Modifying J-Bullets

[grumpy one]

I'm not sure this topic belongs on this site at all, but I needed to try 0.311 j-bullets in my 336 30-30, on account of it shoots 0.308 ones sideways because they pretty much don't touch the sides of the barrel. The only 0.311 bullets my friendly local gunshop had were boat-tail spitzers (for 303 British I guess), 150 and 180 grains. Not very suitable for tube magazines. I launched some unmodified 150s downrange in preliminary tests without finding any promising loads, then decided to put a meplat on some so they'd feed through the action, and be safe to load into the tube magazine. I decided a 0.2" meplat would be just right, because that is the size used on my RCBS 309-150FN and it looks kind of neat. I ground the noses off 15 bullets in a jig on my disc grinder, and they seemed to work - a 5 shot group using a completely arbitrary load of 34 grains of AR2209 (only available from ADI - a stick powder the same speed as W760) went into 0.7 inches at 55 yards, so the idea seemed workable but the grinding approach wasn't, since it clogged the grinding disk.

Next step was simply to clamp my simple grinding jig in the mill vice, set up a 6"x1/8" slitting saw at 100 RPM, and mill the noses off a batch of 20. Haven't fired them yet, but here is the weight variation data:

20 unmodified bullets from the same batch:
Mean mass 149.9 grains
Standard deviation 0.5 grains
Minimum mass 149.0 grains
Maximum mass 150.7 grains

20 meplat bullets - no culls, straight off the mill except I wiped the copper burrs off from around the cut surface:
Mean mass 143.0 grains
Standard deviation 0.5 grains
Minimum mass 141.5 grains
Maximum mass 143.7 grains

The ES is higher for the milled bullets, but the SD is the same - the larger ES is probably just luck. Hence it looks to me as if bullet-milling is a workable concept. I may make a 20- or 50-bullet jig to make the milling quicker, but not until I've done more range work including trying the 180 grain bullet - the 150 has a rather short bearing area, especially with the boat-tail.

[JeffinNZ]

Hi

AR2209 is H4350 and seems a little slow for the .30-30 but if it works, work with it.

I would be inclined to use a round nose bullet and trim the nose. You will have to remove less material. I am thinking along the lines of the Rem 180gr RNSP we can buy in bulk in NZ.

Sounds like you need a die you can run a loaded round into so that the nose of the bullet sticks out of the top just enough that a decent file could run a flat on for you.

OR better still, check out CBE's range of .303 bullet moulds. Jim has a 190gr FN that would be just what you need.

[floodgate]

grumpy one:

One thing to look out for - if those were solid-tip bullets like the military ones - is whether the lead core is exposed at the base. If it is, there is some risk of blowing the core through the opened-up nose, and leaving the jacket in the bore. This was a fairly common occerrence when people were trying to make soft-nose or hollow points from our GI .30 caliber bullets. If the base is closed, this problem does not arise.

floodgate

[Buckshot]

............Grumpy One, just fire up your lathe'in mo-sheen and produce yourself a bump die. Put a flat nose on'em at the same time plus there's no weight loss or gain to worry about.

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

[Blammer]

ditto floodgates warning!

shoot safe!

[grumpy one]

Floodgate, these are sporting J-bullets: pointed softnose, with jacket covering the base. They aren't a bad looking product and are sold fairly cheaply (by Australian standards) under an importer's label in bags of 200.

Buckshot, I haven't tried forging one to reshape the nose, but considering the long ogive, the boat tail, and the very heavy copper jacket, I'd be worried about what shape it would end up after being hit that hard - it would be way beyond bullet-swaging pressures to reform that heavy jacket. Sounds like a hydraulic press job, with a full-form forging mould that could be dismantled to get the bullet out afterwards. I could get a small meplat just by cutting off the soft point, but I think I need a much bigger one because of the heavy copper jacket and the low 30-30 velocity which means it probably wouldn't expand much (if at all) in game.

Jeff, my usual supplier (a large retailer with slightly lower prices than most) only had one type of bullet in 311 - these Highland-branded ones. They were also reasonably cheap - US$36.50 for 200. No doubt there are dealers somewhere in Melbourne that have the Hornady ones at a higher price, or I could find them eventually on ebay and import them. That would be the sensible approach, but I'd miss out on all this senseless experimentation. I agree a file would work better than grinding, but I'd have to harden the jig and I don't have an oxy torch.

So far I haven't found a way to get consistent groups with cast bullets in the 30-30. I don't know if it's my lack of foundry-practice skills, or not having found a powder that will give consistent burn rates at low pressures, or just not having tried the right bullet mould yet. I've worked with Lee 309-170-F and 311291 - the Lee with the nose lapped to give an interference fit in the bore. The good groups are fine, but the bad ones are more numerous.

[Blammer]

what would shipping be for a 3 pound package from the stated to you?

[longbow]

Grumpy One:

There is another option I am going to test out for myself. I made a grooving roll to put "microgrooves" on a smooth sided cast boolit and it works pretty slick.

I wanted to try some different diametersand bearing lengths without spending a fortune on moulds first and this has worked well so far for .303 British and .44 mag Marlin. The grooving process takes seconds and increases diameter by about 0.003" to 0.004" leaving "microgrooves" looking like a 1/2" x 13 thread... but annular and not as deep.

I also tried it for paper patched boolits that weren't working too well and it improved accuracy a bunch but further testing required.

It also works on jacket bullets. I can increase a 0.308" to about 0.312".

It is a simple thing to make if you have a lathe and seems to work for both cast and jacketed. In principle similar to the Corbin cannelure tool but multi groove.

Longbow

[grumpy one]

Blammer, until a few months ago the $5 flat rate global priority envelope, with a maximum weight of 4 pounds, was the way to go - they came air mail in 6 business days. You had to wrap the bag of bullets in bubble wrap or the envelopes sometimes arrived empty, having been burst in post office handling. However the cheapest flat rate envelope is now $11 so the gloss has gone off the deal. I haven't bought any bullets since that change occurred; I'll have to review my tactics.

longbow, it sounds to me as if you finish up with much less bearing area on your rolled bullets - you have to squish it down over part of the area to make it expand in other areas. There may also be a risk of deforming the bullets, unless it's pretty high quality tooling. Do you have pictures you can post, of both tool and sample reworked bullets? It sounds to me as if your process might be especially useful for increasing the diameters of the noses of bore-riders - that is a real gap in the market in my opinion.

[longbow]

Grumpy One:

My groove rolling tool is actually pretty basic. It has 2 smooth rolls and one with annular grooves made with a thread cutting bit. They are about 0.015" wide x 0.015" deep and about 0.075" pitch - like I said "microgrooves". They are deeper than the rifling and multigroove all the way up the bearing surface, so close to the same volume as standard 2 or 3 groove boolit.

So far the accuracy seems good but that is a bit subjective in comparison to boolits I have been having trouble with. That's why I made the tool - so I can make different diameter boolits then groove them and try them. My .303 British seems to like a 0.305"+ nose and about 0.315" bearing surface. I cast 0.303" nose and 0.312" body then roll groove and get 0.316" nose and o.315" body ~ about 0.003" increase.

I'll try to get some decent pictures of boolits and tool to post tomorrow or Wednesday.

Longbow

[longbow]

Grumpy One:

As promised - here are some pics of the grooved cast boolits and a "J" bullet along with the tool that makes them or at least makes the rings in them.

My original goal was to have something like fine Lee tumble lube grooves but unless I groove all 3 rolls I get flat topped, vee bottomed grooves. So far that seems to work.

It is easy to do and really no different than knurling which is certainly common for swaged pistol boolits.

The group of 3 are for my .303 and you can see the diameters - they weigh 198 gr. +/- a grain or two.

I can't give glowing reports of accuracy yet as I haven't shot them enough but the loads I have assembled have outshot those from the Lyman 314299 which has been lapped and Beagled to get larger diameter.

The grooving tool will easily increase diameter from about 0.003" to 0.005" - note the "J" bullet diameter.

Then there are some recovered boolits: a .30 cal and a 0.342" (?) (niether of these are mine but both have multigroove style), a .44 mag (mine) and a .303 British (mine). And a deeply grooved .44 mag unfired - grooves are pretty obvious.

Longbow

[longbow]

Yow! Those boolits don't look so good in the close ups! But then neither do the 314299's either. All cast boolits are oven heat treated and I must have been just about at the melting point as some have "bruises" likely from bumping on the way into the quench.

[grumpy one]

I'm not clear on some of the mechanical details.

1. Is the centerline of the threaded roller directly above the midpoint between the two lower plain rollers?
2. Do you have provision for putting a deadweight on the pivoted upper frame that holds the threaded roller? Can the deadweight be slid relative to the upper frame's pivot to change the effective force applied to the threaded roller?
3. Is there a crank handle on the axle of the threaded roller?
4. Does the bullet move axially as it's rolled?

To get repeatability, I think you need a sliding deadweight system to apply the pressure to the threaded roller. Repeatability is likely to be critical to get this to be a practical tool.

[longbow]

Grumpy One:

It is currently a bit of a crude prototype - but it works quite well. Responses in bold below.

1. Is the centerline of the threaded roller directly above the midpoint between the two lower plain rollers? Yes.
2. Do you have provision for putting a deadweight on the pivoted upper frame that holds the threaded roller? No, so far I just push down on the upper frame. Can the deadweight be slid relative to the upper frame's pivot to change the effective force applied to the threaded roller? I plan to add an adjustable stop to produce identical grooving and so final diameter on the boolits. I originally planned to use a weight but the more you roll the larger the boolit gets - at least to a point but I have increased diameter by up to about 0.006". A stop should give the same results every time for a given starting diameter.
3. Is there a crank handle on the axle of the threaded roller? Yes, there is a hand crank driving the grooved roll.
4. Does the bullet move axially as it's rolled? Nope, these are annular rings not spirals or "thread". I had originally planned on using a "threaded" groove roll to do exactly that and drive the boolits through one after another but then there would be a path for gas leakage unless the grooves were shallower than the rifling.

To get repeatability, I think you need a sliding deadweight system to apply the pressure to the threaded roller. Repeatability is likely to be critical to get this to be a practical tool. Like I said, so far it is a prototype and will get a solid stop installed and maybe a different groove pattern. I have tried a wider, deeper vee at twice the pitch but again, unless all the rolls are grooved it winds up with flat tops larger than the grooves. I decided that the current groove pattern is pretty well proportional and so far it works without leading using Lee liquid alox in both my .44 mag and .303 British at around 1800 FPS - according to the loading data, but I haven't chronographed it yet. Also, note the fine grooves on that other recovered boolit - cast but very similar to mine.

I agree that repeatability is essential but so far even just pushing down and giving 3 cranks gives amazingly consistent results in diameter. A solid stop should make boolits as close to identical as it will get. It is virtually the same process as knurling which is commonly used for pistol boolits. Corbin says you can't knurl hard lead so I thought I would try a sharp vee groove and this worked on the first attempt with air cooled wheelweights and range scrap. I oven heat teat after grooving.

I have been working up loads for a stubborn .303 and so far these grooved boolits and my lapped 314299 are showing promise ( 1 1/2" to 2" at 50 yards) but I have to load a bunch of each up now and go shoot several groups with the same load to check repeatability. This may not be stellar accuracy to you but it is at least half the group size I was getting with stock cast 314299's, paper patched, a variety of other cast boolits, miltary surplus and factory rounds. Now that I am getting consistent and smaller groups I am going work on improving accuracy.

I noticed a big improvement with paper patched boolits as well in the .303. Previous to grooving I was getting very inconsistent accuracy and tried thick and thin paper to give from 0.311" to 0.316". Once I grooved the boolits and patched with 0.003" tracing paper I started getting decent groups. I'm not sure if it is the diameter (about 0.314") or the fact that the grooves grip the paper and hold it in place.

I tried the "J" bullet to see what would happen because even military surplus rounds and factory Federal .303 ammo gave about 4"+ groups at 50 yards. The groove diameter is about 0.315" as best as I can determine, lands are a tight fit for .303" nose. I figured if I could groove and swell a 0.311"/0.312" by a few thou I might get a decent shooter - the bore is in good shape. I managed to swell a .308" bullet to 0.313" but haven't tried shooting any yet (didn't have 0.311" handy).

Anyway, that's it so far. If you are interested in cast boolit results I will keep you posted. I can't promise jacketed bullet testing in the near future though. I don't really have any interest in jacketed especially now that the cast are shaping up.

I just thought I would share in case you wanted to try it. The groover is easy to build and certainly bumps up the diameter of a "J" bullet. Another option is that Corbin makes a groover and cannelure tool (for swaged pure lead) which is reasonably inexpensive and I am sure a different roll could be made and fitted to do what I am doing but with a little more class.

Longbow

[grumpy one]

I would be interested in progress reports, and I suspect a number of others would too.

1. Regarding using a positive stop rather than a weight, I agree this is the only way to go unless the bullets positively fed themselves through (as they might do with a thread form, but certainly won't with parallel grooves). You will need an easy way to make precise adjustments - either a calibrated adjusting screw or a place to insert a depth gauge or feeler gauges.

2. It seems to me you need to end up with a substantial bearing area to guide the bullet in the barrel, and you also need as much cross sectional area as possible to prevent the rifling from stripping the outside of the bullet as it spins it. That means flat-topped grooves are a good thing, not a bad thing. If you make another grooved roller, I suggest you grind up a lathe tool to give something more like a sine wave instead of a V-form. The two flat rollers will help to flatten the tops of the waves but the right kind of lathe tool will help even more.

3. So far as accuracy is concerned you can only aim for what the technology can produce. I shoot plenty of 1.5" groups at 50 metres, and some worse than that. Sometimes it is a hopeless load, and sometimes it is exactly the same load that has given me 0.6" at other times. You can only fix the errors you can identify.

[longbow]

I'm hoping to get out this weekend but then I've been hoping for some time now - just no time what with work and ailing vehicles and house.

I have a couple dozen .303's cast grooved and heat treated and a load that is looking pretty good so if I can repeat the past performance I will have a pretty good idea of accuracy potential. Even if all goes well I know there will be work to do to fine tune.

What I am looking for right now is consistency and last time out I had nice round groups - a lttle larger than I'd like but consistent anyway.

I won't have time to cast any more before this weekend but I may just groove some more "J" bullets and try them.

I will keep you posted.

Longbow

[Buckshot]

............Longbow, nice looking gizmo you built and the results look pretty good too.

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

[Nueces]

Grumpy One,

I've done a bit of research on adaptations for a meplat tool, to wit:

The Wilson case trimmer uses a 0.500 diameter cutter, which means that a center-cutting endmill with a half-inch ground shank could be used to cut meplats on seated bullets (or boolits).

The Forster cutter shaft is 0.490 diameter, with a 3/16 - inch pilot hole in the end. A bit of toolmaking would produce a cutter with a 3/16 stud. Then, a "center rest" for the seated bullet, such as a cylinder of same diameter as the collet holder, with an internal taper to align the bullet.

I'll bet the Lee case trimmer shellholder could be used, with an endmill, in a drill press, vertical mill or lathe. Spin the case or the cutter, as you see fit.

As an aside, I just used the Lee stud and holder to spin formed 33 Winchester cases in a propane flame for neck and shoulder annealing - the cases came out looking like factory jobs.

Please post when you get something working.

Mark

PS - Jeez, I read your post again and you already have a good system. The thread just got me rethinking the issue and I blabbed the results.

[longbow]

Thanks Buckshot but in real life it is a little crude - the warts don't show up in the photos!

I have been messing with smooth sided boolits for a long time simply because the moulds are easy to make and in my .44 mag (straight wall case) I can use a greased wad behind the boolit. This has allowed me to try several designs and weights without spending a fortune on moulds.

The results from these boolits in my .44 Marlin have been very good and much better than "J" bullets or my Lyman 429421.

However, it wasn't working as well in the .303 since I couldn't do the greased wad thing so easily. I did a few experiments and was getting okay accuracy but then leading finished that so I thought of knurling but took Corbin's advice and decided it would take a lot of force with wheelweights.

I figured a sharp vee might do it and hadn't actually planned on grooving the entire bearing surface. I just made the grooving roll full length to see how much force it would take to groove the whole boolit - but it worked so I haven't shortened the grooving roll... yet.

So far I am happy with the results but need to do a little more shooting before I can say it is good enough. In principle it is the same operation as knurling so should be capable of producing nice cylindrical boolits that should be accurate.

So far no leading with boolits dipped in melted Lee Liquid Alox/paraffin mix. If it all works out well I will rebuild and neaten the "prototype". If not then I'll try another approach. So far so good.

Longbow

[grumpy one]

Nueces, I adopted the large-diamter slitting saw in the mill rather than end milling for a reason which I think would be equally applicable to your Wilson or Forster case trimmer proposal: the cutting speed is proportional to radius with an end mill, so center-cutting a fairly sticky material like lead alloy is likely to be fraught with difficulty. It could probably be done, but depending on alloy you may have a problem with lead build-up on the cutter.

The six inch slitting saw tosses clean dry lead swarf across the mill vice, and the teeth don't seem to build up with either lead or copper. This might be partly because all of the cutting is horizontal, so the saw gets cleaned of lead by cutting copper at frequent intervals. However from the look of the lead chips, there just isn't a problem with cutting cleanly. I did choose a fairly coarse-toothed saw though. The large-diameter saw is so that I can later make a simple jig which will mill say 60 bullets at a time (20 in each of 3 rows) while still allowing the center boss of the cutter mandrel to clear the jig as it runs along beside it while cutting. I'm visualising a piece of 2" square mild steel bar a foot long, with hold-downs at both ends so it clamps directly to the table. The jig has to be removed to unload the machined bullets - they have to be tapped out individually with a pin punch from the base side, since swarf always drops in around the copper jacket and the jig. I prefer a clamp-down jig to using the mill-vice because it's easy to wipe the table, wipe the underside of the jig, and thus get a consistent vertical dimension without having to clean inside the mill vice and packers. Each of the 60 recesses can be drilled with an ordinary 5/16" drill bit (0.3125" diameter, which is a push fit for 0.311" bullets).

[Nueces]

grumpy one,

I liked reading the results of your thinking, thanks for sharing. You're right, slow-speed milling or drilling of lead alloy requires a wipe of the tool between passes. No biggie for experimental work, PITA for production.

Mark

[longbow]

Grumpy One,

Sorry to take so long getting back to you but I have spent the last two weekends under an old boat and an old car - I'm getting too old for this!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand - modified "J" bullets.

I finally got out to shoot a bit this weekend and tried out my .303 with Lyman 314299 lapped and Beagled to 0.305" x 0.315", my home made cylindrical boolit grooved with my tool and 5 Speer 30 cal. 165 gr. "J" bullets grooved with my tool.

The stars of the show were the 314299 and the grooved Speers!

I reported before that with Winchester 30 cal. 180 gr. I could groove them and increase diameter to 0.313" easily - true but I only had two left. So. I tried the Speer 30 cal. (0.308" dia. exactly) and could only get them to 0.311" so didn't think they would do too well. The jacket material is quite different from the Winchesters - the Speer looks more coppery and the Winchester looks more brassy. Maybe jacket thickness is an issue too. I dip lubed them in a melted mix of Lee Liquid Alox and parafin (to make it a little harder).

I used a load of 42 gr. 4064 and got a 5 shot group of 4" wide x 1 1/2" high with 4 shots in 1 1/2" high x 2" wide (at 50 meters). Not competition accuracy for sure but compared to milsurp .303 at around 4" at 50 to Federal factory at around 6" at 50 - pretty darned big improvement.

5 rounds does not prove much but rest assured that I will try more after that!

My next test since I don't have any 0.311 jacketed to try is to pull the Federal bullets, groove them and reload. Certainly the accuracy of these was dismal so I have nothing to lose.

My home made boolit performed rather poorly which is surprising as I reduced cast diameter (new mould) so as grooved would match the 314299 - which it did but accuracy was not good. Previously I had used a starting diameter of 0.315" grooved to 0.318" which gave pretty good accuracy but not as good as the lapped and Beagled 314299.

I am thinking that compared to knurled boolits my grooves are rather deep so maybe I am working the lead a bit much. I will try shallower grooves for the next cast boolit test.

I will let you know how it goes.

Longbow

[grumpy one]

With your existing grooving tool, I doubt that you are getting either enough bearing area or enough shearing area for the expansion to work well for cast bullets. Jacketed bullets are covered with a much stronger material and shouldn't require either as much bearing area or as much shearing area. That was why I suggested that you might need to change the form of your grooving roller to something that generates a lot more surface area at the increased diameter.

I tried another group with my machined 0.311 J-bullets (spitzer point milled off). I increased the powder charge in the 30-30 case by one grain and the group size increased from 18 mm to 32 mm. I'll have to go back to the previous load and see if the original group size is repeatable - if it is, I think I've found the maximum powder charge. I've found before that the 336 action seems to lose accuracy at high pressures, whereas my Mauser seems to thrive on them. Not that the pressure in the 336 was all that high - I can only judge the limit for that rifle by when the groups open up.

[longbow]

I will work out the bearing area but visually there is much more lead than groove and I am sure overall that the bearing area exceeds the 314299.

I am more suspecting that I am grooving too deep and working the surface of the boolit too much. Knurled boolits I have checked have much shallower dimples than my grooves.

Next test will be with same boolit but shallower grooves and larger boolit (about 0.003" larger at 0.315" as cast) with shallow grooves to see how that goes. The larger boolits grooved and expanded to 0.318" gave reasonably good accuracy -with a few fliers but I thought they were a little oversize so made a smaller mould.

After that, if not successful I will try fewer grooves spaced a little wider.

I will also try some more grooved "J" bullets too as that was interesting.

Testing continues.

[grumpy one]

Bear in mind that copper work-hardens to a fairly extreme extent. Your grooved J-bullet jackets will be brittle at the bottom of the rolled grooves, and there will be stress concentrations there as well. Use some judgement regarding where you do and don't apply grooving - e.g. probably not right down to the bullet base, in case the base ends up shedding in flight.

[longbow]

Currently my groover starts approximately 1/10" above the base.

I have to admit that I was surprised at the large diameter increase the Winchesters gave at around 0.005" from 0.308" to 0.313" but the Speers would only go about 0.003". The jackets will already be work hardened so I don't want to do too much more reshaping but they did shoot well.

The next "J" bullets will be the factory Federals with pulled bullets grooved and reloaded. They should be starting out at around 0.311" to 0.312" so won't need much.

[longbow]

grumpy one:

Well, finally I got out to the range! I haven't been out doing too much of anything since my daughter was injured. She is doing pretty well now but a ways to go yet.

I went out to the gun range and shot the .303 (No. 5 Jungle Carbine) to check out cast and jacketed bullets grooved with my groove roller.

You will have to pardon my lack or regulation targets - I didn't have any but I did have a spray can and some paper so made do.

I know this is a cast boolit site but you also asked about "J" bullet modifications so here goes with both.

I cast up some Lyman 314299's in my lapped and Beagled mould (0.305" nose x 0.316" driving bands) and some of my home made smooth sided slugs (0.305" nose x 0.316" body after grooving). These were dip lubed in a mix of Lee Liquid Alox and paraffin.

The Lyman was loaded without gas check and the home made boolit is plain base. Both were loaded over 22.5 gr. of IMR 4198 (charge thrown by Lee dipper) and the case filled to the middle of the neck with Cream O' Wheat.

I didn't chronograph these as I didn't have time.

I also pulled 10 jacket bullets from federal factory loaded rounds which had given dismal accuracy of 4" to 6" at 50 yards, grooved the bullets, dip lubed them and reloaded them.

Pictures of the cast boolits before and after shooting and targets for the Lyman 314299 and modified "J" bullets are attached.

I got a couple of reasonable 5 shot groups with the homemade boolits one approx. 2" high x 3" wide and one of 3" high and 1" wide with one flyer. The vertical stringing is likely due to aging eyes, lack of practice and coarse issue sights. Yeah they are peeps but pretty sloppy peeps. The 2 other groups were more like buckshot groups.

Recovered boolits do not show any obvioius signs of gas cutting but the rifling grooves on the boolits appear to be large as though the lead cut a little - maybe too much acceleration, maybe not enough bearing surface? Not sure yet.

Anyway they didn't shoot real well. Also, I have to note that when I dip lubed I lubed the whole bearing surface - maybe too much lube? I have had trouble in the past when I dip lubed the same Lyman 314299's used in this test and also covered the noses - groups went real bad until I scraped the extra lube off the bore riding nose then back to good groups.

Maybe I have too much lube on these home made boolits. Something else to test. Also, I think the lube grooves are a little too deep so again something else to test.

The Lyman 314299's did not too bad - again group size may not be all due to boolit/load. So far this is the best they have done without a gas check. In the past I have loaded with and without gas check and with and without cornmeal filler and always the loads without gas checks are much larger than those with.

This load shows some promise though using Cream O' Wheat filler. Worth some more experimentation.

I plan to repeat the tests again with a slower powder but same loads for both the home made boolit and the Lyman 314299.

Another comment, all boolits were a mix of range scrap and wheelweights and were oven heat treated at 450 deg F for 1 hour then quenched. I don't have a hardness tester but they are much harder than ACWW.

I know using fillers is rather controversial but so far I am finding no problems and have worked up loads for Unique, IMR 4227, IMR 4320, IMR 4064 and now IMR 4198. I started light and worked up and in general have found they shoot clean and no leading. David Southall says in his article on www.303british.com that he uses both plastic buffer and Cream O' Wheat with good success. He told me he finds Cream O' Wheat better than cornmeal - I have to agree.

One thing I can say right of that I think is good about fillers is that you can't double charge light loads without overflowing when the filler is added. Anyway to each his own, so far I like it.

Now to modified "J" boolits. As mentioned above the Federal factory loads gave very poor accuracy when tested before 4" to 6" groups at 50 yards. having found that the cast boolits of 0.314" diameter and up work better I decided to try my groove roller (further back in the thread) to bump up the diameter. I pulled the
bullets grooved them which gave 0.313" (as big as I could get them), dip lubed them and reloaded.

They gave the group shown in the picture. I also shot another group with 4 bullets in 2" x 2" and one flyer - likely me again. Anyway both groups significantly smaller than the ungrooved bullets.

Testing continues.

Longbow

[grumpy one]

longbow, so far as your 314299s without gas checks are concerned, I'm wondering why you bother. My limited experience with plain base bullets (and I mean true plain base, not GC bullets without GCs) indicates that they can give decent groups with trivial loads of fast pistol powder, but velocity is quite low - at 50 yards they hit the target about 6" lower than GC bullets. Any increase in powder charge gives shotgun patterns.

Regarding your choice of lubricant, I know some people on this list seem to get good results with LLA, so it must be possible. I haven't tried it - I find enough challenges just trying to get consistent results with NRA lube. It seems to me that if you put gas checks and good lube on your 314299s you might find yourself with 1.5 to 2" groups at 50 yards, or if everything went right, half that. To me, that is way more fun. It also eliminates some of the sources of inaccuracy, and therefore makes your experiments more sensitive.

So far as fillers are concerned, I have only used them with tiny loads of pistol powder. Even then I have found it easy to produce pretty disastrous effects - and that's with dacron. Using cream of wheat in any bottlenecked cartridge is something I wouldn't attempt, because it looks wrong to me: that COW has to get swaged down to fit through the case neck, and it doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to expect. Some people do it, and that's their business.

Considering your grooved J-bullets, I'm not surprised that they worked better than way-undersized J-bullets. My own experience with the latter, using factory loads in my 30-30, is that they fly sideways. I don't know why at least some of them wouldn't end up flying in fore-and-aft orientation just by sheer luck, but it hasn't happened that way for me so far. It's kind of interesting trying to measure group sizes when they fly sideways, by the way. The sideways bullet groups are usually about 3 to 4" at 55 yards, from my microgroove 30-30.

I don't understand why you lubed your J-bullets. I don't know whether it would increase group sizes or not, but it seems pointless. I use 0.311" J-bullets in my 30-30, which has groove diameter of 0.312". Group sizes at 55 yards with ADI AR2201 and AR2208 (Varget) are 1.1 to 1.8", but I've given up on the Varget because I seemed to need so much breech pressure that cartridge extraction was sticky. I have switched to AR2209 (H4350) recently with much better results but it is very early days. The one-and-only group I shot with 34 grains of H4350 measured 0.71" at 55 yards, and that's about as good as it gets for my 30-30 with its truly awful (though almost new) barrel. I showed the rifle to my local gun dealer, who's as old as I am, and he said it's the worst as-manufactured Marlin barrel he's ever seen in his life. Of course now I'm persisting with the rifle because I'm proud to demonstrate how well I can cope with adversity. Maybe that is why you are shooting your 314299s without gas checks, too.

[longbow]

Actually, I am shooting without gas checks because I am about out of them and I live in a small town in Canada where our gun laws have gotten so restrictive that there isn't a place in Canada within a 4 hour drive to buy reloading supplies. I usually drive down to the States to a small town about 1 1/2 hours away where you can buy about anything gun related - go figure!

Anyway, I like to keep things simple and I am "frugal" (read cheap). If I can get decent accuracy without gas checks it is one less thing I need and less time reloading. You are right though in that so far I have gotten pretty good accuracy with 12 gr. Unique and a gas check, though loads with gas check and filler gave the best results.

As mentioned, I have used fillers with several powders - working up slowly - with no problems and after reading David Southall's articles and having e-mail correspondence with him I will stick with fillers unless I run into problems. So far no excess pressure signs, no chamber ringing, generally better accuracy and a nice clean bore. I also like the idea of "100%" loading density by having a full cartridge.

About Cream O' Wheat swaging down, I agree it has to get past the neck of the cartridge but then so does a case full; of slow burning poder - it doesn't all burn in the cartridge so what is left has to get swaged past the shoulder and burn on its way down the barrel.

.303 British has a pretty mild taper and small shoulder but think about a .264 Winchester or any similar large bodied small bore cartridge. A lot of powder must swage past that shoulder and through that neck!

Anyway, different strokes for different folks. I have had what I think is good success so far with fillers while others have had problems. David Southall reports that he has rifles that will not stabilize cast boolits without fillers but with them he gets good groups and more consistent velocities.

As for the groove roller and cast boolits, so far accuracy is inconsistent and I can think of a few reasons but no leading so there is definitely enough lube.

I had originally planned to groove all 3 rollers but felt with small grooves it would be hard to cut so many and make all 3 rollers match. Also Corbin says you can't roll hard lead so I was worried that if I used fewer bigger grooves I might not get the depth that I wanted. With the small pointy grooves I could reduce the number if necessary to get the depth - less grooves, more pressure, deeper swaging.

As it turned out the grooves are easy to roll so I am thinking bigger angle and fewer grooves so more like mini Lee tumble grooves. Also bigger fewer grooves would make it easier to match 3 rollers too. I just want the grooves a little deeper than the rifling.

Regarding lubing the "J" bullets, I just figured I got grooves and I don't want copper fouling so why not? What could it hurt?

I wasn't planning to shoot "J" bullets anyway but after reading your post I wondered if my grooving tool would work to increase diameter of a "J" bullet - and so it did along with much improved accuracy.

Personally I am more inclined to shoot paper patched than copper jacketed and have tried those as well with reasonable success. Again though, I tried smooth sided slugs and got mediocre accuracy then decided to groove before patching and that tightened groups up a lot. I am not sure if it is because it gives the boolit a little better grip on the paper, that the increased size helped (though they were still patched to groove diameter) or a combination.

I still have lots of testing to do and other things to try - I guess that's what keeps me interested.

Longbow