Lee Hollow Base R/n 405gr

[LAURIE R]

GOOD MORNING GENTLEMAN,I WOULD LIKE A LITTLE ADVISE ON WETHER TO USE A WAD OR FILL THE HOLLOW BASE ON THE LEE R/N 405GR BOOLIT WITH LUBE WHEN USING THE HOLY BLACK IN THE 45/70GOV. THANKYOU AND MERRY XMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.:drinks:

[45 2.1]

This boolit has enough lube capacity to negate useing lube in the base, just use a good blackpowder lube in the grooves. It is not a good idea to use a wad on any hollow base boolit as the wad will sometimes blow into the base and be retained causeing a flier.

Welcome to the board!

[KCSO]

I have actually gotten worse accuracy with a soft wad on these bullets. I have used a hard card with some sucess, but I never put lube in the base. If I use a lube wad i always put a card between the lube and the base of the bullet as I don't want anything to throw off the balance of the bullet. Since my mould casts at 458 and my trapdoor is a tad larger I use 1-40 as the hardest alloy.

[powderburnerr]

while using that bullet I found it is a whole lot more accurate when no wads were used with it and the base hollow was as sanitary as possible,the skirt needs to flare to seal the larger groove diamater rifles at low pressures ,,,,Dean

[Larry Gibson]

I shoot lots of them, no wad or lube is need in the HB. This bullet is Lee's replicant of the M1873 bullet for the M1873 Trapdoor. The HB is there to contol the weight of the bullet given fixed exterior dimensions. It is not there to obturate into rifling ala a minie bullet. Note the thickness of the "skirt" and it will be apparent "low pressure" loads will not expand it. Obturation, AKA "bumping up", to fill the rifling is caused by the intertia of the bullet vs accelleration. The original carbine loads (45-55) used a wad to take up the space by the 15 gr less powder while maitaining the same over all cartridge dimension. But it was found the wads would many times get blown into the HB and stick there which caused inaccuracy. The wad was deleted and the bullet seated deeper to sit on top of the powder and accuracy of the carbine loads was the consistant. Most Lee molds cast this bullet .460"+ (mine are .464"+ with 1-16 alloy) depending on alloy. I shoot mine "as cast" and do not depend on obturation or "bumping up" to fill the rifling in my TDs. Accuracy is much improved that way.

Larry Gibson

[powderburnerr]

larry in my findings there is not enough mass to resist the starting burn with black and the base does indeed obdurate and seal without the cupped base ie a flat base with heavier charges you will get gas cutting......Dean

[Larry Gibson]

larry in my findings there is not enough mass to resist the starting burn with black and the base does indeed obdurate and seal without the cupped base ie a flat base with heavier charges you will get gas cutting......Dean

The arsenals in 1881 found the same thing; the 405 gr bullet did not have the mass to resist and properly obturate with the 70 gr charge let alone the 55 gr charge. Thus they went to the 500 gr bullet which has the mass. It's the reason the 500 gr 45-70 is most often more accurate in M1873 TDs than the 405 M1873 45-70 load. The carbines were always "less accurate" than the rifles and the non obturation of the 405 bullet is why. In my carbine a proper fitting 405 bullet is every bit as accurate as it is in the rifle. The only leading I've ever got in my .461" TD was from a 1-20 cast 457124 (FB'd bullet) sized .459" and fired over 70 gr Goex FFFG. Non obturation and gas cutting was obvious.

Larry Gibson

[catboat]

Here's another thought on that bullet I've been kicking around. I was curious if the 458-405 HB Lee bullet would be able to be sized down to .452 in the LEE sizing system (or perhaps others) and then be used for a paper patched bullet. The hollow base would be great place to tuck the twisted end of the patch, and the wide grooves should be easy to sized down to .452 (for two wraps of .oo4" paper).

Haven't done it yet, but if it works, you will have two bullets for the price of one (paper patched option and plain/naked lubed bullet), and no gaschecks.

If anyone tries it, please post results. I'm in the process of ordering the mould-I don't have one on hand. I did receive back an email from LEE on the issue, and they said it would probably work. We'll see.

[13Echo]

Well I haven't tried paper patch but I have sized one of the Lee 405s down to 452 in a Lee sizet to use as a dummy bullet to check powder compression depth and overall length. It sized from .460 to .452 in one pass, rather easily with a bit of lanolin for lube and actually looked really nice. Wonder how it would do in a .454?

Jerry Liles

[Bigjohn]

Catboat; Do not tuck any patch into the hollow base as you will have the same problem as mentioned with the wads and inaccuracy. You can still patch them but trim the patch so it just goes passed (1/16") the edge of the cavity and the little that does fold up in the cavity should pull away with the rest of the paper out from the muzzle.

I have this mold but I get a lot of voids in the castings, just off the point of the base plug. It seems as if an air bubble is getting caught at the tip. This occurs in a large percentage of the castings. I neeed to find a solution to this problem before I will have enough to shoot.

John.