Rifle boolits without GC for plinking?

[CGT80]

I am looking for a 4-6 cavity mold for my win 94 30-30 and win 54 30-06 rifles. I use a 159 pb rn design now and run it at 1100-1300 fps with herco and red dot. I found a Heavy Metals (HM) mold that is 311-160-5 and has a gas check shank. Outpost75 said it runs great for him as cast with lee liquid allox. I have not tried liquid lube. I use an RCBS LAM I and white label Cred.

Can I run the gas check bullets through my lube sizer, without a gas check, and not make a huge mess with the lube. I have not tried this yet and I don't have any gc rifle bullets cast that are not lubed.

My current mold is a 308 dia. It looks like the 311 gc may work well for plinking, if I can run it without a gas check, and it would be great for hotter loads with IMR 4895 and the gas checks installed. My current mold is a single cavity, and the HM is a 6 banger. I size to 311 right now, but my as cast boolits are just a tad small to completely touch the sizing die.

I was waiting for a MP group buy on a plain base boolit in a 4 cav, but HM has this mold in stock. I do have a gc mold but it is single cav and a pointed tip which is no good for tube feeding more than one at a time in the win 30-30. I don't see how I could go wrong with the HM mold.

Should I look into liquid lube for my plinking bullets? I shoot steel plates at 100-230 yards with my rifles and load mostly light (inexpensive) loads with pistol/shotgun powder. I thought about upgrading to a better lubesizer like a star or similar. I have some hungry guns, and a habit I can't shake, and of course not a huge budget.

Thanks guys.

PS. I looked around the site for info on running without the gas check, but didn't find much.

[popper]

GC come in 30 cal size, not 0.311. You size to whatever you want. You might be interested in the PC thread under lubes, it will increase the dia. of the CB a thou. or so. I've gotten Accurate 31-165B to shoot 1" @ 50 w/o GC @ ~ 1350 fps, slow powder(4895), 30/30 (336). It has a large rear drive band. My RD311 has a thinner DB and doesn't do very well so far. I have the RD PB version as well, it doesn't do well for me with fast powders @ 1600 fps. I have a 6x mould (Lee) but I find I get more consistent pours with a 4x. I started with LLA, Recluse, now am sold on PC for rifle.

[Doc Highwall]

I bought a 5 cavity 311041 plain base mould from NOE check and see if he has some left over. I bought it for my 30-30 and shoot it over 7 grains of unique.

[Larry Gibson]

Can I run the gas check bullets through my lube sizer, without a gas check, and not make a huge mess with the lube.

Probably not.

Outpost75 said it runs great for him as cast with lee liquid allox.

Outpost has the correct idea on lubing GC'd bullets sans the GC. I find they give yeomen accuracy if used upwards of 100 fps, sometimes 1200 fps, with Bullseye. Not as good as the same bullet GC'd or a true PB'd cast but ok. Sometimes not though.........I prefer to use GCs on them and homemade aluminum GCs are very acceptable in this application, i.e. "cheap".

Larry Gibson

[CGT80]

I run aluminum gas checks now. They size and swage onto the boolit easier than copper and the price is half or less. They run well on in my 30 m1 carbine, 30-06, and I also use plain base gas checks for my 460 mag revolver with an MP 270 SAA HP boolit.

It would be much faster and less expensive (about 20 bucks per thousand unless I make my own and buy the tool) to run without gas checks. I also figured plain base would make it very fast if I switched to a push through sizing press down the road.

I will look into the powder coating a bit more, I have read about it. Larry, I am not quite sure what you mean by yeomen accuracy for the boolit without the gas check installed. I looked up the word. I am guessing they are just sort of okay but not great.

I would be willing to try liquid lube, especially if my rifles will take the boolit as cast. Maybe I would be better off with a plain base mold for my volume shooting. Now to digest this info and do some more reading.

I was able to add the noe 311041 to a shopping cart, so it looks like it is still available. Nope I'm wrong. I was looking at another from NOE. It is 311 175Gr. FN 5 cavity PB (Saeco #315).

I was researching the 311041 and it had great reviews. Now I will see if I can find info on the saeco 315 since that is in stock.

Is it Accurate that makes custom molds in about two weeks, or someone else? Maybe I could give one of his a whirl. As you can tell, I really don't want to fire up the pot and run my single cavity mold [smilie=l:

[Larry Gibson]

Larry, I am not quite sure what you mean by yeomen accuracy for the boolit without the gas check installed. I looked up the word. I am guessing they are just sort of okay but not great.

That's what it means and I wasn't even in the Navy....or even own a boat......;-)

LLA is inexpensive and easy to use. Just follow the directions. If the LLA gets too gooey soak the bottle for 10-15 minutes in some hot tap water. Many make the mistake (yes I did too) of using too much LLA. I like to use a small peanut butter jar to TL bullets. I suggest you take a 12" sheet of wax paper, cut it into 2" squares, put how much you think the bullets need on one square......now scrape 1/2 of that back into the Lee bottle and then put the other 1/2 in the TL container with the bullets. You can always add a bit more LLA but you can't take it back out.........

What you want is a light golden hue on the bullets when done tumbling....not a globby mess. Let them dry thoroughly before use (usually 24+ hours at 65+ degrees).

Larry Gibson

[6.5 mike]

Another trick with mule snot is to set it in front of a window for awhile before use. I mix mine bout 50/50 with M/S. A cheap pizza pan from the dollar store works well to dry them on, any extra that runs off can be scraped up with a putty knife & dropped back into the mix.

[HARRYMPOPE]

I have a 6 cavity nei 72 I use without gc run through a sizer.it shoots under 2" at 100 with 11g of trailbloss in a Russian
Mosin Nagant.(sometimes better and very little times worse)I also use 7g of BE and as said pthe liquid alox also works.

[dromia]

Most of my rifle loads up to 1200 fps for indoor shooting use light for the calibre soupcan type designs, when I can get them, tumble lubed in Xlox or now 45/45/10 both from White Label. I prefer the 45/45/10 as it drys dry rather than greasy like the Xlox. All these boolits are gas check designs sans gas check. However my Lee Enfield No 4T won't shoot the soupcan worth a damn unless I gas check it. I just put that down to rifles being feminine.

[CGT80]

Chaaaaaaarrrrrgggge!!!!

Paypal is too easy.

Yep, I have a new boolit mold on the way. I decided to try the NOE saeco 315 in a plain base 5 cavity aluminum mold. I plan to shoot more light loads than heavy and I have a gas check mold already, so this mold should make some nice boolits, very quickly. I was only able to find one bad review on this boolit profile. Most people say it is very accurate for a target load and it fits many rifles.

I was reading more about powder coating and LLA. I might have to try that. I know a local guy that is experimenting with PC on boolits.

I read about the Ballisti-Cast Mark VI Lube/Sizer and I read about the Star sizers. I learned of the master caster a long time ago and thought I wanted one................ohh hell.......who am I kidding? I do want one, but I think a few good molds to accompany the MP 45 270 SAA that I already have will let me cast quickly with my PID controlled Lee 20 pound bottom pour. My RCBS LAM I is slooowww. The Mark VI would complement the good hand molds. Maybe I will catch another group buy, if one happens.

Man this is a sickness! I cast as a teen but didn't know much. I did manage to make a boolits to hit soda cans on BLM land. I borrowed my grandfather's 44 mag about two years ago. I had a lee mold for it, so I cast boolits and made some light loads. They were plenty accurate for steel plates and the light load was much easier on the hand with that single action. I really wanted a revolver and I wanted a double action. I had shot my dad's 38 smith a lot and I had shot a 500 Smith. I went for the 460 Mag Smith in 8 3/8". I cast boolits for that and bought an MP mold, then I found my dad's old rifle molds. It has all been down hill from there. I need to get out to the private gun club to mine some lead, but it is raining. :smile: :lovebooli

[Bret4207]

PS. I looked around the site for info on running without the gas check, but didn't find much.

Go to the GAS CHECKS section which was specifically created and is filled with stickies on the very question you ask, which STILL gets asked at least 3x a week.

[CGT80]

Looks like I must have scrolled down too fast when browsing that section before. I looked through all the new threads, but somehow missed that sticky. Thanks, I will see what it has to say.