Maven
09-10-2012, 04:59 PM
I had a chance to go to the range today to enjoy the sunny, cool, breezy autumnal weather we're finally experiencing, and incidentally, to test some Lee 30-150-TL boolits (from an earlier group buy mold) today. The selling point of that design was that it could be shot "as cast," i.e., without sizing or lubing in the traditional manner; and without gas checks since it is plain based (PB) Instead, they were supposed to be tumble lubed (TL) in Lee Liquid Alox, Lar's Xlox, something similar. Mine were indeed as cast, unweighed, and swished around in LLA for the most part, though I have to confess that a few were also smeared by hand with Lar's Xlox (good stuff!). By trial and error, I learned that 7.5gr. Hodgdon Clays, 8.7gr. Alliant Unique, or 9.5gr. Alliant Blue Dot gave me accurate, economical, and for the most part, lead-free results. Btw, those charges were thrown with my Lyman pistol powder measure, with different rotors (which I calibrated*), hence the odd charge weights. As the 30-150-TL's drop from the mold at .314", and my .30-06 prefers .311" CB's, I had to use my Lyman 30L M-die to expand the case mouths so as to prevent lead shaving. For the record, the 3x fired Rem. .30-06 cases were neck sized in a Lee Collet die, expanded via the M-die, primed via a Lee hand tool, charged with a Ly. pistol powder measure, and had the aloxed, but unweighed, unsized PB CB's seated via a CH-4D Vickerman die. (Meacham makes a copy of it too.) The primers were CCI #34's. A pic of the 2nd best target of the day (12 shots) is below. The best target was supposed to have 10 shots in it, but I'm not certain all 10 actually hit it because I did find a small amount of bore leading ~3/4 of the way up (from the chamber) the bbl. upon cleaning. Btw, today's results were the best I've ever got from the Lee 30-150-TL: better than sizing & lubing to .314" conventionally; better than tapering them (special die needed). Best of all, there was a lot less effort involved.
*Not one of the rotors throws charges that match the data sheet Lyman provided with the powder measure.
*Not one of the rotors throws charges that match the data sheet Lyman provided with the powder measure.