to this thread but I would like to add that I picked up a 266305 mold at a gun show this fall for $30. I used gc's and sized to .265. I loaded the 6.5 x 55 with 8 grains of red dot for an initial trial. I was pleasantly surprised the load worked without any tweaking. Beginners luck for this mold I guess.I may try upping the load for more zip but hey if it aint broke. This rifle is a m38. Haven't tried in the others yet. I loaded some 2400 also but haven't tried it yet.