New bullet

[vrh]

Got my new LEE 30 cal bullet mold in the mail yesterday. It throws a .309 170 gr. F/N bullet.
Went to the garage this morning and casted up about 100 of them. Put Vulcan .0145" gas checks on them.
Now I'm waiting for my LEE .309 bullet and lube sizer to arrive in the mail.
I'll size them, powder coat, resize, then load them up with 14 grains of Unique powder.
Took one uncoated bullet and set up my seating and crimping die.
Really looking forward to shooting these when it warms up some more.158649

[s mac]

Off to a good start. Put your coat on and go shoot.

[mdi]

Why doncha try some nekkid, as cast? If the mold drops .309" bullets, give them a try...

[trixter]

I've been casting and shooting the C 309-155-RF in my 30-06 and my Rem bolt 300 Savage and having real good luck. I tumble lube them with Lee Alox and size them to 309 and gas check them. Still having fun with guns. Inexpensively.

[rsrocket1]

Congratulations on the new boolits. I have that mold along with a C309-113-F for low cost plinking and a C309-200-R for big hitters and subsonic but the 170 is the most versatile plus that flat point should make for a good hunting bullet.

My observations:
All 30 cal Lee bullets have the same geometry on the bottom of the bullet up to the first driving band. The nice thing about this is that if you can get a good match on the front band with the throat of the rifle, the bullet will have a head start at being centered in the bore. For me, that meant seating the bullet to a 0.300" seat depth. Because all the bullets were identical on the bottom, all 3 bullet types get seated to that depth. That seating depth leaves the first lube groove exposed, but that's OK with me because I don't keep loose bullets rattling around in my pocket.

I bought 2k of the Vulcan aluminum checks and they work very well (at least as good as the Hornady copper crimp checks), but that is with conventional lubed bullets. I use 2:1 beeswax:Vaseline in the lube grooves, then size/check the bullets and have gotten zero leading from 1000 to 2400 fps (1000 fps bullets were lubed but bare base). I powder coated a batch of rifle boolits recently and have had a tough time getting either the Vulcan or Hornady checks on over the powder coat. I had a bit more success with the Hornady checks because they are thicker and I could push harder on the bullet to get the check started by hand. I had a couple of the Vulcan checks collapse on me while trying to get them started onto the fatter PC bullet base. YMMV

You can check my other posts on the C309-170-F. I've found great loads with Reloader 7 at 2000 and 2375 fps in my 788 .308 rifle.

Good luck

[Petro58]

Just Curious why are you sizing Twice? I powder coat, then size, load, and shoot. Not dissing on your procedure, just curious am I missing something.

[rsrocket1]

No need to size twice. Just size them after powder coating. I've sized 9mm PC boolits that were 7 mils over (.363 -> .356) and they glide through the sizer.