any point in lube groves when always PC'ing, have you ordered smooth sided?

[GregLaROCHE]

Just got an ad from NOE. They have a sale on .45 cal moulds and I noticed a lot are smooth sides.
Powder coating and therefore smooth sides is getting very popular. I normally size my boolits after PCing them.

[scotner]

Just keep in mind that the NLG versions are not the proven original successful designs. There’s more mass. The balance is slightly different. Do you need the groove for displacement?

That said I have 3 NLG variations on established designs and they cast easily, PC or HT easily and have proven to be accurate for my purpose.

The molds that I ordered are the original designs. I like the fact that you can order specialty molds from Accurate Molds made just for PC. I have the 31-240A for 300 BLK and the 35-125Y for 357 Sig. Both are great molds and the Sig mold has been a determining factor in being able to shoot that round as much as i like. I would buy an off the shelf traditional mold but I would never buy a custom mold with lube grooves. Those days are over.

[Tripplebeards]

Imo lube grooves give your lead somewhere to flow when deformed by the rifling. Look at Barnes bullets. I had some of their original mooth ( no lube grooves) all copper bullets when they first came out. I did a ladder test off my lead sled and couldn’t hit a barn if I was locked inside of it. I had three to four foot plus groups at 100 yards. The same gun will shoot nosler ballistic tips in the same hole at 100 yards. They shortly started introducing their bullets with three lube groove rings for their copper to flow into for better(obtainable)accuracy.

I also agree with what dragonheart is saying. With a smooth sided boolit lead is going to deform and flow all the way to the base...and then some. I would think long rang accuracy would suffer.

I’m just one man with one opinion and I’ll stay with lube grooves till someone proves non lube grooves boolits are more accurate. After my experience with Barnes I’m sure their not.

[waco]

Imo lube grooves give your lead somewhere to flow when deformed by the rifling. Look at Barnes bullets. I had some of their original mooth ( no lube grooves) all copper bullets when they first came out. I did a ladder test off my lead sled and couldn’t hit a barn if I was locked inside of it. I had three to four foot plus groups at 100 yards. The same gun will shoot nosler ballistic tips in the same hole at 100 yards. They shortly started introducing their bullets with three lube groove rings for their copper to flow into for better(obtainable)accuracy.

I also agree with what dragonheart is saying. With a smooth sided boolit lead is going to deform and flow all the way to the base...and then some. I would think long rang accuracy would suffer.

I’m just one man with one opinion and I’ll stay with lube grooves till someone proves non lube grooves boolits are more accurate. After my experience with Barnes I’m sure their not.

I'll have to agree with this 100%
Accuracy might to suffer at 50-100 yards, but try it out to 300 and beyond....

[Boomsticks Firearms]

I like having the options to use PC or Lube. Let’s say something happened and I am not able to PC now I still can lube the bullets and keep feeding my guns. If you have bullets without lube groves now your stuck with bullets that you can’t shoot if you can’t coat them with PC or Hi-tec unless you paper rap them but I don’t know much about that.

[Traffer]

Is there anyone doing any testing to compare? I think everyone is curious.

[bmortell]

I found some on google but it wasn't usefull, one won then the other and so on.

[Willbird]

One thing that GG offer is a feature to give us clues about how well the mold is filling out. If I were making my own molds (might get there one day) I might provide some tiny fillout indicators for just that purpose. Sorting by weight as Dragonheart says he does may isolate any that had poor fioout that was not visible. I messed with the TL bullets a bit and noticed that poor fillout was a bit harder to eyeball and I had 25 year old eyes then . It for sure showed up if you sized them though .

Bill

[popper]

I tested 31-165 grooved and 'C' version (real tiny single groove) in LR308 2700 fps in 24" 1:10 with HF & smokes red PC. No difference that I could tell. Not that I'm a good shot. Did MOA @ 200 once with the C version. Friend wants to try 300-400 next time I get to his place. All my rifle moulds just have the tiny groove. Don't care about pistol. It will be PC or BLL for me so I don't need any grooves. IMHO, sticky lube has NO future. Coatings work & are cheap. EPA is eliminating VOCs so commercial cast may stop using the crayon blue stuff.

[Traffer]

I tested 31-165 grooved and 'C' version (real tiny single groove) in LR308 2700 fps in 24" 1:10 with HF & smokes red PC. No difference that I could tell. Not that I'm a good shot. Did MOA @ 200 once with the C version. Friend wants to try 300-400 next time I get to his place. All my rifle moulds just have the tiny groove. Don't care about pistol. It will be PC or BLL for me so I don't need any grooves. IMHO, sticky lube has NO future. Coatings work & are cheap. EPA is eliminating VOCs so commercial cast may stop using the crayon blue stuff.

Thanks for the info. Question, What is the groove for? I assume it is not a lube groove.

[popper]

Alloy displacement

[Tripplebeards]

Nice to hear the higher velocities and cast that are grouping! I plan on working up some loads in my 35 whelen this summer.

[Springfield0612]

The only NLG mold I own is the .225 61 Grain mold from Arsenal Molds designed by Elvis Ammo. I have 4 shooters in the family now and even reloading FMJ MILSURP pulls still puts a dent in the bank account when they are shooting the AR's. So I went with this mold. The price wasn't bad, I like the design, and being a nice "RN" design it feeds well. The only issue I am having is accuracy. Getting a 6"-8" group at about 25 yards (All 3 rifles shoot MOA or better @ 50 yards with 55 grain reloads all 3 rifles 1/8 twist). I've tried CB loads up to jacketed data. 6"-8" is the tightest I can get these to pull together. Tried 3 different powders. I'm sure in any of my pistols a NLG mold would work fine. Even in my .308 win bolt gun I'm sure it would be fine. But these gas guns, finicky bunch. Kinda makes a fella wonder.

[sureYnot]

Springfield, I have that same mold. 1:7 twist AR. I heat treat at 450°F and size fat .2265. Around 1800-2000 fps they perform well for me.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk

[Dragonheart]

The only NLG mold I own is the .225 61 Grain mold from Arsenal Molds designed by Elvis Ammo. I have 4 shooters in the family now and even reloading FMJ MILSURP pulls still puts a dent in the bank account when they are shooting the AR's. So I went with this mold. The price wasn't bad, I like the design, and being a nice "RN" design it feeds well. The only issue I am having is accuracy. Getting a 6"-8" group at about 25 yards (All 3 rifles shoot MOA or better @ 50 yards with 55 grain reloads all 3 rifles 1/8 twist). I've tried CB loads up to jacketed data. 6"-8" is the tightest I can get these to pull together. Tried 3 different powders. I'm sure in any of my pistols a NLG mold would work fine. Even in my .308 win bolt gun I'm sure it would be fine. But these gas guns, finicky bunch. Kinda makes a fella wonder.

I only have one .22 mold and it is a plain base NOE 225-48 spire point and drops about 52 grains with range salvage. I get much better accuracy, but only up to 50 yards, running full power loads. My best results across the board with .22 AR's has been obtained using Hodgeon H335 powder. From my tests made years ago using 4 different AR's I found choice of powder made a huge difference in accuracy. I would suggest trying H335 powder to start.

However one has to realize that cast bullets are lopsided when they come out of the mold, regardless of alloy, the mold, casting specifics or the experience of the caster. Non-concentric bullets are just a fact of cast bullets. Also a fact is a non-concentric bullet is going to wobble, especially as velocity and distance is increased. Once the wobble starts it only gets worse as does accuracy. Sizing only makes the bands round, the remainder of the bullet remains lopsided unless you develop a method like "BAMA" has done to dramatically improve the concentricity of a cast bullet.

I wish you success in your endeavor, but shooting unaltered cast bullets in an AR I think you will either have to settle for low velocity loads or 50 yard plinking loads, of both.

BTW: I purchased the NOE plain base mold just to test the maxium velocity of PC, as a 22-250 is the fastest cartridge I own. After firing a number of PC rounds at 3500+ FPS I found the PC had no problem with that velocity and no leading. Also once again 50 yard accuracy was acceptable, indicating a stable bullet at short range, but 100 yard accuracy was no better.

[Dragonheart]

Swaging is the obvious answer to the problem. However, when you have a huge number of casters that won't even poney up for a quality mold, how many do you think will put out the money for a custom swage die or set of dies? Like anything a quanity of sales would get the price down and a manufacturer willing to give sales a go.
Since PC is actually harder than the alloy a single die I would think would be sufficient to reshape a bullet to make it concentric. Also obvious a set of custom swage dies based on the mold, to reform after cast and after PC would be a terrific answer, but my best guess would be upwards of a $K in cost. You could buy a number of commercial jacketed bullets for the money spent.

[Dragonheart]

I don't like putting sour grapes on anyone's efforts and I do commend this gentleman's efforts, but I can tell you just by looking these bullets, they are not concentric. The exterior grooves partially remain on one side indicating the fill out is not equal. I would also suggest if rolled on a on a concentricity gauge the bullets would quickly show lack of concentricity. Check a rifle match bullet for comparison and the concentricity needle indicating .000" does not move.

But most importantly is the base of the bullet, because a bullet is steered by the base. Proven way back in the last century with a series of tests on cast bullets, any imperfection on a bullet's base deters accuracy. Notice the partial and uneven lip on the base of his bullets left by the ram.
For accuracy the bullets base needs to be perfectly flat and perpendicular to the bullets side or perfectly uniform if it is bevelled or otherwise shaped.

Making his own dies is a good idea, but a drill bit is alone going to wobble slightly and not deliver an absolute round hole, a higher degree of accuracy is needed to make an absolute round hole, like with a properly supported reamer.

Additionally, when it comes to handgun, PC cast bullets are very capable of delivering <1.5" groups at 25 yards, which most would consider accuracy wise more than adequate. It is when one gets into full power rifle bullet accuracy at distance, that is where we need help.

At least this appears to be a gentleman that realizes a problem and trying to do what he can with what tools he has on hand.

[GregLaROCHE]

I always size my boolits after PCing them. I hope that helps take out most of the inconsistency in them as well as making sure they are all the right diameter.

[Dragonheart]

Wow, without actually handling them? I was going to make you dies for spitzer bullets but I guess they wouldn't be good enough to test?

I do appreciate the offer and certainly willing to give just about anything a try. I also want to say again in no way do I wish to demean another efforts, it is just from my experience I can see where problems are going to arise because I have been there. I was a NRA Master competitive rifle shooter many years ago and a handloader for over 50 years. So after so many years on the range and on the loading bench I learned a few things about rifle accuracy. When I got back into casting in 2012 and into powder coating, I found the main thing in dealing with cast bullets is we are starting out with imperfect bullets. So there is no way we can fire a full power standard cast bullet and expect it to perform as accurately at distance as a concentric jacketed bullet. I do believe the polymer is capable of replacing the copper jacket, but it is not going to correct the lopsided core it is applied to.

So to really end up with something to tout we need to be able to overcome the inherent problems with cast bullets. I do think a swage is the answer, but for it to be effective the bullet needs to resized so the nose is concentric with the base/bands. Ideally I think an undersize mold would be the way to start, building out with powder coating then swaging to make a concentric bullet. Also ideally the swaged bullet's bands would end up slightly larger than the barrel groove to provide a seal and the bullet's body diameter matching the barrel's lands. A gas check would not be necessary, but it would cover the sprue cut and provide a flat base assuming it was set properly and under enough force to assure a flat base.

I personally have had no success in making a swage die that is accurate enough to improve on the As Cast Bullets. My mini-lathe is just not enough of a machine tool to drill/ream a perfectly round hole, much less an accurate stepped hole. For a swage to work it needs to be able to turn out a bullet equal to the concentricity of a commercial bullet. I am certainly not saying it can't be done because I know it can and I applaud everyone's effort in improving our casting process.

[Dragonheart]

I always size my boolits after PCing them. I hope that helps take out most of the inconsistency in them as well as making sure they are all the right diameter.

Greg , the sizing process only reforms the bands and not the entire bullet, so the bullet looks round, but if you mic it you will see it is not round. Unfortunately the PC does nothing to correct this.