Made a bullet mold for .223 rem

[BigBore45]

OK. So I have another thread going for shooting cast out of an AR-15 over at THR..

Long story short I was not happy with my bullet mold, accuracy or velocity.

Well I milled out a Lee 55 Gr. Bater mold into an 82 grain. Here are some pics of the bit I used. my finished bullet on the scale and a side profile.

The bit is a jewelers bit that is .221 diameter.

Finished cast bullet is .226 after polishing the mold up a bit. It's not super smooth as if it was it wouldn't release the bullet well.

Tomorrow: First test load is 20 grains of IMR 4064 with a COAL of 2.26. And since this is a cast bullet forum its a linotype enriched WW lead at 15 BHN. With Hi-Tek 2 coating at 2 coats.




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[warf73]

Looks good keep us posted how it works out for you.

[OS OK]

On a long boolit like that the center of pressure and the center of gravity are going to be spread further apart laterally giving the wind and the turbulence of dropping back through the sonic zone much more influence on the stability.
As long as you spin it up enough and add to the gyroscopic stability I don't see why it wouldn't run...the proof is in the long haul, prolly 400 yards +.

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

Well...it's tomorrow. So how did it shoot?

[longbow]

How did you "mill" the mould out? And how did you get a mould to cast 0.226" from a 0.221" cutter?

If it isn't perfectly round... or at least within about a thou and concentric, accuracy will not be there. The proof is in shooting them though.

Is the gas check shank still there? It doesn't look like it. I guess if powder coated, maybe not necessary.

I do not reload for .223 but 20 grs. of IMR4064 is the starting load for jacketed bullets and probably somewhat hot for 15BHN lead which is not very hard. Looking at the reloading tables you are trying to start out at 2400 FPS which is pretty speedy for cast boolits and normally a guy works up to velocities like that and often harder boolits are required for high velocities. Oven heat treating WW boolits will bring hardness up considerably.

Again, I do not load for .223 but you might find some useful info from a guy who does here:

http://castpics.net/dpl/index.php/the-library/cartridge-specific-articles/223-cast-in-the-223-part-1
http://castpics.net/dpl/index.php/the-library/cartridge-specific-articles/224-cast-in-the-223-part-2
http://castpics.net/dpl/index.php/the-library/cartridge-specific-articles/225-cast-in-the-223-part-3

Good luck in your quest.

Longbow

[sparky45]

I'm guessing that the process of smoothing out the mold allowed it to drop @ 226

[BigBore45]

It was easy on the mill to get it concentric. i center drilled them with the cutter and then went around slightly off center at .0005 till it mic'ed out at .2245-.225. then used a cone head dremel polishing bit and a touch of compound to clean it up. It mic's fine. I cant find any irregularity with my calipers.

No i does not have the gas check shank on it anymore i didnt want it. trying to cast as cheap as possible.

That load was way to much. crony read 2170 FPS out of my 18" barrel. I used quickload and hadnt the slightest idea where to go with it so i picked that out of one of my manuals and took 2 grains off.

I changed powders after i got the quickload bullet matched with my readings. I went to H-380 because it seemed to have more pressure at the 8" barrel point to cycle the action.

I loaded 15gr. of H-380 and Clocked 1540 FPS out of 5 rounds the deviation was only 30 FPS. pretty tight i though for a reduced load. Also Cycled the action every time through a whole magazine of 20 rnds. Accuracy seems ok at 50 yards. about 1" i only have a 4X scope on this ar-15 so after this testing im going to mess with the COAL a bit as it seemed to be a bit long at 2.260. very close but one kinda jammed into the lands from a bit of coating built up. So going to rework to 2.250 and quick test the 15 grains of powder again before moving on to 100+ yard accuracy tests.

[KenH]

Sounds like you did good - a good heavy bullet for light loads in the AR and still cycle good. I've not cast any for the 5.56 yet, but might try it soon.

[dverna]

1" at 50 yards first time out is great. H4895 may be worth trying.

Don Verna

[longbow]

Yes, looks like you are heading in the right direction. 1" is a good group first time out.

I questioned the mould cavity milling because there are several posts where people have simply drilled out a mould or used a Dremel tool then expected decent accuracy. If you set up in a milling machine and centered correctly then offset and rotated the mould or orbited the cutter you should indeed have a concentric and good cavity.

I am with you on doing things cheap (I like to say frugal) and handling .22 gas checks must be a pain. I don't even like .30 cal gas checks. If the powder coating can eliminate checks then good, that is another plus for powder coating.

Not sure with powder coating but I have to suspect harder boolits will be a plus anyway so if accuracy is not up to snuff once you are done developing loads then try oven heat treating before powder coating. I believe that the heat required for powder coating is below the heat required to oven heat treat then quench. The "Coatings and Alternates" forum should have info about that. I found that I had to heat treat my boolits for my .303 with 1:10 twist when using heavy boolits at relatively high velocity as there were signs of skidding on recovered boolits without heat treating. Accuracy improved after heat treating.

With a heavy boolit in fast twist for your .223 it may be a consideration.

Anyway, looks like you have things under control.

Longbow