offshore44
03-24-2012, 02:10 PM
Well, it seems the wife is finally getting into the spirit of casting...
She has been watching my progress with casting for several of my rifles, and with the cost of reloading components getting pretty steep, and harder to reliably come by, she asked this morning about getting her set up with a cast boolit for one of her rifles. She currently only shoots cast out of her 1911, and sees the benefit.
Out of all of her rifles, her 7x57 Brno Model 98 Mauser seems to be the most likely candidate. This rifle is old, probably from around the late 1940's to very early 1950s. It is in VG to almost perfect condition. With Sierra 130 grn Match Kings and the right load it is a one hole, cold bore shot rifle. That's three shots out of five into one hole at 100 yards. She has done that on more than one occasion recently. The potential is there.
What molds should I look at to duplicate that precision with cast? What powders and loads? Considering the age and origin of the rifle, I am expecting to get a non-standard bore and groove diameter when I slug the barrel. I would need to take that into consideration when I purchase the mold and the sizing dies. Comments on that would be appreciated. I would also like to keep the boolit weight in the 130 to 150 grn range; she doesn't like to shoot the heavy 175 grn hunting bullets that I got for her to try. I guess that I could back the velocity off to mitigate the recoil some, but I would like to push something in the 2,200 to 2,400 fps range that the rifle seems to like in j-words with a cast boolit. 2,400 fps seems to be a stretch for cast in the 7x57. That means harder alloy and gas checks I suppose.
Anyway, I would appreciate others experiences and suggestions as guidance on getting her going with her classic hunting rifle.
I suspect that this rifle may also be a candidate for a paper patched boolit as well, but that seems to be pretty small. My 8x57 is about the smallest that my current level of manual dexterity allows. Ideas in that area would be appreciated as well.
Thanks a bunch for the input!
She has been watching my progress with casting for several of my rifles, and with the cost of reloading components getting pretty steep, and harder to reliably come by, she asked this morning about getting her set up with a cast boolit for one of her rifles. She currently only shoots cast out of her 1911, and sees the benefit.
Out of all of her rifles, her 7x57 Brno Model 98 Mauser seems to be the most likely candidate. This rifle is old, probably from around the late 1940's to very early 1950s. It is in VG to almost perfect condition. With Sierra 130 grn Match Kings and the right load it is a one hole, cold bore shot rifle. That's three shots out of five into one hole at 100 yards. She has done that on more than one occasion recently. The potential is there.
What molds should I look at to duplicate that precision with cast? What powders and loads? Considering the age and origin of the rifle, I am expecting to get a non-standard bore and groove diameter when I slug the barrel. I would need to take that into consideration when I purchase the mold and the sizing dies. Comments on that would be appreciated. I would also like to keep the boolit weight in the 130 to 150 grn range; she doesn't like to shoot the heavy 175 grn hunting bullets that I got for her to try. I guess that I could back the velocity off to mitigate the recoil some, but I would like to push something in the 2,200 to 2,400 fps range that the rifle seems to like in j-words with a cast boolit. 2,400 fps seems to be a stretch for cast in the 7x57. That means harder alloy and gas checks I suppose.
Anyway, I would appreciate others experiences and suggestions as guidance on getting her going with her classic hunting rifle.
I suspect that this rifle may also be a candidate for a paper patched boolit as well, but that seems to be pretty small. My 8x57 is about the smallest that my current level of manual dexterity allows. Ideas in that area would be appreciated as well.
Thanks a bunch for the input!