Smooth molds vs lube grooves

[aaholland]

If i am powder coating which is better?

If i already have a mold from noe can it be machined to remove the lube grooves? I am talking about a 300 blackout 230 grain boolit.

[Yodogsandman]

Better to sell off the mold and buy one that has no lube grooves. I might try it if it was a Lee mold and I felt lucky.

With a smooth sided boolit, where do you think the displaced lead from engraving the rifling will go? With a smooth sided boolit, it has to go all the way to the rear, ruining any efforts to have a square, flat base.

[AbitNutz]

That sounds logical but what about a jacketed bullet? Am I wrong headed in thinking that the same problem would result?

[Dragonheart]

Better to sell off the mold and buy one that has no lube grooves. I might try it if it was a Lee mold and I felt lucky.

With a smooth sided boolit, where do you think the displaced lead from engraving the rifling will go? With a smooth sided boolit, it has to go all the way to the rear, ruining any efforts to have a square, flat base.

I ditto that. The NOE molds, if in good condition hold their value and sell quickly. Too much cost to have it done professionally and too good of a mold to ruin unless you have the equipment and know how to do it, which most don't.

[aaholland]

I ditto that. The NOE molds, if in good condition hold their value and sell quickly. Too much cost to have it done professionally and too good of a mold to ruin unless you have the equipment and know how to do it, which most don't.

So is there any noticeable difference in having a smooth bullet?

[Dragonheart]

At the present I only have one and it's a 30 caliber NOE. I am working on the accuracy, but I do think the non-groove bullets are the way to go using powder coating. Unfortunately, there are few non-groove design choices at the present and until there are more and direct comparisons between the two the the jury is still out, so everything is just an opinion.

[yondering]

With a smooth sided boolit, where do you think the displaced lead from engraving the rifling will go? With a smooth sided boolit, it has to go all the way to the rear, ruining any efforts to have a square, flat base.

Gotta love it when people who don't know anything about the subject think their opinion is valid anyway.

aaholland, smooth sided bullets work great for powder coating. You get more rifling engagement, and the bullets cast easier with less rejects, in my experience.
You can certainly have someone competent bore or ream out the existing lube grooves, if it's worth the cost to you. This is especially helpful on Lee tumble lube designs, to improve their relatively low grip on the rifling, and the Lee 230gr 300blk bullet in particular. Do make sure the person doing the work knows what they're doing though, especially with a long bullet like your NOE; it's easy to ream or bore it off center if the job is rushed.

[Yodogsandman]

Gotta love it when people who don't know anything about the subject think their opinion is valid anyway.

aaholland, smooth sided bullets work great for powder coating. You get more rifling engagement, and the bullets cast easier with less rejects, in my experience.
You can certainly have someone competent bore or ream out the existing lube grooves, if it's worth the cost to you. This is especially helpful on Lee tumble lube designs, to improve their relatively low grip on the rifling, and the Lee 230gr 300blk bullet in particular. Do make sure the person doing the work knows what they're doing though, especially with a long bullet like your NOE; it's easy to ream or bore it off center if the job is rushed.

Yeah, they will cast better but, just removing the lube grooves from the mold will also change the center of gravity of the boolit. Maybe you can enlighten us on how to keep the boolit from hitting the target sideways. What kind of accuracy can the OP expect and at what velocities will he be able to keep them on the paper at say 100 yards? Please explain your experienced opinion, school me.

[CHRONICcartman]

I'm looking for 9mm, 223 spitzer , and 30 cal spitzer smooth sided molds. Where can I find these?

Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk

[yondering]

Yeah, they will cast better but, just removing the lube grooves from the mold will also change the center of gravity of the boolit. Maybe you can enlighten us on how to keep the boolit from hitting the target sideways. What kind of accuracy can the OP expect and at what velocities will he be able to keep them on the paper at say 100 yards? Please explain your experienced opinion, school me.

The difference between us is what I said is not opinion, it's fact, based on experience. All of your supposed concerns are made-up issues that don't exist.

Accuracy with smooth sided bullets is excellent, and I'm far from the first to know this. If you'd ever actually tried it, instead of making up imaginary problems, you'd know it too. BTW have you ever looked at a jacketed bullet? Where are the lube grooves that are so important for stability and a place for the material to go that's displaced by rifling? LOL

[runfiverun]

that's exactly why they started putting them groove thingies on the Barnes solid copper bullets.
the displaced copper had no place to go.

not figuring displaced lead into designing a mold is not going to give you the desired results you desire.

the powder coat is slightly different in that it is a jacket but does that jacket take all the rifling or is it cut into the lead underneath?
if it takes it all where does it push the displaced jacket?
well my money is that at a minimum the boolit gets longer, and more than likely the excess is pushed to the rear.
not having a nice square base is NOT an accuracy enhancer.
[and yes a boat tailed design has a square base, look at it from the back]
think about it square face and square corners are not exactly the same thing, but how well does a bullet with a file nick in the base shoot compared with the others that don't?

[M-Tecs]

The paper patch BPCR shooter are doing very well with smooth sided bullets out to a 1,000.

The first Barnes X bullet didn't have grooves. Without the grooves pressures were greater and cooper fouling was an issue so they tried Dazac coating than they went to the grooves.

[reddog81]

If you're shooting powder coated bullets one of he benefits is that you can use smooth sided bullets OR lube groove bullets. I have no idea which works better on average or which works better in your guns.

If if all you own is molds that have lube grooves I wouldn't worry about it and I would use those. Some mold makers have started to make PC molds but that does not mean they are necessary.

[Harter66]

Heavy Metal made some slicks . Accurate lists several also .

The 1 paper patch specific bullet mould for smokeless that I had was grooved also . At .301 or .303 it wouldn't be a coated choice anyway .

I'm glad to see so many folks here that have shot every possible combination of components in lab conditions with all of the pressure gear and million frame per second flight tracking cameras . Thank-you for the super valuable discourse .

[yondering]

that's exactly why they started putting them groove thingies on the Barnes solid copper bullets.
the displaced copper had no place to go.

not figuring displaced lead into designing a mold is not going to give you the desired results you desire.

the powder coat is slightly different in that it is a jacket but does that jacket take all the rifling or is it cut into the lead underneath?
if it takes it all where does it push the displaced jacket?
well my money is that at a minimum the boolit gets longer, and more than likely the excess is pushed to the rear.
not having a nice square base is NOT an accuracy enhancer.
[and yes a boat tailed design has a square base, look at it from the back]
think about it square face and square corners are not exactly the same thing, but how well does a bullet with a file nick in the base shoot compared with the others that don't?

Sorry, but that's just more theory without experience. I know you've been around here a long time, but it doesn't sound like you're speaking from experience on this subject. What about all the other jacketed bullets that do not have lube grooves? What about all the coated lead bullets sold over the past 20 years or so without lube grooves? FYI they work great.

Worrying about where the lead goes is meaningless. Yeah, a bullet can get longer if you squeeze it down. Lubed bullets do the same thing. So what? The proof is in how they shoot, not in whatever imaginary problems people think up.

I use a bunch of smooth sided bullets, but here are just a few. All of these shoot very well. The subsonic rifle bullet started out smooth from the get go, but these two pistol bullet molds both cast and shoot better after being modified with smooth sides.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_2765.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/photo1.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3755.jpg

[yondering]

Here's another where you can see the rifling marks and base of one of the smooth sided bullets. The bases don't look any different than the base of lubed bullets after firing.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3710.jpg


Oops, there's a jacketed bullet in there. I wonder where the lead went in that one when the rifling engraved it? Somebody shoulda thought of that!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3714.jpg

[Friar_Tuck]

For me, one of my favorite points of a smooth sided mold is the fact that they fall out of the mold so much easier!
Jim

[Harter66]

So what kind of groups do you get with those ?
How fast ?
Full bore or stereo typical cast loads ?
What powders ?
Have you shot them side by side with gas checked and lubed naked bullets or jacketed if you are after HV?

Personally I only discovered about a yr ago that gas checks make this game much easier to play . Personally with board witnesses I've shot jacketed speeds some cases exceeded jacketed speeds and matched accuracy with naked grease groove bullets plain based . I've bettered jacketed accuracy with loads of almost jacketed speeds in ARs since "discovering" the gas check . I read through the whole ,at that time, 3600 posts to the HyTek thread and honestly saw no good reason for me to personally spend the money as it would be sort of a back track for me .

The large blue fellow there seems to have lumps on the base that match up to the rifling lines as do several others .
I've seen many demonstrations of poorly formed and damaged bases causing poor accuracy . Perhaps you don't encounter this because your loads are in fact in deceleration at muzzle exit .

[runfiverun]

the proof is in how they shoot.
it's also in how well they shoot on paper and how well they shoot at velocity.
you can get away with an awful lot at 1700 fps, heck you don't even need real good fitment at that velocity.

but yeah the lead goes somewhere when you press it in a hole.
some of the jacketed stuff gets around that by making them smaller than the barrels groove diameter.
you know like 429 in a 430 and a 355 in a 358 or 357 in a 358 type stuff.

[blikseme300]

I did not see any pictures of targets with range or load information. Must be something wrong with my computer...

[Oyeboten]

Has anyone observed any need to size the Bullet/Boolit a little smaller than usual when it has no lube grooves?

Or, do things seem to work out just the same performance ( or accuracy anyway ) wise, as if it had lube grooves, with no special sizing consideration?

[yondering]

Has anyone observed any need to size the Bullet/Boolit a little smaller than usual when it has no lube grooves?

Or, do things seem to work out just the same performance ( or accuracy anyway ) wise, as if it had lube grooves, with no special sizing consideration?

Not me. I size them the same way regardless.

[yondering]

Harter66, none of the smooth sided bullets I posted pictures of are gas checked bullets, so no I haven't tried them that way. What does that have to do with anything?

The big blue bullet is a subsonic .35 cal hollow point; it's not made for high velocity. It is for exactly the same application as the OP asked about though.

The other two are 9mm bullets. I push the small one a bit over 1500 fps as it's shown with powder coating, from stock and aftermarket Glock barrels. The other one is a Mihec 125gr that drops at 135 now, also not a high velocity bullet but capable of 1200+ fps in 9mm.


I did not see any pictures of targets with range or load information. Must be something wrong with my computer...

Go find out for yourself. I'm about done trying to help inform the clueless naysayers and blowhards. If you think it doesn't work, you won't really know till you try it.

[M-Tecs]

Here's another where you can see the rifling marks and base of one of the smooth sided bullets. The bases don't look any different than the base of lubed bullets after firing.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3710.jpg


Oops, there's a jacketed bullet in there. I wonder where the lead went in that one when the rifling engraved it? Somebody shoulda thought of that!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3714.jpg

What type of bullet trap and test media are you using? Some nice mushrooming on some. Thanks for the interesting pics and posts.

[yondering]

M-Tecs, some of those were fired into water jugs or wet paper, most just into large cedar or alder rounds that I use to catch the lead. Most of that shooting was done for target practice, not bullet testing, but when the wood gets chewed up from lots of shooting, and damp from being out side (rainy WA state), some of the hollow points still expand pretty well. That doesn't happen in clean wood of course.

Here's one more for the guys who think they know all about the "problems" with smooth sided bullets. Tell me which of these bullets have lube grooves and which don't. Since you have it figured out how they won't work, you should be able to tell by the bases, right? It's a pretty fair picture too, no tricks, and some of them are even the same bullet mold, before and after having lube grooves removed.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3826.jpg

[AbitNutz]

I believe! I believe so much so that I ordered a very expensive mold to be a smooth, grooveless design...funny thing is, when I ordered the mold, the guy on the phone repeated the myth. This was from the mold maker...clearly, he didn't shoot what he sold.

[Harter66]

I went and recovered this picture.

176675

This is a naked , aluminum gas checked , 230 gr FP 35-230 over a nearly full case of I 4350 . This is a 100 yd group , the odd bullet out was likely the bullet that had the check applied nose first as there was only 1 the rest were applied base first in the Lee push through . These deliver 2100 fps with witnesses . Being 5 ,35 cal holes from a 358 Win, I guess you can figure out or scale the group . I should also mention that the rifle was a brand new build on an unfired 98 type action and a post style El Paso Weaver K4 .

That wasn't all that hard .

[runfiverun]

Yondering this isn't an argument bud.
we are all interested in this stuff.
some of us don't powder coat and we don't because we can push naked lead up into jacketed bullet territory pretty easily without it.

if we can do the same thing with a slick sided powder coated plain base or gas checked boolit we would be all over it like flies on well whatever flies jump all over.

we are not arguing any point we are trying to figure out how this does or doesn't work before we change what we all know how to do.
when I designed molds for HM-2 I took into account metal displacement and figured that amount of movement into the draft angles on the drive bands.
it was also taken into consideration on how deep to make the lube grooves and whether to allow the lands to cut into the main body of them or not.

quite often I design a mold so that it is only sized down .001 or less in the size die and then it becomes a slip-fit into the rifles barrel not a .002-3 over sized lump of lead jammed in to the throat which is then promptly pounded into a tube shape when the trigger is pulled.
there is a lot more finesse to mold design than one might think [unless your spitting out 20-k molds a day] then close enough is good enough.

[popper]

Post #25 says it all. Also check out Bama's 350 yd test. Slick sided aren't mandatory by any means but are an improvement - PC or not (TL). My 9 mould has shallow grooves, 40SW is a normal L.G. but my rifle moulds have small shallow collector groove/grooves (no, not TL grooves). Makes a stronger boolit, more drive area. I have identical moulds for 308W that I push well into jacketed fps, one has the small groove. Not sure I can tell the difference, PCd, but shooting an AR. Most HV jacketed are BT so don't cause base failure.

[Yodogsandman]

I'm very impressed by Bama's 350 yard test! It's just that his home made special tooling isn't available to me. I'd love to be able to duplicate his results. But, he's just one PC shooter that's shown the accuracy potential. The real proof will be when others can do it too.

[Dragonheart]

I was going to stay out of this, but the picture is a group I fired (a clip) few days ago with a NOE non groove plain base powder coated 30 caliber 150 grain bullet at 100 yards out of my M-1 Garand. This was my first test of the load/bullet and I am pretty sure I can do a better. I am not touting accuracy, but the fact is this was 49 grains of 4895, considered to be a full power load exceeding 2800 fps and it was shot with Range Lead, meaning soft lead.

According to the alloy pressure tables if you shot the the same alloy bullet that was only lubed you would be cleaning lead out of your barrel, not to mention what it would do to the gas port. My barrel was left clean no lead whatsoever. I don't care what kind of lube you use, that soft alloy would have leaded the barrel at that velocity. I even fired some 22-250 range lead coated bullets in excess of 3500 fps just to see, and no leading in that barrel either.

I am 68 years old and I cast my first bullet 50 years ago. I have several NRA Master Rifle Certification Cards, however I am no longer a Master shooter and know it. But I have put a lot of rounds downrange in my lifetime, so I have been there. I used to lube like most of those that now powder coat, but I saw the limitations of lubing 50 years ago and today nothing has changed, the bullets are still lubricated with a mixture of grease and wax. Powder Coating is allowing those that are willing to put forth the time and effort to make a jacketed bullet at home with low cost and few tools. It is a polymer jacket, but still provides the benefits of a jacket. I personally think the non groove bullet is the way to go for accuracy at full power, but the advantage or not is yet unproven, but since a number are now interested we will soon get some comparisons. The simple fact is those that are happy continuing to lube should stay there, but those that want more realize powder coating is the future for casting.

176693

[runfiverun]

drop the grease, change the wax, and stearate the whole thing together into a bound matrix.
your old school lube is severely lacking in real world technology.

[yondering]

I'm not sure why some of you are trying to turn this into a powder coating vs wax lube discussion (runfiverun and harter66). You're derailing the original topic of the thread with things that have nothing to do with it. I don't care what you can do with regular lube; I've done that too before I started powder coating, same for high velocity rifle loads. The OP asked about a bullet that is designed for subsonic rifle loads, and whether it would work well with smooth sides.

runfiverun, it sure seems like an argument, when you and a couple others are pushing your theories on why smooth sides don't work, in the face of experience saying they do. Personally I'm not the least bit impressed with attitudes like that, and consider it foolish at best. Theory is only useful until it's proved right or wrong by experience; clinging to a flawed theory beyond that point is illogical.

[Harter66]

So accurately how fast can your 35 cal be pushed ? Will it obtain, the necessary for me , 1 k ft-lb @ 100yd . I would certainly be game to try it . I have a specific benchmark for every effort whether it be finding a load to share between a rifle and pistol or a 500yd steel ringer or a perfect hunting load .

Actually I did offer sources for moulds which was the original question .

[yondering]

So accurately how fast can your 35 cal be pushed ? Will it obtain, the necessary for me , 1 k ft-lb @ 100yd . I would certainly be game to try it . I have a specific benchmark for every effort whether it be finding a load to share between a rifle and pistol or a 500yd steel ringer or a perfect hunting load .

Actually I did offer sources for moulds which was the original question .

Go back and read what I already said about that bullet. If you think you need to push a large hollow point fast, and need 1,000 ft-lb at 100 yards (big eye roll there), you don't understand hollow point design. It doesn't matter how fast it can be pushed, because that's not what it was designed for. If I was going to push it to full rifle speeds, it would have a gas check and a smaller nose with no hollow point. Once again, that has nothing to do with the original question, or the discussion.

[Harter66]

Yonder I unfortunately suffer from a conscience and a legal requirement to meet the 1000 ft lb @ 100yd for all big game from the lowly 90# pronghorn to the mighty bull elk .
I do understand how ..... Well at least the mechanics of bullet expansion ,energy transfer , hydrostatic shock , tissue disruption , 1 hole jelly the organs , 2 holes for maximum leakage , red mist ,eat right up to the bullet hole ,shot it at the base of the skull had blood jelly in the shoulders etc .

[Forrest r]

M-Tecs, some of those were fired into water jugs or wet paper, most just into large cedar or alder rounds that I use to catch the lead. Most of that shooting was done for target practice, not bullet testing, but when the wood gets chewed up from lots of shooting, and damp from being out side (rainy WA state), some of the hollow points still expand pretty well. That doesn't happen in clean wood of course.

Here's one more for the guys who think they know all about the "problems" with smooth sided bullets. Tell me which of these bullets have lube grooves and which don't. Since you have it figured out how they won't work, you should be able to tell by the bases, right? It's a pretty fair picture too, no tricks, and some of them are even the same bullet mold, before and after having lube grooves removed.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3826.jpg

Ok I'll play.
I'd have to say the 2 green bullets (bottom left) have the lube grooves in them.

In the limited testing I've done with traditional cast lubed bullets vs coated bullets. The only real advantage I've seen is:
When I comes time to clean the firearm.
There's no lead buildup in muzzle breaks/cans/gas ports.
It's easier to find accurate loads in pistols with coated bullets than the traditional cast/coat/lubed bullets.

A real eye opener:
I have a beater (truck gun) 629 that I was looking for a plinking/range fodder load that would do mogb (minute of golf ball/1 1/2" groups) @25yds. While not the most accurate by anyone's standard, it's what I wanted. Soooo I tried 6 different bullets and 7 different powder combo's doing ladder tests and ended up with 3 loads that would do mogb with traditional cast/lubed bullets.
When I started coating bullets I decided to go back and redo the same tests, this time I loaded up traditional bullets and their coated counterparts. I took the 6 bullets/7powder test combo's to the range and did head to head testing. The end results???

I ended up with the same 3 loads that I already had for the traditional cast lubed bullets.
The real surprising was the coated bullets, ended up with 13 loads that would do mogb.
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/629accuracytargets_zps87d7149e.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/629accuracytargets_zps87d7149e.jpg.html)

As far as smooth vs lube grooved, I haven't found any difference in my limited testing. But then again I only have 1 smooth mold and it does spit bullets out ( a lee 6-cavity 124gr tl with the tl's removed). I've also been testing smooth rifle bullets but they are swaged. And there's a difference between swaged and cast bullets. The lee tl bullets with the tl ribs removed (right) and 80gr swaged 223's (bottom left) & 150gr 308's (top left).
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/swagedrifleleetc9mm_zpsrzbwk9iw.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/swagedrifleleetc9mm_zpsrzbwk9iw.jpg.html)

There's been 100's of years testing lead/cast/lubed bullets. Coated bullets not so much. This website and the people on it are the "cutting edge" of home coated cast bullets. I'm sure any and all mysteries will be tested and answered in time.

Myself I this winter I plan testing the 223's and 308's with the lead/swaged/coated bullets. I believe the answer is in the base of those bullets. Planned on testing plain based/gc'd based & hollow based lead/coated bullets.

Anyway, thank you for the picture Yondering. I do like what you're doing with the cast & then swaged bullets. Planned on doing a little of the same testings seeing how I have swaging dies for the 9mm/38spl & 357/44spl & mag/45acp/223's & 30 cal's. Planned on making hb pins for those dies also so I can do head to head testing with not only cast vs swaged. But with cast hb bullets (15 hb molds for the 4 calibers/swc hb's & fn hb's & wbwc's for the pistols).

[Yodogsandman]

"There's been 100's of years testing lead/cast/lubed bullets. Coated bullets not so much. This website and the people on it are the "cutting edge" of home coated cast bullets. I'm sure any and all mysteries will be tested and answered in time." Forest r

Thank you for being that "cutting edge". Can't wait to hear about your testing with smooth rifle boolits, hopefully at rifle type velocities.

[Lead Fred]

I'm looking for 9mm, 223 spitzer , and 30 cal spitzer smooth sided molds. Where can I find these?


You get them the old fashion way
You have them made
<--------

Id not waste my time with subsonic 230s, they dont go fast enough now far enough to worry about aerodynamics. I am using the standard Lee 230gr made for 300B), with my standard lube in the grooves. Still working at 100 yards, Ill let you know when I get to 200 yards. Which is all the further they might go.

[runfiverun]

okay i'll answer the original question about sub sonic then.
it don't matter.
use no lube tumble lube or waste your time coating them.
it just doesn't matter.
hell you don't even need good fitment or a decently strong design to do that.

[yondering]

okay i'll answer the original question about sub sonic then.
it don't matter.
use no lube tumble lube or waste your time coating them.
it just doesn't matter.
hell you don't even need good fitment or a decently strong design to do that.

It does matter. I get the feeling you don't have much experience in that arena either, or you'd know the difference. There are definitely some subsonic rifle designs that shoot poorly, and others that shoot well. One in particular is the Lee TL230-5R 300 Blk bullet; a lot of people find this one shoots poorly as it comes from Lee and tumble lubed, but a whole lot better coated. It shoots even better yet when the TL grooves are bored out to smooth sides.

I'm not sure why so many people here who don't have experience on something think they're qualified to talk about it anyway.

runfiverun and Yodogsman, my challenge to identify the lube groove vs smooth bullets above was directly aimed at you, since you both claim it affects the bullet bases. If you still think you actually know something about it, step up.

[yondering]

Ok I'll play.
I'd have to say the 2 green bullets (bottom left) have the lube grooves in them.

Anyway, thank you for the picture Yondering. I do like what you're doing with the cast & then swaged bullets.

Thanks for at least taking a guess, unlike these other guys who say they know but aren't up to the challenge. You are correct about those two green bullets, but keep going.

Thanks for the compliment, but I don't do any swaged bullets, not sure where that came from. All of mine are cast; I've never been impressed with results of swaged bullets in my uses, because of the softer lead.

[Forrest r]

Thanks for at least taking a guess, unlike these other guys who say they know but aren't up to the challenge. You are correct about those two green bullets, but keep going.

Thanks for the compliment, but I don't do any swaged bullets, not sure where that came from. All of mine are cast; I've never been impressed with results of swaged bullets in my uses, because of the softer lead.

I apologize, for some reason I got the impression you were altering molds and swaging others.

Yes the use of softer lead is a problem. Annealing the different alloy's being tested helps but I have cracked a couple nose forming pins while trying to figure it out. And I'm sure there will be more in the future. And yes, the interest lies in rifle bullets. Been testing pistol bullets for the last couple of years and had excellent results. Finishing up on some specialty pistol sd loads for the pistols then I will start working with the rifle bullets. Should prove interesting if nothing else.

Keep up the good work & keep posting.

[popper]

176890176891Actual comparison, same boolit but right is smooth sided, same load, same PC. Left is ~ 50, 2400 fps - carbine; right is 100, 2700 fps -rifle- from 308W ARs. I could post targets comparing PB coated and uncoated (better) base. Boolit design will make a difference, thin base band that is meant to be incompressable lube will be weaker on the base. Top boolit is #25 shows the base distortion from rifling which can affect accuracy. TO REPEAT, USE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU.

[Dragonheart]

Popper good post.

You mentioned an uncoated base performed better? Any thought on why, as I would think the coating would make the bases more uniform.

[aaholland]

Going with 125 (9mm) hollow point, Flat base , 4 cav. Brass - MP Molds with smooth sides.

[popper]

You want good flat bases and sharp edges on the PB, PC doesn't allow that even stood on bases cooked. I'm even wiping the powder off the GC now, same problem. Same for HiTek but it doesn't make a difference except for rifle.

[RogerDat]

I think it was Forest R that posted about swaged and cast with pictures of green boolits as examples. Tumble lube, wax/grease, PC or HiTek coatings seem like they all work well for at least some applications because folks have had decent success and accuracy using all of them, in some cases over many years. Seems like with much of this hobby the answer is "give it a try". Sort of reminds me of that bad joke about having an Optometrist as a lover - whole time they keep asking "better like this, or better like this?".

I think some of us are in competitive shooting sports and might really want that last few percent of improvement, others are just punching paper for fun and to challenge themselves. One might say they have different versions of "better" but neither group get much out of posts that dismiss the views, opinions, or suggestions of others by attacks on credibility. I'm in no rush to purchase a smooth mold, have other items that are way ahead of that on any priority list, I do however want to hear what people think, and what their testing reveals. Lot of good information but would be easier to read and consider if there was less of the post content that is criticism of the individuals with other points of view. Me get off soap box now.

I have used a NOE base chamfer tool to clean up some of my PC boolits and for rifle they have GC first and get chamfered, you can see little band of copper around base when I am done. I do it for PB ones too, just so the bottom edge is "clean"

Looking forward to hearing how aaholland does with that mold. I think the coating with hollow point yields some good results in a general sense. Not sure about 9mm or that mold but in general.

[yondering]

You want good flat bases and sharp edges on the PB, PC doesn't allow that even stood on bases cooked. I'm even wiping the powder off the GC now, same problem. Same for HiTek but it doesn't make a difference except for rifle.

Nice work above popper.

Are you spraying powder, or tumbling? Issues with flash at the bases from spraying?

I will say that for my rifle bullets, I apply gas checks after coating for this reason. Depending on the mold, sometimes the gas checks need to be flared but otherwise it's the same as applying them to lubed bullets.

Also, as you mentioned, empty lube grooves are weak, and sometimes bullets collapse under high pressure; removing the lube grooves solves that issue (or fill them with lube). One rifle bullet in particular that's done this to me is the Saeco #352; when cast from acww for hunting and coated (empty grooves), it tends to collapse at high pressure. Filling the grooves with lube fixes it, but removing the lube grooves also fixes it. In my last picture above (pic of the bullet bases) the green bullet on the right (180gr 10mm) is another one where the lube grooves collapsed because the pressure was too high for that alloy with empty grooves. You can see the distortion of the base.

[yondering]

I think some of us are in competitive shooting sports and might really want that last few percent of improvement, others are just punching paper for fun and to challenge themselves. One might say they have different versions of "better" but neither group get much out of posts that dismiss the views, opinions, or suggestions of others by attacks on credibility. I'm in no rush to purchase a smooth mold, have other items that are way ahead of that on any priority list, I do however want to hear what people think, and what their testing reveals. Lot of good information but would be easier to read and consider if there was less of the post content that is criticism of the individuals with other points of view. Me get off soap box now.


Good point, but tell me this - do you think people who repeatedly express opinion as fact without experience have good credibility? I don't, and think this forum would be a lot better off if those people were called out for that more often. Expressing an informed theory is one thing, but claiming it as fact and clinging to it when facts show otherwise is something else. I'm not intentionally out to offend anyone, but I also think sorting out the truth is more important.

[yondering]

I apologize, for some reason I got the impression you were altering molds and swaging others.

Yes the use of softer lead is a problem. Annealing the different alloy's being tested helps but I have cracked a couple nose forming pins while trying to figure it out. And I'm sure there will be more in the future. And yes, the interest lies in rifle bullets. Been testing pistol bullets for the last couple of years and had excellent results. Finishing up on some specialty pistol sd loads for the pistols then I will start working with the rifle bullets. Should prove interesting if nothing else.

Keep up the good work & keep posting.

No apology needed. I don't know much about swaging other than the basics but am interested to see what you come up with.

[Yodogsandman]

A side view on a white background (instead of grey) and less glare would help a lot with your photo to show the displaced metal from the rifling. With what you have there, I choose that the center grey one and lower right green one have lube grooves. On others you can kind of see that there is more displaced metal on one side or the other, those are the smooth sided ones and show the instability. Some with more mushrooming on one side too, make me suspect that they were tipped a little on impact, even at these low velocities.

The difference in displaced metal on the bases shows up much better on the boolits in the bucket.

Show and tell time!

[yondering]

OK, here they are. All except one of the blue ones had lube grooves; I included all of them to show that you can't tell any significant difference in the bases between smooth and lube groove bullets. These weren't carefully picked to prove my point either, just showing what I had on hand (the full buckets in my earlier pics got melted down a few weeks ago). The lack of lube grooves does not affect distortion of the bullet base, and I've never seen it give a negative impact on accuracy.

The only bullets out of these that didn't perform right had lube grooves; both were high pressure 10mm, and the lube grooves collapsed. The bare bullet has an aluminum plain base gas check and was lubed in a lubrisizer, not tumble lubed, so the groove was full of wax lube at the start. It's an unusual design, so I placed another fresh (blue coated) bullet next to it for the picture. The green one was coated, with empty lube grooves. That bullet does better with no grooves.

The blue and red bullets in this pic are all from the same mold - a Mihec .357-125 HP, before and after removing the lube grooves. The red one was a softer alloy, 50/50 ww and pure lead, the other bullets in these pics are all coww alloy.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3840.jpg

Here are some more smooth sided bullets, the same 255gr .358 hollow point shown earlier. No more distortion of the base than any lube groove bullets.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3837.jpg

[aaholland]

Ok so any suggestions for no lube grove subsonice 300 blackout mold?

[yondering]

I've been boring the grooves out of my own, but if you're looking to buy one all ready to go, look at Accurate Mold's catalog, I believe they have a couple heavy .30 cal designs specifically for coating, with no lube grooves. I think you'll start seeing more and more options for these over the next few years as well.

The NOE 240gr flat nose bullet seems to be a good design for the Blackout, it might be worth a call to Al to ask if he can make it without lube grooves.

[Fishman]

This thread is a good example of why i don't post in the coated section on this site. I am so tired of the "cutting edge and i know stuff you can't possibly know since I've been doing this a couple years" attitudes. I am constantly learning new stuff and I've been doing this a while. I realize how little i know. Why can't people just be helpful and not combative? If you can't be a team player at least try and be polite. People can make up their own mind as to who is speaking from experience, we sure don't need told like we are a kindergartener.

[aaholland]

This thread is a good example of why i don't post in the coated section on this site. I am so tired of the "cutting edge and i know stuff you can't possibly know since I've been doing this a couple years" attitudes. I am constantly learning new stuff and I've been doing this a while. I realize how little i know. Why can't people just be helpful and not combative? If you can't be a team player at least try and be polite. People can make up their own mind as to who is speaking from experience, we sure don't need told like we are a kindergartener.

Im going with a smooth side bullet. Going to get my NOE mould reamed out to remove gas check and lube groves.

[AbitNutz]

I'm coming late to the party. Perhaps I'm dense...I've been called worse...I don't understand why you would want grease grooves on a bullet that doesn't have grease. I mean jacketed bullets don't have grease grooves...

If you never heard of grease grooved bullets and you had to design a bullet to be Hi-Tek coated, would you come up with a design that had grease grooves in it or would it be smooth?

Again, perhaps I'm missing something...

[Dragonheart]

AbitNutz, I think you nailed our problem. Hi Tech type coatings has broken the mold, pardon the pun, so we are into new ground. All the manufactures are in their niche as they have been for years and are not quick to change as long as the profits keep coming in. For handgun bullets what is out there works okay due to the low velocity and short distances, but some of us are attempting to push the envelope and and move this technology into rifle bullets that can be fired accurately at distance with full power loads. So far there are very limited mold choices unless you go custom and all the tooling is custom made or we are retrofitting tools intended for another purpose.

If you look at Bama's Post "Accurate PC 350yds" it pretty will proves my point. He made powder coated bullets using retrofit tools to make a bullet with lot of bore contact. Hats off to Bama for proving it can be done. If we had the molds and the tooling to make concentric bullets we could rival commercial bullets and everybody could be doing this.

[Yodogsandman]

Bama used boolits with LUBE GROOVES to prove his PC accuracy. Bamas' targets show his understanding of known cast boolit theory along with his PC craftsmanship, tooling and techniques. Bama shot his boolits at 2200 FPS. Bama is a great shot, too! Bamas' thread explained how and why he shot his boolits so well at an extended 350 yard distance. Yes, hats off to him!

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?315642-Accurate-PC-350-Yds-part-1

Haven't seen the targets of any of the smooth sided crowd, unless it's at the low end of velocity like at a pistol's velocity. Why tout rifle accuracy if you shoot at pistol velocities? Or why not state whether shooting at rifle ranges, like 100 yards or pistol ranges like 10 yards? These aren't new questions for this thread but, have just been ignored and thought forgotten by that crowd, I guess.

I like pretty colored boolits as much as anyone else! I like accurate and fast rifle boolits the best, though. I'll try to follow Bamas' lead on this for now, looks like he's actually doing it with PC.

[yondering]

You realize this thread was started asking about subsonic rifle bullets, right? Basically long pistol bullets at pistol velocity; it has nothing to do with 2000+ fps rifle loads.

I don't feel the need to post targets to prove anything to you; you can find out for yourself if you actually want to learn something, instead of just debating your theories. I've said these bullets shoot well, and posted enough pictures already in this thread to answer your assertion about the rifling; posting more pics isn't going to change your mind. Best of luck to you.

[popper]

ESPC - coating the nice GC doesn't help as the PC doesn't flow to make the base flat. The sides of the GC are coated, if you go with the scraper theory of GC (which I've seen no evidence), sides shouldn't be coated. I asked Ausglock when I first saw the grooveless, why? Increase weight for ISPC PF. I don't shoot subs in rifle but only soft alloy would require grooveless for strength. My rifle moulds are semi-grooveless as I'm running 50K psi. with low Sb boolits.

[popper]

177664 To borrow some OP's pic, the best I've seen of recovered that shows evidence. It's ACWW, tumble lubed, recovered from deer? Use 'Paint' to enlarge to see detail. You can see Pb pulled back into the bottom LG from barrel sizing, as well as 'failed' Pb from impact. No Pb scraped to the edge of the GC. IIRC this is a heavy/slow load, not high pressure. Make your decision.