7.62x54r and 7.62x39 with bullseye Lee .312 160gr cast help?

[Kveldulv]

Hello everyone. Finally decided to make an account here after years of lurking about in the shadows learning all I could about cast boolits. I have come to a point where I must reach out for some advice.

over the years I have done nothing bust reload .45acp with bullseye powder so I have a massive supply accumulated. Venturing out into loading up some 7.62x54r and 7.62x39 rounds for hunting applications.

i have seen many posted of successfully stories about the use of bullseye powder in low loads for these calibers. All the data I have come across seems to indicate not to exceed 7gr with 7.62x54r and 5gr in 7.62x39.

I am trying to establish a viable load with the Lee cast .312 160gr micro band boolit tumble lubed in alox no gas check. The lead I am using are wheel weights clip-on style water dropped from the mold into a 10 gallon bucket of ice water. Dunno if the ice would help increase the BHN over 18 but figured worth a shot.

i am targeting 1800-2000fps and hoping I can do this with bullseye. Is this possible or are we talking to much chamber pressure? If viable, what would be a starting load and max load to consider?

my goal is to prevent from having to buy another powder being as I already have approximately 10lbs of bullseye stashed away.

[dromia]

You are asking far too much from such a fast pistol powder in a rifle cartridge and will not get those velocities safely with Bullseye.

I suggest that you read Ed Harris's article Cast Bullets for Military Rifles which is a sticky at the top of this forum.

Have you slugged your bores and know the diameter that the bullets drop from that particular Lee mould.

Why are you using such a hard alloy, softer alloys work much better at the velocities you are looking for.

The biggest factors in poor accuracy and lead fouling are poor bullet fit and too hard an alloy for the application.

[nekshot]

Welcome to the forum. I have a couple 7.62x39 rifles and for what its worth they love real heavy boolits with LVR powder. Larry Gibson has a thread on this showing weights and pressure. Length can be a issue but they do work real good in my sks and bolt rifle.

[Kveldulv]

You are asking far too much from such a fast pistol powder in a rifle cartridge and will not get those velocities safely with Bullseye.

I suggest that you read Ed Harris's article Cast Bullets for Military Rifles which is a sticky at the top of this forum.

Have you slugged your bores and know the diameter that the bullets drop from that particular Lee mould.

Why are you using such a hard alloy, softer alloys work much better at the velocities you are looking for.

The biggest factors in poor accuracy and lead fouling are poor bullet fit and too hard an alloy for the application.

Yes i have slugged both barrels. My mosin nagant has a .311 barrel and my vepr has a .310. The lee lead mold is dropping them anywhere from .313-.314 depending on the heat of the mold. I have a sizer to drop them back down to .312. I am using this alloy mix because it what i have stocked up on for use with my .45acp (close to 200lbs of it stock up so far). If i let them air dry they will be around a 11-12 BHN. I will look into that thread.

Also i have some 700x powder i use for shotshell reloading, perhaps that would work better than the bullseye? I am just trying to condense my powder down to what i already have, if at all possible stick to one powder for all my applications.

[Larry Gibson]

i am targeting 1800-2000fps and hoping I can do this with bullseye. Is this possible or are we talking to much chamber pressure?

Indeed you are talking too much psi. With Bullseye in either cartridge velocities with good accuracy are very possible to about 1200 fps.

Larry Gibson

[Outpost75]

Bullseye is fine for soft bullet, plainbased, gallery loads from about 900 to not much over 1300 fps. Work best with alloys not harder than 12 BHN, no quenching wanted. Air cooled COWW work fine, so does 50-50 plumber's lead and WW.

In the 7.62x39 with the 160-grain NOE bullet, a nice plinking and small game load is with 3-4 grains of Bullseye, don't exceed 5 grains. These are manual feeders. If you want to shoot semi auto and chase your brass try Allliant #2400 about 13.5-15 grs.

In the 7.62x54R I get best accuracy with 6-8 grains. Don't exceed 9 grains about 1400 fps, which leads unless you use a GC.
These same charges are a good working range for Bullseye loads in the .30-'06.

[Kveldulv]

Bullseye is fine for soft bullet, plainbased, gallery loads from about 900 to not much over 1300 fps. Work best with alloys not harder than 12 BHN, no quenching wanted. Air cooled COWW work fine, so does 50-50 plumber's lead and WW.

In the 7.62x39 with the 160-grain NOE bullet, a nice plinking and small game load is with 3-4 grains of Bullseye, don't exceed 5 grains. These are manual feeders. If you want to shoot semi auto and chase your brass try Allliant #2400 about 13.5-15 grs.

In the 7.62x54R I get best accuracy with 6-8 grains. Don't exceed 9 grains about 1400 fps, which leads unless you use a GC.
These same charges are a good working range for Bullseye loads in the .30-'06.

Thanks so much for the info. So basically I am just SOL just go with another powder and from th looks of it 2400 seems to be the key to allow for cycling of the action in FPs ranges of 1800-2000fps with the .312 160gr Lee micro band alox tumble lubed bullet without a gas check air cooled to 11-12bhn as I'm using COWW, am I correct? Or should I be using gas checks at those velocities?

if 2400 is the magic powder then I guess I need to start researching loads for 12ga 7/8oz 2 3/4" loads as well.

[Outpost75]

As a good approximation, you want gas-checks above about 1400 fps. That is not a hard & fast rule, but is safe to keep you out of trouble.

Alliant #2400 is a good .410 powder, but in 12-ga. 7/8 oz. loads you will be better off with Red Dot, 700-X or WST.
Those shotshell powders will work OK for light, plain-based cast bullet rifle loads too, using the previous Bullseye data as a guide and you won't get into any trouble.

[LAGS]

With that Boolit. I am getting very good results ( Accuracy ) in my MN with 24.0 gr of Reloader 7
The Bullseye and Unique loads in the same rifle was good, but I wanted more Velocity too.
I have not had a chance to Crony the RL 7 loads, but I know they are up around 1800 FPS

[Kveldulv]

As a good approximation, you want gas-checks above about 1400 fps. That is not a hard & fast rule, but is safe to keep you out of trouble.

Alliant #2400 is a good .410 powder, but in 12-ga. 7/8 oz. loads you will be better off with Red Dot, 700-X or WST.
Those shotshell powders will work OK for light, plain-based cast bullet rifle loads too, using the previous Bullseye data as a guide and you won't get into any trouble.

Thanks for the info. I am currently using 700x for my 12 ga loads. i was hoping to reduce the type of powder i have to buy but i guess thats just not going to happen. Oh well. I am not reloading a lot of 7.62x54r or x39 rounds. Only 200 on hand at any given time for plinking and hunting applications. Surplus is still so cheap most of my plinking ammo is with some old russian FMJ light ball i picked up for .14 a round. The hunting ammo is just stupid costly for that caliber hovering at 1.5-2.00 a shot. This was the reason to pick up on reloading, that and my father in law picked up the reloading dies for me last x-mas. I do have a bottle of IMR-4350 here but that seems to be to slow for such a light boolit, ok for 180gr+ but not so good on the 155-160 and below.

So Gaschecking it is, 2400 powder. Thanks everyone for all the help. Time to order some powder and start working up a good load for the MN, Vepr, SKS and AK rifles.

[Outpost75]

In the 7.62x54R with the C312-155-2R or equivalent bullets by Accurate, NOE or HM2, a charge of 16 grains of Alliant #2400 is accurate and well proven.

[dromia]

I suggest that you do some reading and study around the relative burning rates of smokeless powders and their application.

[GhostHawk]

I am having very good luck with 13 grains of Red Dot under a 155 gr cast or about half that in the 7.62xx39.
Those will not function a semi auto action, but I don't mind using my SKS as a straight pull bolt.

[mac1911]

If your looking to get some velocity. I use H4895 per instructions on hodgdons web site for reduced loads. I use straight wheel weights gas checked lee liquid alox.
I use a lee 160gn flat nose and a 200 grain 314299.

2400 gets you up to your velocities but my results have been basically the same for all my 30 call offerings. Accuracy seems best from 16-18 grains of 2400.

[andrew375]

I've been playing with GM3 in 7.62 x 54 with reasonable results. GM3 is an Italian shotgun powder with applications and load data similar to bullseye. I had considerable success with GM3 in the .375 H&H but only just got around to using it in the mosin.

With the Lee .312-185 I am up to 13 gr. for good accuracy but nowhere near the velocity I shoot them at with D060 or N140. I haven't chronographed them yet but going by the fact I have to put the rear sight up two more notches at 50 and 100 yards due to increased bullet drop I think they are doing around 1700- 1800 fps. I normally fire these bullets at around 2100 fps. I am happy enough to start upping the load a bit more and I'll put them over the chrono when I arrive at a maximum accurate load.

I've never been able to get anything that could be called acceptable accuracy with loads with powders like 2400, D060, N120, RL7 N140 at 1700 - 1800 fps with military rifles. They all seem to shoot best in the 2100 region, my K31 likes to shoot the Lee 150 gr. flat nose at just over 2200fps. My Enfield barreled 7.62 x 51 target rifle only really shoots the Lee 200 gr. well at over 2100 fps.

Another powder I am currently playing with is Lovex S040, which appears to be (based on its physical characteristics and loading data) a clone of 2400. In the mosin with the 185gr. Lee bullet I only start to get decent grouping at 25 gr. @ 2063 fps. Maximum accurate load is 27 gr.

[Gunnut 45/454]

Been using IMR4227 for my SKS load under the Lee 155 gr 17.5 gr gets me a little over 1850 fps an full function of the action, brass doesn't fly to far away.

[Motor]

I haven't read all of the replies but skimming through they look very accurate.

I use the exact boolits you are asking about and load them both sub-sonic and super sonic in 7.62x54R.

I use 12bhn alloy for sub-sonic without the gas check and 6gr of Bullseye.

For super sonic I use around 16bhn alloy with gas check. I worked up this load using Unique. I got best accuracy with 16gr Unique. The chronographed velocity is 1850f/s.

Recently I started loading for a 7.5x54Mas commercial sporterized M36. I intended from the beginning to hunt with this rifle. I worked the load up using Alliant 2400. Again, this is the same boolit just sized differently for the slightly smaller MAS.

I made a "trim die" so I could put a flat tip on the otherwise pointed Lee 160gr. I ended up setting the die to achieve a .180" diameter flat point.

My testing, although non scientific, revealed a vast difference in impact on water filled gallon jugs using the same load but flat tipped vs as dropped.

The as dropped boolits go through jugs pretty much like full metal jackets. The flat tipped boolits deliver a lot more force. Even at 100 yards the flat points still pop the jugs where the pointed just basically pass through.

Putting on the flat point only makes the boolits about 2.5gr lighter. My flat points weigh 168grs with gas check and powder coating.

Note: The 7.62x54R information I posted above was all done with Lee liquid A-Lox.

I have since converted all my cast boolit loads to powder coating.

Motor

[rsrocket1]

Try Reloader-7. It is the fastest of the "Reloader" series of powders from Alliant and has been a little more obtainable than other powders recently. For the 91/30 and 160g bullet, start with a 25g load and look for the best accuracy. I use RL-7 for 2000 and 2400 fps loads in my .308 with the Lee 170-f bullet and get very good accuracy. I plan to use a similar load for my Mosin Nagant, but so far I have only used 10g of Unique under a C312-185-1R so far. Great light load and fun plinker.

[GhostHawk]

To OP a couple of points to remember.

Anything over 6-700 fps can be lethal.
Pistols commonly run 800 to 1200 fps.

Black powder commonly runs 1100-1300 fps, was good enough to kill 2 thousand pound Bison.

Trying to run cast too fast is where many run into problems.

Last, IMR 4895 is my powder of choice for rifle loads that need more speed than fast shotgun and pistol powders can give.

Your mileage may vary. Check your local store, many have powder in stock again.

[kramynot2000]

My paper punching load for 100 yrds or less is the Lee 155 using wheel weights (or whatever else I could find) and quenched, sized to .311 with gas check, alox lubed, over 8 gr bullseye. I use this in both 7.62x54r and .303. The load was more accurate when my eyes were younger but still it is fun to take the range, like today. Rear sights have to be adjusted to shoot high and anything past 100 yards is more like shooting indirect fire (which is actually pretty fun). I started working up from around 6 grains but started seeing some leading, as was mentioned above, above 8 grains, so I stopped there and started gaschecking. Anything faster and I move up to another powder.