Accurate , 30 cal. Plain Base mold

[Ben]

I bought this mold from Dean Winchester recently. The 182 gr. plain base bullet sizes out well at .311 ".So far this bullet has been a very accurate plain base bullet out of my many .30 cal. rifles.

The 182 gr. plain base , 30 cal. was shot recently out of a 30-06 Springfield 1903 Springfield with a pristine 2 groove barrel. The rifle had a 6X18X40 scope on it with an A/O.

Load was 8.5 grs. of Herco and the Accurate 182 gr. plain base, bullets were sized .311" . I fired this 5 shot group at 50 yards. ( That aiming square is 1.25 inches X 1.25 inches for size comparison )

Some feel that shooting plain based rifle bullets is a waste of time. I'm NOT one of those who holds that idea ! ! !

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/IMG_20131004_111724.jpg

Today I cast about 250 more. Spring will be here soon and I'll have some fun ! ! These are sized .3115" and lubed with Ben's Red then rolled in 45-45-10.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/07543.jpg

[DeanWinchester]

MmmHmm! Total waste of time shooting those crummy plain base clunkers.

[Ben]

UUUmmmm, how I do enjoy " A Total Waste of Time."

[338RemUltraMag]

Wow ben hella shooting!

[94Doug]

Interesting. What kind of mould/design is that from?

Doug

[Ben]

Doug :

Accurate Brass Mold 311180 E

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/002-61.jpg

[tomme boy]

Ben I love when you show these groups.

[Ben]

Ben I love when you show these groups.


Thanks, tomme boy !

Guess how many of the ones that look like buckshot hitting a garbage can lid I post here ? ? ( And yes, I'm just like everyone else here, I have days like that also sometimes ....... )

We all work very hard to shoot nice tight groups, one wants to share their success when they do have a good day. You never know who is reading a thread that might gain some valuable information from your efforts and your own willingness to share your success with others.

I also enjoy seeing and reading about everyone's successes.

Ben

[TXGunNut]

Very nice. I have a couple of rifles that I'd be silly enough to try a PB boolit in.

[tomme boy]

So lets hear how you sort the boolits to be able to shoot like this.

[Ben]

So lets hear how you sort the boolits to be able to shoot like this.

tomme boy,

I do not weigh my bullets . However, I am a " stickler " for a completely filled out and sharp cornered bullet base. I believe the bullet base is critical to any hopes of success with the .30 cal. plain based bullet . If the base of a bullet is even slightly rounded on the edges,has ANY irregularity on it or does not have a clean, crisp, smooth, sprue cut, it is rejected and remelted. If there are ANY visual defects anywhere on the bullet , that bullet is also rejected.

Here is the base of one of my SAECO # 301's ( By the way the SAECO # 301 and the SAECO # 315 in plain base are two of my all time favorite .30 cal. plain base bullets ) :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/009-299087.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/011-25.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/haysb/media/011-25.jpg.html)

All casting is done with a ladle. Over 95% of all .30 cal. plain based bullet testing has been done with air cooled wheel weights. I use Ben's Red as a bullet lube exclusively. During the past year, I've also taken the sized and lubed bullets and rolled them in a thinned coat of 45-45-10 and set them aside to dry.

So far all my testing has been with powders FASTER than 2400 with plain based bullets. ( Gas checked bullets have shot well with slower powders like IMR - 4895 and SR - 4759 )

I'm not saying that powders slower than 2400 couldn't produce accurate loads with .30 cal. plain based bullets, but that is not where I've focused my efforts.

In my many .30 cal. rifles, I've never had a plain base bullet shoot well sized .308" or .309".

Few have shot well at .310", 95% + of my good groups with .30 cal. plain based bullets have always been sized .311" or .3115".

Ben

[tomme boy]

Thanks, Ben. I think you are only one of the VERY few that is shooting the plain base boolits. I think part of that has to do with everyone likes to hear and feel a loud boom! when they shoot. When I first switched over to mainly shooting lead in my rifles, I just got a kick out of the recoil. The rifle I had was a Savage 10 in 308 win with a 22" barrel with a muzzle break. Most of my rounds were in the 1800fps area. But with the muzzle break, it felt like it was a 22mag. It was still loud though. I let so many people and kids shoot it at the range it was great. The kids that were afraid of how the guns kick were the greatest part of it. It made a huge # of kids to become our future of guns. I bring old golf balls to the range with me. The kids loved being able to bounce them all over the range. It made it fun for them.

I think I am going to try some of these plain base boolits this summer. Thanks a lot and keep showing these awesome groups!

[rintinglen]

Ya know, there ARE easier ways to kill mosquitos...just saying.

Great shooting, though.

[Ben]

Ben. I think you are only one of the VERY few that is shooting the plain base boolits .

tomme boy :

Thanks for those nice comments, I doubt that I'm the only one doing this.

I know that George ( HarryMPope ) is also VERY knowledgeable about .30 cal. plain base shooting. His knowledge base extends out to the 200 yard mark with .30 cal. plain base.

I now have several .30 cal. molds that are throwing plain base bullets :

SAECO # 315, SAECO # 301, Lee 150 gr. and Lee 170 gr. flat points, NOE 311331 RN , Lyman 311413, Lyman 311291, NOE 311284, Lyman 311466, Lyman 311467, RCBS 130 gr. Spire pt., Modern Bond 190 gr. Spire pt., Lee 200 gr. RN, and probably a few more that right now don't come to my mind......

I have experimented with 1/2 dozen more that I've either sold or given to friends to get them started in .30 cal. cast bullet plain base shooting.

Ben

[Maven]

Anyone else besides Ben, DeanWinchester, HarryMPope, and me using PB CB's in rifles? So far Clays (original) and Unique have worked extremely well for me, as has Blue Dot. Bullseye and Herco are also viable alternatives if you don't happen to have the aforementioned propellants on hand.

[TCFAN]

I am not in the same league as the rest of you all, but I do occasionally play around with a Lyman 311241 and a Lee group buy 311041 plain base mold from my first group buy. The 241 out shoots the Lee in my Encore rifle from a bench at 100 yards every day of the week. I generally use Bullseye or Unique in the 1200 to 1400fps range.. ..........Terry

[Ben]

Paul,

You got me started on plain base a few years ago and I've never looked back.

Many thanks,

Ben

[Jailer]

I don't have any plain base rifle molds but I do shoot the Lee 312-155-2R and the Mihec 62gr nato boolit without gas checks over a small dose of 231 with great success and accuracy.

[CGT80]

I was shooting the 311241, a 159 rn pb, in my win 54 30-06 and my win 94 30-30. I used red dot and was happy with the results. The 30-30 was moving at 1116 fps with 6.0 red dot and was sized to 0.311, but the mold was a tad small and only single cavity. The 30-06 was similar. Lube was Cred. I don't have any groups but I was shooting a 12" round plate at 100 yards and a 14" square plate at 165 yards. I could hit those with both guns while standing with a light to moderate breeze blowing at me.

I picked up an NOE Saeco 315 pb in a 5 cav aluminum. I switched to herco powder. I hate how it meters but I have a bunch of it to burn up and it has a good reputation. I have a lot of red dot as well, but haven't tried it with the 315. The 30-06 will hit both my targets with 8-9.6 grains of herco. I don't see much difference in the loads. I haven't had a chance to get chrono readings and groups due to weather, range use, and my chrono acting up. The 30-06 has decent peep sights and a 2x scope from the 1930's (weaver 29s). I was hitting an 8" plate at 70 yards this weekend.

The 30-30 likes the 315 and 9.6 herco for the 8" plate at 70 yards and the 12" at 100 yards. On the 14" at 165 yards, it is all over the place. I am wondering if I am pushing it too fast. My alloy is ww/soft lead and up to 2% tin when needed. I think I am up around 1300 fps IIRC.

I like to plink with these guns and I want to use the win 94 for lever action silhouette shooting. I am not pleased with the sights on the win 94. The adjustments are crude and the rear sight moves just a hair left to right, as it is just spring steel. I am considering a williams FP sight with target knobs and a fiber optic front. I think it would eliminate one possible variable in my shooting, and it would make it much easier to record my elevation for each distance so I can set the sights for each distance when shooting.

I figure it costs me 7-8 bucks per 100 rounds for either of these 30 cal PB loads with range scrap and wheel weights that were free or traded. I did allow 20 bucks per 1,000 bullets to cover propane and boolit lube. The 5 cav NOE makes boolits in a hurry. I like using inexpensive boolits that take less than a quarter of the powder of full power loads. I also like the low recoil and low noise. I stopped practicing this weekend, because I was getting tired and shaky. I got up too early so I could shoot a 3 gun competition, and then decided to practice with the 30 cal rifles and pb boolits. With full power loads it would be the limited quantity of expensive ammo, the noise, and the fatigue from the recoil that would limit my shooting.

PB rifle shooting is more fun than 22lr guns and it will go out farther and with better consistency. It also will really ring steel plates, and will drop silhouette targets.

[Maven]

You're most welcome, Ben! And for all interested parties, why not give it a try? As you've seen from Ben's pics above and elsewhere, accuracy isn't a problem. Then too, it IS economical since you don't need gas checks and use fairly small charges of powder. For example, with the Lee 30-150-TL plain based [group buy] CB*, often unsized, I use 7.5grs. Clays, 8.7grs. Unique, and even 9.5grs. Blue Dot in my .30-06. The Lee 113gr. soupcan, which Ben converted to PB and sent to me is also a tack driver in that rifle and uses even smaller charges. Btw, your brass will last forever with these lighter loads. Lastly, although I didn't mention Red Dot in my earlier post (or in this one), there's no reason it can't be used to good effect.

*My Lee mold drops ~140grs. with WW = 1% Sn. As Ben mentioned, you keep only the very best ones, i.e., with perfectly flat, "square" bases.

Note: I throw all my charges for PB CB's via my Lyman pistol powder measure, which explains the odd 8.7 grs. of Unique. If you take the time to throw and weigh a large sample of a given powder-rotor combination, you will be amazed by the consistency.

[Ben]

I'm with you Paul.

It would be a great time to try a few plain base .30 cals if you've never shot any of them.

You may not want to try and convert a $90 mold over to a plain base design , but for $20 a Lee mold can offer you some inexpensive fun shooting in your .30 cal. rifles.

See link showing what can be done with a $20 Lee mold converted over to plain base ( Look at # 9 and # 10 to see test targets shot with the plain base bullets ) :

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?173556-Plain-base-a-180-gr-Lee-30-cal-mold

Ben

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

Ben,
I'm really trying to get my Tikka 308 to shoot cast and reading your link to the Lee PB 180 modification and sized to .311 sounds really good.
My question to you that has not been addressed is what are you sizeing the shell throats too to seat the boolits and what dies your useing ?

Thanks, Steve

[Ben]

Ben,
I'm really trying to get my Tikka 308 to shoot cast and reading your link to the Lee PB 180 modification and sized to .311 sounds really good.
My question to you that has not been addressed is what are you sizeing the shell throats too to seat the boolits and what dies your useing ?



Thanks, Steve

I assume you're talking about the inside neck diameters of the cartridge brass that you'll be reloading?

When you say " shell throats ", is that what you're making reference to ?

If that is the case , I like to use a Lee Collet die system. You can easily vary the inside neck dia. ( the neck tension ) of a resized case with the Lee Neck sizing collet die.

You want only enough neck tension to hold the bullet in place when the round is being chambered in your rifle. If you seat a .311 cast bullet into a " dummy round case " with no primer or powder and then pull it back out and the drive bands have been reduced to .310 or .309 then obviously you have far too much neck tension on your cast bullet during the bullet seating process. The neck acts as a type of sizing die and can actually reduce the diameter of your cast bullet ( especially if your alloy is a soft one ) This will wreck any chances you have for good accuracy.

[Ben]

Prior to the " Magnum Mania " that has hit the gun industry and shooting sports, plain based bullets in handguns and rifles were the standard of the day.

The numbers of 4 legged and 2 legged creatures that are dead because of a plain based lead bullet is a staggering number.

Ben