Hot Diggity!! Who says Marlin Microgrove won't shoot Cast Boolits?

[got_lead?]

I Just fired my first cast boolits out of my 35 year old 336.

Woohoooo!! Cast Boolits shoot great! Set-up propane jug at 90 yards (this was as far away as I could get because a new pile of gravel was dumped in the middle of the pit). All loads from 6.0 to 8.0 grains of Universal were very mild, and recoil was felt as a push. 7.0 grains chronographed at 1150, and 8.0 grains at 1250. The upper loads of 7.0 and 8.0 grains began to penetrate the front side of the propane jug. Accuracy seemed very good, I do beleive all 28 shots hit the jug, and you could call the hit. If I wanted to "top" the jug, I held high, and so forth. I did raise the rear sight one notch, which places it one notch down from the top. At the range of 90 yards, this appears to place the boolit strike about where the dot is on the front sight, with the dot centered in the rear sight "U". To raise the bullet strike up a bit, raise the front sight dot up in the sights so it has a "neck" below it.

Interior ballistics were very clean, absolutely no leadding occured, and there was no powder residue left in the barrel. I detected no smoke from the muzzle, however, there was a slight sulphury smell like that of black powder when the round touched off. The smell was only momentary, and I could not detect it on the rifle or in the bore after the shot was fired. I wonder if this is from the molybdium disulphide grease I added to the boolit lube? (I just filled the 450 Lubrisizer with 50/50, of which I had softened a pound with a heaping spoonful of Sta-Lube Moly-Graph) I wonder if some of the MDS decomposes into various sulphur compounds, resulting in the slight black powder smell? There does not appear to be any ill after-effects from this lube.

Interior of action is squeaky clean, no powder residue, no soot. Brass came out as clean as clean as it went in, primers do not show any signs of pressure, and case shoulders were not even filled out. Some of the boolits were sized at .308, some were at .3105, the larger ones resulted in some chambering difficulties. No leadding occured with any boolits regardless of diameter. Boolits from the Lyman H&I measured .3114, and were a little large for the chamber of the rifle. I think I will target .3095 as the bullet diameter for this rifle. Downrange, I recovered a couple of bullet chunks which showed the driving band. The rifling marks were very clean, shiney, and distinct, lacking the smearing that is present when the bore is leadded.

I completely enjoyed this shooting session, everything but the mosquitos, which were out in force.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

Probably some one who didn't try it or tried to push to fast or not size proper

i am headed off to the range to test more reduced loads this evening

i am determining the point at which accuracy suffers , as i push faster and faster this batch will be with my own home made lube without GC's

looking for a happy spot were the powder burns clean and i keep accuracy

i have found accuracy good accuracy with my lube and 15 gr but i need a little more powder to clean up the combustion. or i may try a different powder or gas checks

mine are as cast .310 pan lubed with my home made lube
the consensus is bigger is better for the micro grooves .310 or .311 are very normal

[got_lead?]

I'm shooting without gas checks right now, and so far absolutely no leadding. I think sufficient lube is the key here, I am pre-lubing with LLA, which gives the nose a coating, then I fill the groves with NRA. I get a nice lube star on the muzzle which tells me the lube is making the whole trip down the tube. Who knows how fast you can push a lead boolit when it's riding on a film of lube. I'm going to do the same as you, in finding where the limits are.

I think velocity may depend on the burning rate of the powder. I had a can of Hodgdon Universal on the shelf, which I hadn't found any pistol loads I liked, so it was more or less free for the taking. Universal is a medium burning pistol powder, and may be good for a hundred or so more fps, I really like how clean it burned. After I work through the Universal, I'm curious what Blue Dot or AA#7 will do. As I work through these, I will eventually get to actual rifle powder, 4227, 4198, and 3031. Eventually, I'll get to the gas checks.

I'm going to try a little more powder and punch some paper to see what's what.

What powder are you using?

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I'm shooting without gas checks right now, and so far absolutely no leadding. I think sufficient lube is the key here, I am pre-lubing with LLA, which gives the nose a coating, then I fill the groves with NRA. I get a nice lube star on the muzzle which tells me the lube is making the whole trip down the tube. Who knows how fast you can push a lead boolit when it's riding on a film of lube. I'm going to do the same as you, in finding where the limits are.

I think velocity may depend on the burning rate of the powder. I had a can of Hodgdon Universal on the shelf, which I hadn't found any pistol loads I liked, so it was more or less free for the taking. Universal is a medium burning pistol powder, and may be good for a hundred or so more fps, I really like how clean it burned. After I work through the Universal, I'm curious what Blue Dot or AA#7 will do. As I work through these, I will eventually get to actual rifle powder, 4227, 4198, and 3031. Eventually, I'll get to the gas checks.

I'm going to try a little more powder and punch some paper to see what's what.

What powder are you using?
interesting I also had tubed 2x with lee liquid alox then filled the grooves with nra 50/50 alox bees wax , i found i could push that at 15gr just fine but it was dirty i tried grits as a filler and 18gr was ok but not great for accuracy then i tried my own lube at 15 gr and got one ragged hole so i made more and then started stepping up to see how my lube did.
H4895
15 gr figures at 1300fps by the Lee book
loads i am testing today are
15.8gr 18.2gr and 21.3gr estimated velocities are 1340 , 1430 , and 1580 we will see were it breaks down i have tried 24 gr with the nra lube with no leading but accuracy was no good

i just increased to the next sized hole in the auto disk measure between loads , i load on a lee turret and like the ease of the auto disk with the rifle charging die.

[got_lead?]

I am using a Lee Collet Die set for my 30-30, which is almost effortless and requires no case lube. I also modified my Lee Universal Rifle charging Die so the drop tube is now tapered as the flaring cone, this works great with the disk powder measure.

I can run my 30-30's all day on my progressive same as any straight walled pistol cartridge. And actually even easier, because the sizing die is so effortless.

This same set-up works for any bottleneck cartridge, as long as the cases are fired in the same rifle, neck sizing is all that's needed. With the collet dies, I can load my 30-06's, .308's .303's etc all on the progressive, quick and clean.

Fortunately, I only have one 30-30. Unfortunately, I have about four 30-06's, and maybe a couple more than that in .308 win. Sigh, gonna have to segregate my brass, but it's well worth it for the ease of loading over conventional FL sizers and case lube.

I have to say that I agree, but disagree with some of Richard Lee's ideas. I think his idea of using rifle powders for reduced rifle loads is fine to a point. Below certain pressures, these slower powders just don't burn cleanly at all, and leave horrible powder residue. While the accuracy may be fine, I think you can do just as well with a slightly faster powder operating within it's pressure sweet spot. There's probably a reason why 7.5 grains of unique is so popular in the .45 LC, and people don't just fill it up with 40 grains of IMR 4895. Just because a cartridge has a large volume doesn't mean that it needs to be filled clear full. My Smith M52 will cut 1 hole groups with .38's loaded with 2.4 grains of bullseye, and that's hardly enough to see in the bottom of the case.

I have heard that some powders are position sensitive, and others are not. I wonder what effect magnum primers would have on ballistic consistancy?

I think in the end, we're going to find that each powder has a "range" and "sweet spot" for each calibre and loading.

Post your results as they come in.

David

[DLCTEX]

got lead: What boolit are you shooting.

[got_lead?]

The Lee 309-170-RF sized to .3105, however, this is a little large for the chamber of my 336, I will be sizing a tad smaller at .309 or a little over as soon as the new H&I comes in.

[Ed Barrett]

I shoot cast in my 336 in 35 Rem with very good results.The bullets I found best were .0015 over size at about .3595 or more.

[reloader28]

I'm shooting the RCBS 150gr SP from mine. They drop out at 160gr.
Homemade 50 beeswax/50alox/10%parafin.
I get 2"-2.5" at 100yds with my open site gun and my friend gets 1" at 100yds with the same load but with a scope. Our guns like the same loads so its easy to load for them. We're shooting these at 1850 fps with IMR 4895.
My uncle (so he says) is shooting less than 1" at 100yds with his Marlin and these same boolits but a different powder.
I'm sizing all these at .310 and not lubing the top groove.

Makes me very happy.:drinks:

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I made it out yesterday after work to test the loads i was talking about in post #4 reduced 30-30 loads I pushed some right up to 1600 fps but the accuracy wasn't as good I am not using gas checks on these

but the combustion sure cleaned up at 16.8 gr 4895 the seal got better yet at 18.2

i posted more details under my lube thread
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=120730&page=2

[reloader28]

I forgot to add that I have a light load with the 160gr RCBS boolits. My heavy load is 29gr IMR 4895 and the plinkers are 19gr 4895.
VERY accurate and VERY fun to shoot.
I didnt chrono the speed.

[DLCTEX]

I'm using the Lee 311-170fp (no longer available) in my Marlin and have no chamber problems at that size. The nose does engrave on the bore riding portion and shoots great. Gas checked and Carnuba Red lets me push it to 2000 fps with no problems.

[1Shirt]

The old saw that micro grooves won't shoot cast is garbage. In my experiance with 44 & 444 they shoot fine at most all vols and that includes above 1600fps (the so called magic number). They need to be at least a thousand over the groove, more if you can chamber etc, and GC at much over 1400 fps in my experiance. Good luck!
1Shirt!:coffee::coffee: