selmerfan
02-13-2012, 05:54 PM
I was in on the 311299 GB from NOE earlier this year. I spent quite a bit of time tinkering with the HP cavity until I got boolits I was happy with. Intended use for this mold is ringing steel and hunting deer with the HP version out of my 308 Win or .30-06. I cast up some test projectiles from Lyman #2, 50/50 Pb/COWW, and Dental X-ray lead, just to see what would happen, all air-cooled. My test media wasn't ideal, but it was what I had available at the time - gallon milk jugs filled with water. I loaded all of them in my .308 Win PBR XP with 16 gr. 2400 behind them, a general accuracy load, not blazing speed. First five shots went into less than 1" at 100 yds, very pleased, ready to shoot jugs! Lyman #2 was up first, I had 5 gallon milk jugs back to back and it wasn't enough, the bullet slipped through the last one. I lined them up again because I shot high on the jugs just for this reason. I added two quart oil bottles behind, hurried back to the bench and fired again. Recovered the boolit! 45% weight retention, 5 milk jugs and two quart oil bottles. Sheared off the HP'd portion and a little bit more. I shot the second line of jugs with the 50/50 mix, penetrated into the 6th gallon milk jug, 65% retention, nice mushroom on the shank portion of the boolit. Third line of jugs was the x-ray lead, the boolit looked identical to the 50/50 boolit after stopping in the 6th jug again and retaining 64% of the weight. I know this wasn't an ideal test, but I was very pleased with the results, I'm gathering newspapers to fill a plastic-bag-lined box and soak with water for a little better test media. These are the first loads I've shot from this mold, they cast .3005-.301" on the nose and .311" on the bands - perfect for my .308 and .30-06 bores, the nose just engraves at the muzzle. I'll post pics later, I need to hit the road.