dmdracer
06-30-2005, 08:34 PM
I shot a few of my first cast boolits yesterday out of the Marlin 30-30. I had loaded some of the "purchased" cast to use as a baseline, these are 149 gr leadhead boolits with 10 gr 4756 powder, chrony avg. 1430 fps. My avg. group was 2.325" @100yds. no leading, these are harder than my cast for sure.
I loaded some of my cast, Lee C309-150-f mold which turned out around 154gr, .310 dia as cast, with same load, only dif is half were sized and g/c thru Lee 309 sizer, one coat of alox b4 sizer and the other half just one coat same lube and loaded. All of these shot around 1410 fps. The non g/c would not hit paper and had just a little leading at throat, the g/c and sized ones shot a 2.395" group.
Well I was surprised that these were so close to the purchased ones and I made them ! Wow, what a good feeling! BIG :)
I know I need to refine my process in some areas and still don't know enough yet to be technical, but you all encouraged me to "just do it" and I'm glad I did and I thank you all again for the motivation
Now here's my Q.... I was giving some tin and linotype and I cast some more today and added a very small amount to my pot with all my 1st two casting attempts "rejects", they came out really nice imho, better than the 1st ones I shot, I also water dropped these and they are harder than the 1st ones (finger nail test), I have in my mind that I need the .310 dia. size for the Marlin mg, thats where they came out to as cast, thats a good thing, but the sizer die is .309, someone said to sandpaper it out a .001, I think I can do that, what grit paper and is that die hard or will it come out easy? I need to use the g/c's as I see it, but would rather leave them as cast dia. wise so if I just papered it out to maybe .311 or so and not worry about getting it to .310 perfect and just use it to put the g/c on or should I just buy a .311 sizer and go that way for g/c and have the option of 2 dif size dies for what ever reason in the future? did any of that make sense?
Also do you let these boolits set for 30 days to "cure" b4 shooting or does it matter?
I "think" maybe I should have put another coat of alox lube on them b4 shooting?? perhaps that where the leading came from?? do you fill the groves with alox or just coat?
thanks again for all the help, I think I caught the addiction :)
Dave
I loaded some of my cast, Lee C309-150-f mold which turned out around 154gr, .310 dia as cast, with same load, only dif is half were sized and g/c thru Lee 309 sizer, one coat of alox b4 sizer and the other half just one coat same lube and loaded. All of these shot around 1410 fps. The non g/c would not hit paper and had just a little leading at throat, the g/c and sized ones shot a 2.395" group.
Well I was surprised that these were so close to the purchased ones and I made them ! Wow, what a good feeling! BIG :)
I know I need to refine my process in some areas and still don't know enough yet to be technical, but you all encouraged me to "just do it" and I'm glad I did and I thank you all again for the motivation
Now here's my Q.... I was giving some tin and linotype and I cast some more today and added a very small amount to my pot with all my 1st two casting attempts "rejects", they came out really nice imho, better than the 1st ones I shot, I also water dropped these and they are harder than the 1st ones (finger nail test), I have in my mind that I need the .310 dia. size for the Marlin mg, thats where they came out to as cast, thats a good thing, but the sizer die is .309, someone said to sandpaper it out a .001, I think I can do that, what grit paper and is that die hard or will it come out easy? I need to use the g/c's as I see it, but would rather leave them as cast dia. wise so if I just papered it out to maybe .311 or so and not worry about getting it to .310 perfect and just use it to put the g/c on or should I just buy a .311 sizer and go that way for g/c and have the option of 2 dif size dies for what ever reason in the future? did any of that make sense?
Also do you let these boolits set for 30 days to "cure" b4 shooting or does it matter?
I "think" maybe I should have put another coat of alox lube on them b4 shooting?? perhaps that where the leading came from?? do you fill the groves with alox or just coat?
thanks again for all the help, I think I caught the addiction :)
Dave