Best Varmint Designs

[Marlin Junky]

What are the best boolit mold designs available for casting boolits to eradicate pesky varmints? By pesky varmints, I mean critters that can be killed cleanly with something as small as the 17HMR. Actually, what I'm looking for is something I can shoot for less than a 17HMR which will be more effective in the "wind". Please stick to the small bores... I don't consider the 45-70 as a varmint rifle. :bigsmyl2:

I was moving toward a 22-250 (which still sounds good) and a Lyman 225646 but on second thought, that particular Lyman mold looks too pointy.

Thanks,
MJ

[1Shirt]

Can't go wrong with a hornet and 225438 at about 2250 or so.
1Shirt!

[Marlin Junky]

Can't go wrong with a hornet and 225438 at about 2250 or so.
1Shirt!

1Shirt,

That's a lil' bitty boolit! Did you read my comments after your last post to my "best alloy" thread? Do you think that eye-dropper full of alloy will keep a mold hot? Do you have any idea how well 225438 will shoot from a 10" twist? I'm open to any wild and crazy alloy suggestions.

If I'm going to go with really light boolits and slow twists (which could be the way to go) I think I'd rather start looking for a 222 rather than a Hornet; however, I'm still leery about my ability to cast quality boolits much less than about 60 grains.

MJ

[1Shirt]

They cast very well and are no more problem than a larger cal. However, they (in my opinion) need to be very well looked over for any obvious defects, and I weigh all of mine to exact weights. As to alloy, I personally want 22 bh or better, with a preferance of about 28, as I want them brittle and to break up on varmints. A combo of ww/lino/babbit, and a little tin works for me. I use Lars Can Red lube.
225438 and or 225415 shoot well in 222. I shoot cast in Hornet, K-hornet, 222, 223, and 22-250. As to keeping a mold hot enough, it is just a matter of technique, practice, speed, and getting the mold hot enough to start out with.
1Shirt!

[Marlin Junky]

1Shirt,

Thanks for the input.


...and getting the mold hot enough to start out with.
1Shirt!

Yes indeed!

MJ

[beagle]

My M77 Hornet with a 225438HP over 3.5 grains of Unique has done well on BBs and svereal feline varmints in the past. Quiet, cheap to reload for and pleasant to shoot./beagle

[JeffinNZ]

I favour the 225415 with the FN. I was shooting rabbits with mine ex the .223 the other weekend. Boolits departs my company at 2100fps and that lil .14 FN just levels small game.

[TCFAN]

I have always wanted a 22 hornet rifle for cast boolits. Never have got around to getting one so I use a old Remington 788 in a 222. I use the 225415 HP cast with linotype.Like 1Shirt I weigh every boolit and sort to the exact wt.I run these at 2500fps with 748 powder.They come apart on groundhogs.Here is a photo of the last one that I caught stealing apples from my tree. Distance was about 60 yards from the back door.

http://i755.photobucket.com/albums/xx200/TCintheOzarks/Cast%20Boolits/DSC_2340.jpg

http://i755.photobucket.com/albums/xx200/TCintheOzarks/Cast%20Boolits/DSC_2341.jpg

[JeffinNZ]

TCFAN: I have had very good results with 748 under the same boolit in my .223 doing slightly faster. Good load combination.

[Larry Gibson]

A 22 Hornet or .222 with 14" twist are the best for varmints. Both can easily push a FN cast to 2300 - 2500 fps with very good accuracy and deadly effect as the above photo shows. I'd give the edge to the .222. However, my 22-250 with 14" twist does just about as well.

Larry Gibson

[frnkeore]

Don't forget the 257420 in a 25/20. A larger mepat and you can generate 2100 fps with it in strong action like my Model 25 Remington. Savage and Winchester also made bolt actions. Single shots actions are are a good choice as well.

Frank

[Marlin Junky]

Don't forget the 257420 in a 25/20. A larger mepat and you can generate 2100 fps with it in strong action like my Model 25 Remington. Savage and Winchester also made bolt actions. Single shots actions are are a good choice as well.

Frank

What about 257420 in a larger case... something like the .250 Savage or .257 Roberts, for example?

MJ

[frnkeore]

11gr of Unique will get you about 2050 in the 250 Sav and 14gr will give you about 2250 in the Roberts.

For 2400 it's Sav 12gr @ 1760 and Roberts 14gr @ 2080

All loads out of older Lyman manuals.

Frank

[Marlin Junky]

11gr of Unique will get you about 2050 in the 250 Sav and 14gr will give you about 2250 in the Roberts.

For 2400 it's Sav 12gr @ 1760 and Roberts 14gr @ 2080

All loads out of older Lyman manuals.

Frank

Well, that's fine but what about accuracy?

MJ

[frnkeore]

Accuracy? That's something that you'll have to work out. Although I have a 257 Roberts, I've never shot it with cast. For that bullet I have my Mod 25 that's all I shoot in it.

There is no reason that you shouldn't be able to get about 2" groups @ 100 with either the 250 or the 257. I'd start with Unique at about 8gr and work up in 1/2 gr increments.

Frank

[Bret4207]

1Shirt,

I'm still leery about my ability to cast quality boolits much less than about 60 grains.

MJ

I thought the same thing. Prior to getting my 22 Bator, I'd had horrible issues with a couple 258 dia Lymans, not that I didn't eventually get some boolits I could use, but that was pre- Shooters.com and I was still an ignorant moron as far as producing quality boolits. Fast forward 10-12 years and I found myself attempting to cast those Bators, filled with apprehension and visions of lousy rejects. Surprise! Get the mould hot and clean and they drop out perfect 6 at a time.

Don't sweat it, it's no different than doing 45-70 boolits.

[quack1]

What about 257420 in a larger case... something like the .250 Savage or .257 Roberts, for example?

MJ
I just tried it in a 25-06 this summer. 4198 with a tuft of dacron shoots right around an inch with the gun I used. Straight ACWW with a little added tin loaded as cast (.2585) with Felix lube. Velocity was just shy of 2000fps. Any faster and accuracy started to go. May be different in your gun,though. A couple of groundhogs shot with it in the chest/neck dropped with just a couple twitches of their tail.

[Bret4207]

I just tried it in a 25-06 this summer. 4198 with a tuft of dacron shoots right around an inch with the gun I used. Straight ACWW with a little added tin loaded as cast (.2585) with Felix lube. Velocity was just shy of 2000fps. Any faster and accuracy started to go. May be different in your gun,though. A couple of groundhogs shot with it in the chest/neck dropped with just a couple twitches of their tail.

HAR!!! DOUBLE HAR!!! I'd like you to spread that around to some of the crowd that believes it takes rock hard boolits and magic additions to your alloy, plus sacrificing a virgin or 3, to get to 2K with accuracy!!! And with a 25 cal in a humongous over bore cartridge at that! OUTSTANDING! Most folks tell me I'm lying when I say it's not hard to do with plain old WW.

[quack1]

Bret- I can't take all the credit, Larry Gibson gave me some suggestions last summer when I was trying the 257464 in the same gun. Turns out the flat point was easier to get an accurate load than the round nose. It took me most of the summer to get the 257464 to give consistant accuracy at about 1900fps. Any faster and accuracy went away. That kind of load development is what makes cast bullets interesting to me. As a matter of fact, the gun I was shooting isn't even mine. I was using bullets from my molds, in a buddys gun, with his components, to show him how accurate cast bullets could be and potentially start a new caster. He bit, too. Now I am going to have competition for scrounging wheel weights

[JeffinNZ]

I am driving ACWW out of my .223 at 2300fps without any problems. You oughta see what a 225462 HP does to a rabbit.

[Buckshot]

..............When I lived out in the tooles we had horses. There were ground squirrels before but with water around and undigested grain in horse poop (sorry for being crude) we gained a lot more. That and the garden plus the wife's flower bulbs. As a side note, before they began burglerizing her bulbs they were somewhat invisible to her.

For quite some time I simply used a 22RF. They're pretty tough and sometimes they'd scrabble back to their holes to expire unless headshot. Anyway, long story short over time I wanted to be able to excersize some of my other rifles. I have a nice -03A1 Springfield and figured that'd be a good one to try out.

http://www.fototime.com/9DDC9AF2291A561/standard.jpg

8.0grs of Red Dot, Lee C309-113F. 1903 Sporter Springfield. Iron sights, 50 yards. Also SR4756 was an excellent powder. My rifle has an old Lyman blade up front so I don't how the sight setting would compare to a military blade but with the ladder up and using the peep @ the 500 yard setting, if you sat a GS on top of the blade theyd be DRT at 50 yards regardless WHERE the slug hit. It'd raise a satisfying dust cloud upon impact, with a satisfying WHAP! :-) Wasn't much louder then the 22 so far as I recall. IIRC the velocity was a tad over 1600 fps.

...............Buckshot

[Marlin Junky]

I just tried it in a 25-06 this summer. 4198 with a tuft of dacron shoots right around an inch with the gun I used. Straight ACWW with a little added tin loaded as cast (.2585) with Felix lube. Velocity was just shy of 2000fps. Any faster and accuracy started to go. May be different in your gun,though. A couple of groundhogs shot with it in the chest/neck dropped with just a couple twitches of their tail.

Is that an inch at 100 yards? At what ranges were the groundhogs shot?

MJ

[quack1]

MJ- yes that was 100yds, forgot to put that in my post. The hogs were shot about a month ago, and were 2 out of over 50 so far, best I can remember is one at about 75 yds and the other at about 125.
Buckshot-I use 3118 in my 30-06 with Unique at around 1550fps and it kills groundhogs very well with chest or head shots. Very little recoil so I'm usually able to see the hit through the scope. The flatpoint really makes that satisfying WHAP when they hit hog, every bit as loud as hollowpoints in smaller calibers.

[Marlin Junky]

Quack1,

What brand of 25-06 rifle do you own? Does it have a standard SAAMI chamber?

Thanks,
MJ

[quack1]

MJ - Standard chamber, Shaw barrel on a Mauser action. Don't know who built it, the barrel is floated and the action bedded.

[GabbyM]

Have thought for years the 6mm-222 with a 1:14 twist would be the ideal small boolit launcher. Nobade built one a while back and indeed reports getting very high cast bullet velocity from it.

Pacific list the 6mm-222 in there standard reamer catalog.
Cheap brass can be made form 5.56mm you pick up for free at the shooting range or for top end Lapua makes 222 Rem brass that can be necked up. The free 5.56mm brass is a big plus in getting a cheep shooting rifle. Of course you can just shoot 223 or 222 Rem from that brass also if you want to shoot a 22.

As far as back yard varmints. Any of my bolt action rifles will shoot cast boolits under one MOA at 100 yards an for some reason 200 yards is opened up a bit. Not much as 3 inch target can be hit about every time. That’s what I keep telling myself. My 223 with 1:12 twist will send my Lyman 225646 at 2130 fps with under one MOA accuracy at 100 yards. One hole at fifty yards. Wind plays havoc with slow bullets at 200 yards. Yep when you are used to 3,350 fps bullets cast is slow. But in the real world of walk about guns. Anything past 200 yards takes a handy fence post or walking stick to make a handy rest. Then even though I live in flat land our varmints are not so dumb as to run across an open field in day light.

My 243 AI will shoot the Lyman 243496 Loverin 84 grain into a 7/8 “ group at 100 yards all day long. That with a 10 twist barrel that is not ideal for cast over 11 grains of Unique at about 1,800 fps or 18 grains of RX7 at 2,040 fps for 1.0“ . The Unique load is more accurate and far cheaper to shoot. With a 100 yard sight zero a typical hold over at 200 is 3 ½ “ . Accuracy is pretty much anything you can see with a naked eye at 200 yards you can hit with a scoped 223 or 243 cast boolit shooter. But what’s the fun in just being good enough?

6mm-222 in 1:14 twist shooting the NOE

[Marlin Junky]

6mm-222 in 1:14 twist shooting the NOE.

GabbyM,

Are to referring to this one, from a 1:14" twist?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_15135030a970c9aa9.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=6321)

MJ

[GabbyM]

Yes that's the one. Here is Nobade's thread on his 6mmx222.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=144072

CH4D will have dies.

The more standard 6x45mm would work but the neck is barely long enough. With all the AR-15 ‘s running 6x45 those dies are off the shelf items. However I like the idea of the longer 6x222 neck and the reduced powder capacity is just right for cast.

[Marlin Junky]

GabbyM,

That's pretty cool but I want to be able to use RCBS 243-095 too, so what twist would you recommend? I'm thinking a 3-groove PacNor with either the 1:11" or 1:12" twist.

BTW, I'll be going with the 6mm Remington so I can fit a heavier charge of 4759, 4227, 4198 or Re7 behind whatever boolit.

MJ

[JIMinPHX]

HP version of a Lyman 225415 has worked well for me in a .223
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=18471&d=1262506674
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23823&d=1279529702
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=17541&d=1259642425

[GabbyM]

Don’t know about the RCBS 95 grain. My 243 AI has a 1:10 twist. I shoot the 84gr Lyman #245496 Loverin and 87 grain Saeco #243. My 10 twist barrel looses accuracy at under 2,200 fps. 243 AI case has slightly more powder capacity than a standard 6mm Rem case. I have 18.0gr of Rx7 running 2040 fps with good accuracy and ES over the chrony. More powder and accuracy goes away. At 17.2 grains the powder isn’t burning well yet. It’s a very narrow window of performance and has me wondering if it would work on say a cold day. With a 1:12 twist I’m confident velocity could be run a couple hundred fps faster. That would get a couple more grains of Rx7 in the case and give some slack in the performance window. The heavier 95 grain bullet may help with powder ignition from it’s weight and the fact it would take more powder to get to the velocity limit. A shorter barrel than my 26” would also slow things down and allow for more powder. What I’ve found to be silly easy is a simple 11.0 grains of Unique under the Loverin. About 200 fps slower than the Rx7 loads but the gun doesn’t heat up so I can really blast away and Unique is cheep powder plus the charge is smaller by 60%. Big plus for me is the 11.0 grains of Unique creates enough pressure to nicely fire form the virgin 243 Win cases into Ackley. Seals the necks for clean reloads too when the Rx7 loads leave dirty cases due to low pressure poorly sealing the gas.

When my Ruger MKII VT was new it had a 1:12 twist barrel on it. Didn’t shoot cast rifle bullets back then. It would stabilize the Sierra 85gr. hpbt Game King but not the Hornady 87gr V-Max that’s a tad longer. The boat tail V-max is a really long bullet with a .400 BC so it’s no surprise a 1:12 wouldn’t shoot them.

The Tubbs 6mm XC is a blown out 22-250 case. Neck on that one is .305” long compared to the 243 Win neck of .241” , 6mm BR .318” and 6mm Rem of .351”.
With the 6XC you may want to have the throat on the reamer reduced in length to a more standard 243 Win length as the XC is set up for those long VLD bullets.

If I was looking for an off the shelf cast boolit screamer I’d buy a 222 Rem with the standard 1:14” twist barrel.

[Marlin Junky]

If I was looking for an off the shelf cast boolit screamer I’d buy a 222 Rem with the standard 1:14” twist barrel.

No doubt boolits will depart the muzzle faster with that rig than with an 1:11 or 1:12 twist 6mm; however, by the time we're 100-200 yards down range, won't the advantage in terms of performance on small varmints be with the bigger bore launching 80-90 grain boolits?

MJ

[GabbyM]

Except for greater penetration. The big bullets won’t give you much ballistic advantage until you are past 150 yards. Then they still won’t do much past 200 yards. Any wind and the bullets at 22 rim fire velocity blow all around. Inside 100 yards the high speed 22’s should break apart on impact if you cast them brittle. I make my 22’s pretty tough and am sure they’d not break up. Years ago I’ve shot ground hogs at a tad over 100 yards with a 22 rim fire. Took three shots to keep them from crawling back down there hole. One would think that 75 grain 6mm flat point hitting at around 1600 to 2200 fps would anchor them pretty good. My 223 cast bullets have a lot more on them than the 22 RF mag but the velocity bleeds off quick. I figure my 223 is a 150 yard gun and the 22 RF mag that I don’t have is a 100 yard gun. My 243 AI should kill well at 200 yards still.

Saeco 87gr BC= .159.
Lyman 83gr #245496 BC = .202
RCBS 95gr 243-095 SP BC = .258.
The Lyman #225646 that I shoot has a BC of .155 but probably would be a bit long for a 1:14 twist. IIRC mine weights 60 grains.
Lyman 55gr #225415 has a B.C. of .116.
Lyman 45gr #225415 has a B.C. of .116 in the Lyman books so one of those numbers is off I’d think.

Ballistic charts in back of my book stop at 1900 fps.
At that speed the #245496 at 200 yards is 1296 fps at 300 yards 1112 fps.
#225415 at 200 is 1180 fps at 300 is 1007 fps.

You can see by those charts boolits greatly reduce the rate which they bleed velocity after they slow down.

Using a calculator.
Time in flight to 200 yards with my 2150 fps 223 load is .364 seconds. It’s running 1289 fps so is still super sonic. TIF for my 1850 fps 243 load is .398 seconds and it’s running 1248 fps. Both loads are getting down to 22 rimfire velocity. When I enter in 2450 fps into the 6mm BC .202 they get to 200 yards running 1685 fps with TIF of .296 seconds. Substitute the RCBS 95 grain bullet with BC .258 running at 1850 from a 10 twist barrel and you’re at 200 yards with 1355 fps TIF .380 seconds.

I don’t know what the BC of the NOE 6mm 75 grain flat nose is. But it would d seam to me the better 200 to 250 yard choice. I think the 1:14 twist 6mm barrel would stabilize my 84 grain Loverin. Lyman’s book list the Saeco 243 under the 22 PPC data with 14 twist barrel. They also state the 14 twist will not stabilize the 95 grain RCBS. No surprise there. If the 1:12 twist barrel in 243 or 6mm Rem would stabilize the RCBS bullet so you could shoot it around 2250 fps it would start looking pretty good. We might get fifty more yards of accurate range over the ubber high speed 75 grain flat nose. However the smack down I’d expect on raccoon sized critters with the high speed flat nose should far exceed that of the spitzer at 300 fps less velocity.

Our two dogs got into a fight with a ground hog yesterday out by the shed. They are just little dogs so it was mostly bark and harass. It’s a three acre lot in between the fields. So any 22 or 6mm cast boolit I made it around the corner with in time would have dispatched that tomato eating pig just fine. I grabbed my Model 10 in 38 Special but didn’t get there in time. Our silly one year old miniature Dachshund was run over by an Amish buggy a week ago and has her front leg in a cast. Then yesterday a week to the day later she is out there trying to fight a ground hog on three legs. She weighs nine pounds.

[JIMinPHX]

No doubt boolits will depart the muzzle faster with that rig than with an 1:11 or 1:12 twist 6mm; however, by the time we're 100-200 yards down range, won't the advantage in terms of performance on small varmints be with the bigger bore launching 80-90 grain boolits?

MJ

How big of a varmint are you planning to go after?

[Marlin Junky]

How big of a varmint are you planning to go after?

I suppose anything closer to the ground than a coyote (e.g., racoons, opossums, skunks down to feathered vermin). I'd probably grab something else to dispatch a coyote.

GabbyM,

Sounds like you're a "dyed in the wool" proponent of NOE 245-75 but the design looks like it won't carry enough lube for 2000+ velocities. I wish I knew for sure about the ability of a 1:12" to stabilize RCBS 243-095 because there are a lot more barrel choices in 1:12" twist than 1:11". However, a 1:11" twist incorporated into a 6mm bore is proportional to a 1:14" in .30 caliber which would be my twist of choice should I desire to significantly increase my boolit velocity in .30 caliber.

MJ

[GabbyM]

Well I’ve the grass is always greener thing going on. You’re looking at the 6mm Rem and my 243 AI is very close to that round. It’s a whole lot of case capacity even for J bullets.

As far as lube goes I’ve several bullets that don’t look like they hold much lube. The Saeco #243 is one of them and I shoot it from a 26 inch long barrel with no issues. The #245496 Loverin is all lube and only difference I’ve seen is finding globs of lube stuck to my chrony at fifty feet.

Have a look at all the wildcat 6mm’s on CH4D’s die list. I like the 30 degree shoulder 6 x 222. 6mm-250 Savage or 6XC would be about right for a .473" head case. With the free bore and throat cut right for cast as opposed to the 117gr DTAC. I still like the idea of using one of my many bags of 223 Rem brass as a parent case. A pocket full of ammo goes a long ways too.

http://www.ch4d.com/catalog/dies/caliber-list?page=46

[Marlin Junky]

Well I’ve the grass is always greener thing going on. You’re looking at the 6mm Rem and my 243 AI is very close to that round. It’s a whole lot of case capacity even for J bullets.

And the 6mm International may be better than both of them for cast but I've got an action that will probably handle the 6mm Remington just fine and I want to be able to clean the barrel up after a season of shooting cast, stoke it with 90-95 grain copper patch, harvest young deer on my property and perhaps nail a coyote or two at long range. I also like the cartridge case configuration of Remington's version better than either Winchester's or Ackley's version of the .243. Then again, I like the SAAMI standard throat configuration of Remington's cartridge so I don't need to mess with custom reamers and pay a gunsmith for his extra effort. Perhaps if someone presented me with a drawing of their 6mm International reamer I could be persuaded to use it; however, until that happens I think I'll just go with the 6mm Remington.


As far as lube goes I’ve several bullets that don’t look like they hold much lube. The Saeco #243 is one of them and I shoot it from a 26 inch long barrel with no issues. The #245496 Loverin is all lube and only difference I’ve seen is finding globs of lube stuck to my chrony at fifty feet.

Point well taken and I'm sure I'll add the NOE 245-75 to my collection should my 6mm project be completed in time to purchase one.


Have a look at all the wildcat 6mm’s on CH4D’s die list. I like the 30 degree shoulder 6 x 222. 6mm-250 Savage or 6XC would be about right for a .473" head case. With the free bore and throat cut right for cast as opposed to the 117gr DTAC.That's all fine and dandy but since I'm not a gunsmith with a lathe and all the proper tooling I've got to trust someone else to do all the precision work for me. I doubt anyone will send me drawings of their finished reamer before cutting my chamber with it and that's the only way I'll agree to have a custom chamber cut in my "expensive" new barrel.


I still like the idea of using one of my many bags of 223 Rem brass as a parent case. A pocket full of ammo goes a long ways too.

http://www.ch4d.com/catalog/dies/caliber-list?page=46

Perhaps some day... for now, I don't own an action with a 3/8" bolt face.

Actually, I'm still not sure whether the 3-Groove PacNor is what I should be ordering. What do you think about my barrel choice? Initially, I went to PacNor's site to check on their barrel contouring service (I want my 6mm barrel to fit my existing stock) and then I noticed the 1:11", 3-Groove configuration in 6mm. Actually, I haven't yet found out whether the bore diameter is .236" or .237" either, my preference being the former.

MJ

P.S. BTW, I just noticed that Douglas offers a 1:11" twist also... but this thread was supposed to be about mold design... oh well.

[JIMinPHX]

I suppose anything closer to the ground than a coyote (e.g., racoons, opossums, skunks down to feathered vermin). I'd probably grab something else to dispatch a coyote.


I would think that a 50ish grain pill out of a .223ish barrel would be plenty for any of that out to 250 or 300 yards. That's just my opinion though.

My 225415hp did a pretty quick take down on a desert coyote out at around 150 yards. I haven't tried them on game much further than that.

[Marlin Junky]

My 225415hp did a pretty quick take down on a desert coyote out at around 150 yards. I haven't tried them on game much further than that.

Your 225415hp's are very nice... are they lathe hollow pointed?

MJ

[JIMinPHX]

The very first ones were done on a lathe. Most were done using a drill jig under a drill press. Others were done with a drill jig & a cordless drill.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=29432

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=70575

[Marlin Junky]

It would be nice to be able to hollow point my 245496. Yes, I figured I should buy the mold while I still had the chance, even though I don't own a rifle in that caliber yet. Actually, I guess I could have someone make me an HP pin for one of its cavities. Oh yeah, I also owned an RCBS 22-055-SP for a couple years without owning a .22CF rifle.

MJ