350 Legend and Cast Boolits

[Kerry Conklin]

Thanks for the info OLDFELLER!!!
I have never tried to convert 5.56 brass to 350 Legend. When I first seen this was a thing it really troubled me after looking at the saami specs. I figured there was not enough brass material there to get the job done. It was not long before I was reading about this procedure not working, WOW not a real surprise to me. Thanks to those who stated this is not a good or safe idea, I have read many articles that say its a viable procedure, SHAME on those folks, more SHAME for them not saying they were wrong.

THANKS TO OLDFELLER FOR STATING THE FACTS ABOUT 5.56 BRASS NOT BEING VIABLE FOR 350 LEGEND. The facts I read in this post encouraged me to keep reading the whole thread. First off was the 5.56 to 350 Legend might not be a good idea. Anyway, Y'all got me hook line and sinker so I read the whole thing. Glad I did, nice to see some Legend fans out there. However, I have gave up the casting boolits deal a long time ago but I still like reloading cast boolits I purchase. The Cast boolits for the Legend is a new avenue I am pursuing, been having some fun with the 175Gn Truncated GC from Matts in the Legend.
Anyway, really enjoy looking forward to new post here. Keep it up, even little bits of info might help other folks with their interest in 350 Legend.
Kerry.

[Oldfeller]

Back when the Legend was brand new, lots of people started on converting cheap milsurp 5.56 brass because originally the Legend was listed as having .223 as the parent brass. This relatively important "carelessness" by the very first original gun rag writers (and some early secrecy by Winchester) allowed a lot of us early folks to start the attempts to do conversions. I started 500 pieces and was putting my expansion tooling together when I saw the first blown head zone after an early attempter tried to blow the case out from neck expanded to body expanded using gas pressure.

That was all the early information I had (and I was already embedded in 500 pieces of brass by then, already) so I went with mechanical plug based expansion by stages and built tooling to expand the body out into a .391" cylinder form that then got full length resized in a brand new to the world LEE full length sizer.

And indeed I have never cracked a case by firing. I just broke half of them wide open during the required forming operations ........

350 Legend sucked on several fronts, no magazines beyond 5 rounds existed so I had to try to modify a magazine.

So I built tooling to do that (and that was a massive hemorrhoid, too). Commercial suppliers now provide 10 round and 20 round magazines, with perhaps 30 rounders coming in a year or so.

So here I am, giving away all 250 of the surviving "if wants somebody to full length size it into .357 AR" brass and 8 each converted 30 round magazines that might could possibly do a .357 AR person some good.

I will pull down all the bulleted rounds into shippable shape and preserve the powder and put all the brass into the bag with the rest of it.




P Flados, you or any of your buds want some slightly too big brass to size down?

[Kerry Conklin]

I did see your jig to modify the Mags, that was impressive, not sure I would have had the wear with all to devote the time to it. Well done Sir.
Kerry

[P Flados]

P Flados, you or any of your buds want some slightly too big brass to size down?

Nope. I have ample brass for my 357AR.

With your stuff, it would be so oversize down by the base that that there is a good chance that it would be a PITA to get it down to the size needed for a 357AR. Remember, we do not even have factory sizing dies that match the 357AR chamber taper. It has much less taper than 350L, but more than I was happy using a straight wall sizing with a 357 die.

In long guns, I have been trying to get a AR-15 platform 300 BO barrel with boolits to approach the accuracy I got with the 357AR, but have not had much luck in that quest. However, I am not shooting long guns much right now.

[popper]

Personally IMHO the Legend case was developed as a proprietary design so they could keep the business. Does a rimless 357 rifle rnd make sense - yes. Legend - nope.

[mehavey]

Legend case was developed as a proprietary
design so they could keep the business

.
Not so. The Legend case has a taper for gas gun extraction purposes.
Since the Legend case mouth is 357-ish in diameter, the Legend base is larger than the straightwall 357 base.

[Oldfeller]

Also remember you are comparing a 55,000+ psi case (Legend) against a 35,000 psi case (357 Mag). Nobody knows how much pressure it takes to blow a case in the Legend, the most anybody has done is flow the head brass some on the marking stamp area of the head and to expand the primer pocket. That much pressure would require a large amount of WC 820, possibly more than is available to fit into the Legend's limited case capacity.

And you are talking to the crew of guys who would have already done it, if it were possible ........

I like the construction of the Legend case, it is an optimal design. Take that case and redo it in one of the stainless steel variants and THEN you would have a real high pressure case.

You know Wolff will make a stamped steel case for the Legend for cheap eventually (already make a .223 stamped steel case for the cheapie .223 steel ammo). This would be my dream case, (aside from the Berdan primer pocket of course).

[Kerry Conklin]

Hello Folks,
Zero 147gn JHP
Just an update, I was NOT able to get in a 100 yard test but, my brother and I got to sight in his new scope 4-12x40 for his Legend (AR) at 25 Yards but 1.5" low so it should be pretty close when we get out to my 100 yard range. Anyway, from my not so sturdy table while resting on small rifle sand bags we were shooting 3 round groups. All these groups made TINY clover leaf's so I am sure its going to be pretty accurate out at 100-150 yards. When I get out to my 100 yard range with the concreted post table and the sled I will update that distance of accuracy. I also will be testing the Matts Bullets 175 Truncated GC bullet as well for 100 yards.
Kerry

[Oldfeller]

Kerry,

Clover leaf overprinting holes at approximately what fps speeds? Just curious ......

Next big item is using seven to nine gallon milk jugs in a cone pattern to try to catch an expanded bullet. Some luck is needed here as past experience indicates the petals open up, totally destroy a jug or two and then either come off or fold back over irregularly (and the plug stub plows on -- veering off to the side determined by what folded or broke off first).

One dude threw some loose towels in a trash can then filled up the trash can with water, then put a trash bag over the top to control the splashing and popped it from above with a full magazine from off the edge of his deck. The semi-floating folded wet towels dragging in the water were the only thing that really acted to stop the plug stubs from going out the bottom of the can once the wings came off and the jacket material folded over.

If you actually get a bullet to take a picture of, you will have done better than most, as zero pics (excuse the pun please) is the common result of shooting water with Zero 147's in the 350 Legend. The 147 Zero simply likes to violently expand (blow up) and then keep on going, and veering off to the side is also a cute habit they seem to have ....... Reminds me of a Nosler Partition bullet in how it reacts to hitting water.

Once you finish playing with the Zero 147 in several rifle speed scenarios, you realize the 147 Zero does cover it all fairly well from self-defense to medium game hunting. You can drive the small nosed bullets just as hard as powder and space will permit and reach out to 350 yards before the bullet loses too much speed and thus ceases to expand properly.

You will tend to lose "bullet drop guesstimate accuracy" well before then. 150-200 yards is a good bullet drop gut feel "guesstimate" maximum shooting range, beyond that I really should be shooting a different, flatter shooting rifle.

On the good side, most deer are shot inside 80 yards in normal woods hunting. Pig eradication takes place inside 80 yards too, generally speaking.

[Kerry Conklin]

Kerry,

Clover leaf overprinting holes at approximately what fps speeds?

At about 2400, its not a big leaf clover its pretty small.
I thought about the water jug deal but as you have mentioned the deflection deal makes for a hard obstacle to overcome.
I figured i could not get an intact JHP at that speed. Even the Matts 175gn GC check bullet makes two holes exiting an empty metal 55 gallon barrel, one for the bullet the other the gas check with a slit hole. LOL, I needed holes in my new burning barrel, bullets are way more fun then drilling them or blasting it with the flame wrench to make holes. In the past with other barrels I have seen Jackets separate and make two holes, I would have never expected a GC to do the same as its much lighter.
Kerry

[rickt300]

Well I have expanded my cast bullet experience. 7BR was kind enough to send me some test bullets. some were the RCBS 200 gr. bullet mentioned here often. As far as I can tell with my calipers they are sized to .358 and gas checked. These shot great, fed great and left the barrel without leading loaded on top of 20.0 grains of I4227. The other bullet is a WFN design I think weighing in the 180 grain area. These are around .360 in diameter and will not chamber. Good thing I only loaded five rounds with them. They will work just fine in my 357 pistol though. Going to order a .357 size die.

[cwlongshot]

I cannot chamber fatter then a 356.5 bullet in either of mine.

My 357 mAx swallows 360 with ease.

[rickt300]

All you can do is make your chamber happy.

[Oldfeller]

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...-Boolits/page3

Or, you can teach your chamber to swallow the size that you want to feed it ....... to the magazine depth or length you actually want to stick it down into that throat ......

[rickt300]

I did polish the chamber a bit which did a bunch of needed smoothing up.

[Oldfeller]

Remember, LEE sizers like to throw resized powder coated slugs a half thousandth bigger than they are marked .......

Lee has a .356 die that hits .3565 on powder coated bullets, I own one.

Next, powder coating once cured can spring back a half thou on you over a few weeks. Powder Coat can also shrink by reheating them up to curing temp by part of a thousandth.

Fun, ain't it, when your half year old rounds don't want to drop test plunk in your camber any more.

[P Flados]

Fun, ain't it, when your half year old rounds don't want to drop test plunk in your camber any more.

Getting just small enough to pass plunk testing on a clean chamber is not ideal. Going down another 0.001" below "just enough" leaves some margin for a little powder residue, bullet changes, the stray case with a little extra neck thickness, etc.

When people first started loading for the 350L, a lot of people seemed to get happy with "just enough" to get their ammo to plunk. I was suspicious that this might cause problems down the line.

Lapping out the neck region of the chamber another 0.001" would make many 350L chambers much easier to deal with.

Even better would be turning necks on cases to reduce thickness for an average 0.001" diameter reduction with complete elimination of any "extra thick neck" cases.

Of course, both of the above are really only worth considering if your gun will not shoot they way you want with bullets sized down enough. With the 350L, it is a shame that Lee did not have (or come out with) a 0.355" sizer.

For now a better solution is just to go with a sizer from Noe. If it were me, I would buy the 0.355" sizer first and try it (note that the 0.355" is "in stock" and the 0.356" is not, probably due to 350L and 9mm user demand). With powder coat, I am not sure the old guidance of 0.001" over bore is really needed. If 0.355" does not work out, the bushing can be lapped / polished up to 0.3555" or 0.3560". Going with a Noe is more expensive up front but the bushings are less expensive than a whole new setup from Lee.

[Kerry Conklin]

I had Lee make me a custom resize die to 0.355, this sounded like a good idea but I have not tried it yet as I am still working on other tests still.
So far the Zero 147 JHP and Matts 175gn GC are the best loads I have found so far as ease of feeding goes, neither are picky on Mag type or which brass I use.
Seems a lot polishing to the feed ramp and figuring which reload likes the steel mag or the plastic mag from Wilson combat has been working for me. Also, seating just a touch deeper solved some feed issues as well.

[rickt300]

Well I think I will get a .356 sizer to make sure then.

[cwlongshot]

Well I think I will get a .356 sizer to make sure then.

.356 works just fine for me.