Contenders and cast boolits dont mix

[jeff223]

slugged my bores and shoot boolits sized 2 thousands over and best group size at 100yds is between 7 and 8 inches.my thoughts about cast is Contenders and cast dont mix.both my 357max and 445supermag shoot jacketed very well.giving up on this cast shooting

still going to run the fat 44 group buy though.like to see happy campers you know

i have a brand new Lee 6 holer 180gr mold 357cal from the last group buy i ran i well sell.it makes those wonderful bullets that dont shoot in tenders.

(180 gascheck round flat nose boolits)never even used it.i just shot the 200 i had that a couple of guys sent me to try.i used a friends sizer to size them,good thing i didnt buy one of my own

anyone interested in the mold get with me

[44man]

Not true! You just have not done enough work or tried different things. The only problem I had with contenders was that some bores were rough and collected copper bad. This has to be completely removed before shooting cast. They will lead fast too.
The bores have to be broken in by shooting jacketed and cleaning out all copper before each shot. Power lapping will fix them or even hand lapping helps.
I have had some that I could hit a nickel at 100 yd's with cast with a scope and sandbags.

[nighthunter]

I agree with 44man. I have a 22 Hornet barrel that I can consistantly shoot clay pigeons with placed at 200 yards using cast bullets. My 35 Rem. barrel is not quite as accurate but will shoot cast groups of less than 2 inches at 100 yards. You just have to find what the barrel likes the best. 1 thousandth of an inch in sizing can make a big difference and 44man mentioned about getting all the copper out first. Don't give up yet or too easily. Try some different powders. Try a different OAL of your ammo. Cast will shoot in a Contender.
Nighthunter

[Johnch]

I have a 357 Max , the throat is loooong .
I seat a RCBS 180 gr Silloit bullet so just the gas check is in the case to crimp .
I also run the bullet unsized ( about .360 ) .
Or I run a Lyman 358313 , it ends up 210 gr RN and size it with a .360 sizer and seat it long to just ingage the rifling ( some barrels you still can't touch the rifling ).

I polished the bore .

I found my barrel will shoot cast either slow or close to max , but the middle loads suck .

I shot my first cast bullet IHMSA 40 with this barrel .

I found AA5744 to produce my best groups with both bullets .

Johnch

[anachronism]

Try using cast rifle bullets instead of cast pistol bullets. They're longer, and have a better chance of engaging the rifling, while part of the bullet is still in the case. This helped with my .357 Max Contender. In fact, it would be kind of cool to experiment with some heavy 225+ grain LBT rifle bullets for this application, they're full diameter from the base almost all the way to the nose. Yeah!! Cast Performance probably has them. Oooohhh!, try 250 grainers!!

[35remington]

Some Contender chamberings are cast bullet incompatible because of the way the throat is cut-mine had no throat at all, and shot cast like crap. No matter what, and nobody can think of anything I didn't already try.

If it won't shoot after a reasonable amount of experimentation (and reasonable was 5,000+ rounds for me in hundreds of combinations of load, alloy, seating depth, sizing diameter, filler, etc. etc) then consider throating it or giving up on it as a lost cause.

One of the fallacies of the cast bullet mentality is that any gun can shoot lead, and sadly, in some cases, that just ain't so. You just need to have enough experience to know when you've got a true basket case. Don't give up too soon, but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with cast if all other avenues to improvement are exhausted.

[Slowpoke]

slugged my bores and shoot boolits sized 2 thousands over and best group size at 100yds is between 7 and 8 inches.my thoughts about cast is Contenders and cast dont mix.both my 357max and 445supermag shoot jacketed very well.giving up on this cast shooting

still going to run the fat 44 group buy though.like to see happy campers you know

i have a brand new Lee 6 holer 180gr mold 357cal from the last group buy i ran i well sell.it makes those wonderful bullets that dont shoot in tenders.

(180 gascheck round flat nose boolits)never even used it.i just shot the 200 i had that a couple of guys sent me to try.i used a friends sizer to size them,good thing i didnt buy one of my own

anyone interested in the mold get with me

I agree with 44 man.

I have a ten inch barrel that was chambered with the same reamer as yours.

With 16 grs.of 820 and the CCI 450 it will put the RCBS 200 and Lyman 315 into the same 1 inch group at a 100 yrds. It will also put the LBT 180 WFN and the group buy copy into the same 1 1/2 group with same 16 grs of 820.

The list doesn't have to be large but sometimes there is a little more to it than sizing .002 over.

Good luck

[versifier]

My .357mag, .30carb, .30 Herrett, .357Herrett, and .30-30 Contender barrels all love cast boolits and I generally don't shoot anything else out of them. If a chamber cast reveals a throat too short for what you want to shoot, that's what gunsmiths with throating reamers are for, if it's longer than you realized, seat the boolits out farther. Sometimes the bores can be a little rough, but that, too, is easily cured. You don't mention if you slugged your bores, what size(s) you ran, Powders you used, or what the alloy was. If they shoot jacketed well, they will shoot cast - we are not talking about a revolver with the added variables of cylinder throat, forcing cone, and bose size with possible constriction points. I think you are giving up much too easily.

[jeff223]

well maybe i should tell alittle more about these barrels i have.the 357max is a rechambered 357mag barrel and the TC factory forcing cone is gone and that barrel has a throat and i can reach the lands with no trouble at all.i used leftoverdjs reamer for the job.

i did the same with my 445sm.its a rechambered 44mag barrel and the factory forcing cone is now gone and it has a throat and i can reach the lands with a bullet with no trouble.

both these barrels are setup with burris scopes.the 357max has a 3-9 with AO and the 445sm has a 2-7.both of these barrels shoot jacketed bullets into one inch groups at 100yds with the 445 shooting even tighter at times.with the hornady 265 flat points two into one hole and one just out.the 445 has shot groups out to 200yds to about a 3 inch group.

i did clean all the copper fouling out before i fired cast with barnes CR10.both these barrels seem to copper foul some but do clean up pretty fast.never fired or hand lapped either one.

the only two powders used for all loads so far those being aa1680 and w296 with the 296 being the best for both with jacketed boolits

slugged both my bores with TC maxi hunter boolits and i tapped the bullet in the muzzle then pushed it back out with a wood dowel.i didnt push it on through.i posted a topic about that last week and that ended up being a joke.i guess there is no sure way to slug a bore from what i can see.i even had someone say to shoot a boolit into a swiming pool.

start loads were used with both powders and worked up from there some,also shot some near max with both powders.no signs of accuracy with cast bullets with any size or load so i moved back to jacketed and they hammer just like they always do even without a cleaning the bores after shooting thecast bullets

the 357max had a .355 bore and i have shot .358,.359 and .360 sized bullets (180gr)

the 445sm had a .428 bore and i shot bullets sized at .430 (310gr)

liquid lee alox used as lube except bullets that John H sent me and those had his lube on them (black looking sticky stuff)

i think i about covered it and i want to thank all of you for tring to help me .as you can see i need it

[jeff223]

one thing i forgot about telling you about.

wheel weights were used and the bullets were heat treated of dropped into water from the mold.

hope this helps.

what next?i will try a few more things to get them to shoot for me

thanks

[44man]

Could it be that the boolits are too large in diameter for the bore?

[David R]

Maybe YOUR contender won't shoot cast, Mine will. 1 1/4" at 100 yards.
32-20 LEE soup can with SR4759 as fuel. OAL is most critical.

David

[Bass Ackward]

Jeff,

If you can get passed the emotion of this being and expensive disappointment so far, I think you can still find success. Virtually every gun can shoot lead. Rifling height and bore condition are the limiters to velocity and choices.

Anytime I have had really bad success (anything over 6" groups) at 100 yards has been because of my bullets being destroyed in the barrel. This is either because pressure was destroying my bullet in the throat area because it peaked too fast or it was going to fast and the rotational forces go it. In a contender, odds are it has to be in the throat. You are already hard and over sized which may be compounding the problem. Especially if you can reach the lands in your new throat configurations. What I would recommend is that you size smaller, go softer, and use a better grade of lube.

If you want to go off line and take your time, I can work with you here. Your choice.

[jeff223]

so do you think i should size just one thousands over grove?and just cast with wheel weights not dropping into water to harden?what lube should i try?powder?seat into the lands with the bullets?

we could talk on the phone some time too that would be nice.

does everyone think these bullets are a good design for accuracy?

[44man]

Yes, I would try .001 over bore size.
I have one concern; you say you rechambered a .357 and a .44 to the larger calibers. I do not know if the larger calibers have a different twist rate then the original calibers. Someone has to measure this and post back.
It could be that if the twist rate is wrong for the added velocity, you may have to re-think the length of the boolit you are trying to use.
Some help here guys, those with factory .357's and .357 max calibers, please measure the twist, ditto for the .44 and .445.

[Bass Ackward]

so do you think i should size just one thousands over grove?and just cast with wheel weights not dropping into water to harden?what lube should i try?powder?seat into the lands with the bullets?

we could talk on the phone some time too that would be nice.

does everyone think these bullets are a good design for accuracy?

Jeff,

Most people running contenders don't realize the pressures they are generating to get the velocity out of short barrels. This is counter to the general rule to start the cast bullet off as easily as possible. Everytime you shorten a barrel, you remove powder options that could be used to start a bullet off more gently. Does that mean your screwed? Certainly not, only that your options for higher velocities decrease over someone not so constrained.

The general rule I use, the harder I go, the closer to bore I size. And if the option is available to me, I seat into the lands ever so slightly. Your bullets will be fine. By fine, I mean accuracy certainly less than what you are currently getting. Liquid Alox is not a good high pressure lube. That is a large part of it. And if you got bullets off John, then I will bet they were too soft for contender acceleration.

The most logical thing to do is take what you got and use a low powder charge to get you about 800 fps and see what happens. If this shoots better, then you know something is going wrong based on your load criteria. You can use your current bullets sized to what ever you got to do this. Just start low and slow even if you need to go to a slightly faster powder. That's how I would start. You need to see some progress to gain some confidence. Then go from there.

If you go off line, I have no qualms about giving you my phone number. Your choice.

[jeff223]

ha guys ive been thinking about this and i have decided to shoot my 445 with jacketed bullets.the 445sm is my main hunting piece and it shoots so good i dont want to change anything with it.

my 357max will be the one i monkey with just to see if cast will shoot for me.a plinker barrel soto say.a change of powder is a given but what about bore lapping?should this be done first?couldnt hurt anything.you guys give me the steps to go through and i will try to do them.with your help maybe i can end up with a cast shooter.if not no big deal

do some lapping first then reslug the bore?
tell me

thankyou once again
jeff

[Singletree]

Jeff,
Some things come to mind I would like to share with you. I do hope the chambering reamer you used had a bearing guide on it rather than a solid guide which will put rather nice circular marks in your bore. Second, it works much better if it is sharp so that a burr isn't turned up in the bore at the junction of the throat and rifling. My custom shop 9mm Luger barrel shot 4-5 inch groups at 25 yards. This what worked for me.
1. I used a tight patch with auto paint buffing compound to smooth the bore, paying a bit more attention to the origin of the rifling right at the chamber.
2. I gave up on sizing bullets more than one thousandths over groove diameter. I
also quit using water dropped bullets and went to air cooled. I also cast them of w/w with a quarter pure lead added.
3. My barrel diameter is .358 so I used a Lyman "M" die after sizing the brass to ensure the soft bullets stayed at the diameter sized as they were seated in the case.
The gun will now print around 3/8" with about any load I choose to shoot at 50 yards. T/C barrels are made up on one bore size and then chambered to the required caliber, that is one barrel on the shelf can be my 9mm and the next to it can be a 35 Rem. If your barrel measures .355 it may very well be out of specs.

[Bass Ackward]

do some lapping first then reslug the bore?
tell me

thankyou once again
jeff

Jeff,

The secret to shooting cast is that it is a mythodical approach of trial and error as a problem solving procedure until you obtain the results you are looking for.

I would say no to fire lapping because you never complained about leading. If your guns shoot jacketed, then they should be fairly dimensionally correct. The purpose of starting slow, is to see results. Then you can start thinking of how to go faster. But you have to start somewhere.

[BCB]

I have read all the comments with thorough interest. I have 5 Contender barrels and 2 frames. One of the barrels is a rechambered 44 Magnum to 445 Super Magnum. This barrel has never been impressive from day one. That is why I rechambered it hoping for something better and a much better chamber. I even had it recrowned. It is not a cast bullet shooter…Period. Yea, it will hit a groundhog-size steel pendulum at 200 yards most of the time, but then again, so will my Ruger SRH 44 Magnum. A wheel gun shooting as good as or Better than a single shot handgun is not good advertisement of cast bullet shooting from the single shot. Two and one-half inch groups are about the best the Contender will do at 100 yards—most were in the 4” range. I tried several designs of bullets, checked and not checked, different alloys, heat treated and plain wheel weights, as cast and sized. None seemed much better than the other. I had a 3x-12x ‘scope on it so it was not lacking optics…

I have two 223 barrels and several people on this website as well as a couple of other people on other websites have sent me a very good selection of 22 caliber cast bullets. Without checking, I believe I have at least 8 different designs and weights. Most of these bullets were “perfect” by visual investigation and also confirmed on my RCBS 304 scales for weight consistencies. I have, on last count, nearly 60 different powders to choose from, so finding the correct powder shouldn’t be a problem here! Primers…Got plenty of different varieties of those litter critters also. Calipers/micrometers…Yep, got a couple of each of those, so OCL shouldn’t be a guess either. Conclusion after hundreds and hundreds of rounds downrange with both barrels: A groundhog is mostly safe at 100 yards or greater distances with cast bullets. But, with the Hornady 40 grain or 50 bullets, another story can be told. So it isn’t the barrels or chamber that is the problem, but the dislike for cast bullets. The end of the 22 caliber stuff…

Now then, I do also have a 30-30 and a 7-30 barrel. These barrels Will shoot cast bullets. The 30-30 and the 311041 or the C309-150F are M.O.A. shooters at 100 yards. Groups open slightly at 200 yards. The 7-30 Waters, well, there is a cast bullet shooter. I have many groups at 200 yards that are at the 1.5” mark. I am using H-335 or WC-844 and the Lyman 287346 for velocities of a tad less that 2100 fps from the 14” barrel. So some Contender barrels will shoot cast bullets.

And finally, patience is a virtue, or at least I have heard that from somewhere or place throughout my life. All well and good, but one must be able to draw the line between patience and just plain stupidity!!! As far as I know, at least on this planet, if one has patience to continue to drop a rock millions of times in hopes of it falling UP, well that is where stupidity kicks in!!! I have tried almost endlessly to get certain guns to shoot certain loads and it is just plain no go. One other thing that I have noticed is the fact that all good shooters that I have were semi-good shooters with just about everything (cast) that went down the tube. Fine tuning allowed for M.O.A. or better shooters. At this point, patience is a virtue. And so it goes…BCB