338 Mag and bullet selection problem

[TCLouis]

The trusty Model 70 will stack the 220 Lee Round nose bullet at about 1900 fps. I can NEVER gotten good accuracy out of the two flat nose 338 molds with the loads I have tested so far.

Yes flattening the existing Lee has been discussed in the past. May then have ane inaccurate Lee bullet.

Just how importantant is that meplat?

[Bass Ackward]

The trusty Model 70 will stack the 220 Lee Round nose bullet at about 1900 fps. Just how importantant is that meplat?


TC,

You need to answer this for yourself. I assume you are talking deer right?

Take 2" of wet news print in front of as few as 2-1 gal milk jugs and see. For great affect, I like to both explode. If the first one explodes, but the second just splits, just shoot calm deer. If it just breaks the first jug without a shock spray, wear tennis shoes and carry a few jacketed rounds.

Sometimes these things can surprise ya. But you can use this method to play around and maybe get it to work. If you line up 6 jugs, you should get the bullet to look at. If you don't, it's still running.

[BruceB]

TC, pard;

Did you see my thread up above about successful casting of softpoints? If the nose is pure lead, the shape won't matter one danged bit.

That Lee .338-220 shoots very well for me in some loads, too.

[TCLouis]

BruceB
I saw that thread.
May be too lazy to do that until the winter doldrums distroy anything else to do!

[ammohead]

[QUOTE=BruceB]TC, pard;

the shape won't matter one danged bit.

QUOTE]

Like any type of bullet, what matters most is shot placement. Granted, I wouldn't recomment using a hard cast spitzer, but a hard cast spitzer clean throught the center of the heart would do the job. I took the aforementioned lee mould and had it bored out to .342 just enough to remove the grease grooves and used it as a paper patch boolit for my 348 win. I adjusted the stop on my lyman sizer so I would bump a flat on the nose. I saw no "hunting" deterioration of accuracy. I would still like to have a custom pp mould with meplat made someday, but wouldn't and don't hesitate to hunt with what I have.

Try a dead soft alloy in a "buckshot" 8mm mould if you have one and paper patch it to .338. Might just be the ticket. Heavy enough, ballistically superior and no doubt it will expand with 1800+ muzzle velocity.

ammohead

[TCLouis]

When dealing with pure lead, one must expect the bullet (or portion thereof) to SAG under acceleration pressure. Some years ago when I was shooting a lot of .44 Mag, I loaded some pure lead 429421 Keith bullets and shot them behind the H house. I don't remember the exact powder charge but I am sure it was going at least 1140 fps. After that I was downrange and found one which had apparently come to rest without severe damage. The NOSE of the Keith bullet was rifled! I also found a 12 ga slug at Ft Campbell which had somehow escaped damage in flight. It was shortened by about one third.
Norman

Anyone experience any real slumping?
LouisB

[felix]

Slumping can be expected whenever a round is speeded up and the alloy is known to be soft. It should not make any difference in accuracy if every one of them slumps the same amount, at the same place, and to the same diameter at the same point on the boolit, all within the barrel. Odds are slim. Also, if the lead is that soft, land stripping can be also considered and expected. But this seldom happens with a clean and reasonably dry barrel, and can therefore be ruled out. However, with real light boolits, I have had them completely break up in mid air. Shooting 225646 one day shure proved this one out. Saw a complete boolit blowup at about 35 yards with about 5 shots in a row! ... felix