Heat Treat Fiasco Update for dragon813gt

[Stonecrusher]

Decide to shoot some of my heat treat slumped boolits. But first a little background.

All loads are .30-06 with Lyman 31141. 16 grns 2400 and lubed with Carnuba Red and one coat tumble lube. Velocity averaged 1596 fps. These were some loads I had made for a US 1917 to try. Didn't work too well so I tried them in another bolt gun. Rifle is a VZ-24 action with 26" Shilen Chrome-Moly Match barrel. Scope if Burris Fullfield II 4.5-14. The boolits were leftovers in my cabinet from at least 20 years ago and I think they were pure lino. Temp was about 86F. Got a great surprise when I shot them:
124911

I was enthused so made a new batch of COWW with 2% tin. Cast a bunch and weight separated into .5 grn lots. Loaded up with same load but noticed I was getting some nose deformation from sizing in my 4500. Temp was about 48F this time. Groups all look pretty much like this. The 20 round group was fired last.:
124913

Kinda disappointed so I bought a Lee push thru and said this will fix it for sure. Same load, Temp about 46F. Pretty much same as before with some wild fliers.:
124912

At the end of the day I tried a group with some culls that were good visually but were under weight by more than 1.5grn. My best group of the day. Only one group, but, looks like I may be able to just visually cull for most of my shooting!
124916
And now the money shot. I saved five rounds of my severely deformed heat treat bullets and fired a group. They ran out between .014" and .030". I was expecting 5"-6" group. Unfortunately I only kept five rounds because the lead was so bad. Wish I had a few more to try and see if this was a fluke.:
124917

Strange but the worst boolits gave some of my best groups. When I went back and looked at my targets, there was a lot of lube spatter from the CR all the way to 100 yds. I checked the previous visits targets and there was spatter there but not as bad. By the time i fired the last two groups, it had warmed up some and my barrel was definitely not cold.

It seems that the CR is coming off unevenly all the way to the target and causing some serious fliers in the cooler weather. I have been using CR for about a year and have had no trouble like this, but the temps have been typical south Georgia, read "hot".

Think I'll try some with some BAC and see if that takes care of the fliers.

[rintinglen]

Others have reported the same phenomena. Gearnasher and his amigos, have extensively investigated the impact on lubes of cold weather. Personally, I have so seldom shot in temperatures below 50 Degrees I can be of little help. At least one home-brewed lube recipe I saw recommended adding a bit of Vaseline as a softener to the mix for cold weather use.

[dragon813gt]

Under 2 MOA at 100 yards, sounds like a winner to me :)

Thanks for the detailed update. I stopped culling deformed pistol bullets because I noticed no difference on target. Long nose rifle bullets are another matter. Seems those deformed bullets would be perfectly acceptable for hunting purposes on deer size game at that range. Not optimal, but still respectable.

[Stonecrusher]

I was surprised at the "flying bananas" myself. It could just be a fluke though. However, i don't intend to ruin some more just to test it. Once I get the load worked up, whenever that may be since I am just about completely out of 2400, I think I will just visually sort for general shooting purposes.

I haven't been able to tell how my .02" aluminum checks are working out due to the flyers. They seem to shoot the same as the Hornady checks. One funny thing I have noticed is that the velocity is the same in 7.62x54 but in the .30-06 the aluminum are consistently 30 fps faster.

I have just enough 2400 to shoot a few groups and perhaps with the lube change I will see it settle down.
Then it will be on to the IMR 4198 until I can get 2400 again.

[RED333]

Here is what I got from the "bent" boolits, ya just cant beat a cast boolit!