What mould to buy for PP 45-70?

[freedom475]

My aunt just stopped by my house and asked "What do you want for Christmas?"
To which I replied "A boolit mould".

I may be opening a can of worms here, but What mould would you guys suggest I order to get me on the right path for Paper patching?

MY gun... 45-70 Pedersoli. 74 Sharps. I seat my Lee500gr SPTZER with the first lube groove showing over BP.

No I've not slugged the bore,Paper is adjustable right?

I probably want my boolit to weigh 450grs. or more

I plan on using WW's, it is what I have. Don't want to count on alloy "BUMP-UP

Do these boolits need sized?

My aunt likes to buy us gifts that we will use. Can anyone help me with my list?

Thank You.................Freedom475

[pdawg_shooter]

I like the Lyman 451114. Drops a .4515 bullet of an alloy that test 12.5 BN. No need to reduce, just patch and load. Prefer a bullet with lube grooves to hold a little more lube on the paper. Any mould that drops a .457 or .458 bullet can be used. Just run the bullet through a .451 Lee sizing die and patch up.

[Larry Gibson]

Might think about the Lee 458-405-HB bullet. It's the replica of the M1873 bullet for the Trapdoor. You can size down in a Lee .457 and then .451 Lee dies. Has a nice HB to tuck the tail. The few I tried worked helping a friend with his Sharps. He used WWs and Smokeless powder.

Larry Gibson

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I have used the .446 bullet from the RCBS 43 Mauser mold for patching with good success. About 420 grains soft lead with a flat point for the Mauser magazine. BvT

[jtaylor1960]

I would think an adjustable mold might be good .It would allow you to use a wide range of bullet weights and find the one that suits your gun.

[Bigjohn]

Jim Allison from Cast Bullet Engineering makes a dandy adjustable mold for Paper Patching. Mold is a nose cut off as well and built as well as a Brick outhouse.

He is on the net and sends a lot of his work overseas. The one I bought off him cost $220.00 AUD a couple of years back and is one of many of Jim's molds I own.

If you order now, you may get it by christmas as he has a bit of a waiting period, when I last heard it was out to six weeks. Jim is a one man operation but has very good work ethic.

John.

[shooter93]

Again...a custom mold...but the sites own Red River Rick makes a superlative mold....even the handles are a work of art....check him out...custom but I think very reasonable.

[John Boy]

Freedom, I know presents under the tree has come and gone, but if you are interested, here's a '74 Sharps (0.446) mold made to the original bullet spec's.
I had Fred Leeth in Ohio cut it to 1.70 so I can can 'howitzer' bullets
http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/index.php?topic=4525.0
Price tag - $225, including shipping

[pdawg_shooter]

After five years of trying I have finally found THE load for my Marlin 1895g. Does everything I want done and is still shootable. I started with new Remington brass, annealed the first ¾ inch using the melted lead method, belled with a Lee expander and primed with CCI 200. The powder charge is 52gr AA 2495. I started with 48 and worked up with no signs of pressure. This is a compressed load, even using a 16 inch drop tube. The magic bullet is cast in a Lyman 451114 mould. The alloy is 17 parts pure lead, 2 ½ parts linotype, and ½ part tin. The bullet drops from the mould .451, 430gr and is ready for patching. I make my patches from 16lb green bar computer paper, cut 2.750 long on a 60* angle 1.500 high. I dip in water and wrap twice around the bullet. They are left to dry overnight, then lubed with BAC. Then the tails are clipped and the bullet is run through a .459 Lee sizing die. I seat them to an OCL of 2.580. These shoot clover leaf groups at 25 yards and into 1.75 at 100. This is with a Lyman 66 rear sight and factory front sight. Not bad for 55 year old eyes. Bullet performance on game is all one could ask for. I’ll not quit experimenting, but how does one improve on perfection?

[MT Gianni]

Pdawg shooter,just curious but when Lino is so tin rich why would you add extra? Gianni

[pdawg_shooter]

Pdawg shooter,just curious but when Lino is so tin rich why would you add extra? Gianni

I get better fill out at a lower temp and better accuracy with that blend. Lee hardness tester shows 12.5 BN and performance on game is just about perfect. In my 30.06 and 300RUM I go for a hardness on 14.5 to 15 BN. The 311284 sized .301 and loaded to 2985 fps (300RUM) makes a great elk load!

[waksupi]

I get better fill out at a lower temp and better accuracy with that blend. Lee hardness tester shows 12.5 BN and performance on game is just about perfect. In my 30.06 and 300RUM I go for a hardness on 14.5 to 15 BN. The 311284 sized .301 and loaded to 2985 fps (300RUM) makes a great elk load!

Pdawg, how far away are you shooting elk? At 2985 fps, you would have to drop about 700 fps, to get satisfactory results on elk size game. Hitting them that fast, is going to leave an entrance crater, with nearly no internal damage. I really don't know what range you would have to be at to get the bullet to drop to the correct velocity, but am fairly sure it would be at a range further than I care to shoot at an elk. Please elucidate upon this statement. We need things like this to be clear in the minds of newcomers.

[pdawg_shooter]

Longest shot taken at an elk was 266 long steps. Hit left shoulder and broke it, exited just behind right shoulder. Elk humped up, staggered or limped about 20 yds. and dropped. The secret is the alloy. Need to be 16 to 17 BNH at this velocity.

[gregg877]

Freedom,

Just bought my Pedersoli 74 Sharps Silhouette cal 45-70 back in November. The groove diameter on those rifles is .458, with a bore diameter of .450, I'm using a Lyman 457124 bullet, which is listed as a .385grn with #2 alloy, but with wheel weights they are coming out around 395-398grns. They are sized to .459 and lubed with a 2:1 Beeswax Vasoline mix. Starline brass, CCI LR primers, and 21.0 grns of SR4759 smokeless. If it's pushing over 1000 fps, I'll be surprised, as you can see the bullets approach the target through your spotting scope!

My interest is more in target shooting, and with that setup I'm shooting 10's on a 13" bullseye @ 200 all day. For hunting, you may want to get a little more velocity, but the gun definately likes those boolits.

Despite the lack of freebore, Pedersoli's are capable of shooting Paper Patch Boolits as well, though you really need to research it first, there is a lot of detail in making both the boolits and completed ammunition. My suggestion, if you ever consider that route is to read "The Paper Jacket" by Paul Matthews. I'm in the middle of it now and getting ready to experiment.

Hope this helps.

Gregg

[gregg877]

Couple of quick points I probably shoulda touched on since the thread was about paper patching:

If you are going to load with smokeless, you need your unpatched boolit to be bore diameter, or .0005 over bore, If you plan on using the mighty black, then you need your unpatched boolits to be .004 to .006 under bore, so that when you patch them, it ends up being .001-.002 over groove diameter when patched(like you shoot for when casting conventional grooved non-patched boolits). Those are pretty consistant numbers I've come across from both articles on the web, and Paul Matthews book.

As far as boolit selection, if you are on a budget, you can use a grooved boolit mould(that you may already own) and size them down to suit your needs(based on the desired propellant), Corbin Swaging makes reduction dies that will do just that and maintain concentricity in your cast boolit. On top of that, plain vs. grooved is a matter of personal preference, depending on what you want to do and how you do it, performance will be just about the same. Also, for best results, only the patch and whatever it's lubed with should touch the barrel, to figure that out, specially where Pedersoli's do not have a Freebore, will take some experimenting at the bench.

There is also a lot written about what alloys to use when paper patching, everything from pure lead being desireable(because it expands in to the rifling better, but is subject to greater distortion once out of the barrel and in flight) to different lead tin alloys, being subject to less distortion but marginally less expansion. I have yet to stumble over anything about using wheel weights with paper patching, but like I said, I'm learing and experimenting and I cetainly don't know everything.

Gregg