choosing a mold for my AR

[autopilotmp]

I currently have the lee 55gn boolit mold for my 1/8 twist AR and am looking at my choices for heavier boolits. The two I have been looking at are the NOE 225-70-RN and the MP 227 -75 GC Nato. So I guess the question is what experiences and preferences do you guys have between these or even similar design boolits for the 223/556 nato chamber AR? As a side question what is the difference between the two designs besides the little bit of weight difference? I have only used Lee 2 cavity molds so this will be my first venture into quality molds and if the MP then first brass mold as well. Any input is appreciated thank you.

[bangerjim]

I use the NOE style (6 banger) for my Mossy bolt gun. It actually LOOKS like a real boolit, as opposed to that silly "thing" Lee sells.

But for my AR, I use only FMJ's. It eats so may boolits, it is not worth my time and effort to cast and load for that beast. I have gone to mainly commercial loads.....they are cheeeeep when acquired at local gun shows, 1-2K at a time.......much more effecient timewise that rolling my own!

But if you have time to burn, have at it. And be careful of the fouling that can occur from you own cast loads in an AR.

Banger

[Moonie]

I have the NOE 62gr and it has worked pretty well. Need to test it in my 22 Nosler upper.

[Lloyd Smale]

Same advice here. I played with cast in the ars and if you push them hard enough to function accuracy usually goes south. they work if you just care about hearing your gun go bang but if its accuracy your looking for take the money your going to spend on a mold and lead and buy yourself a bag of fmj bullets and be done with it. At 10cents a piece its hardly worth the bother to cast. Maybe a bolt gun in 223 that you don't mind loaded down to rimfire levels but an AR is a real test of a bullet. It has to not only live through the violent feeding but then take the high pressures needed for function. it has to do that without leading or stripping through the lands and groves and even if you do get there if your using conventionaly lubed bullets your gun is down right filthy in a few hundred rounds. Pc has changed a lot of it but its still ALOT to ask out of a cast bullet. I spent a lot of last summer fooling with cast bullets in my ar15s using weights from 55 to a 105 and never found anything satisfying enough to bother again. I guess part of it too is I have thousands of rounds allready loaded with fmjs and soft points and have probably 50k of fmj and soft points sitting on the shelf that ive bought when deals came up. I could probably shoot my ars for the rest of my life without buying another bullet. Heck I could probably do it with the ammo I have loaded now. I probably wouldn't have even started the project except for the fact I had that heavy mold and a suppressor for an 223 ar. I wanted something subsonic that would function and that didn't happen so I tried going high velocity instead and didn't have much luck with that either.
I use the NOE style (6 banger) for my Mossy bolt gun. It actually LOOKS like a real boolit, as opposed to that silly "thing" Lee sells.

But for my AR, I use only FMJ's. It eats so may boolits, it is not worth my time and effort to cast and load for that beast. I have gone to mainly commercial loads.....they are cheeeeep when acquired at local gun shows, 1-2K at a time.......much more effecient timewise that rolling my own!

But if you have time to burn, have at it. And be careful of the fouling that can occur from you own cast loads in an AR.

Banger

[6bg6ga]

I have to second this. There is a point where trying to save a nickle a round is more trouble than it is worth. My experience with cast and a rifle is very poor accuracy, leading, reduced velocity. Why bother when you can load a full metal jacketed bullet run max velocity and obtain very good accuracy.
Lead has its place. I love lead in pistols with velocity below 1000fps.

[blikseme300]

If I had the money I spent on getting cast success in the AR15 in 5.56mm I could probably have bought another rifle. It can be done but not worth it, IMO.

300BO in the AR15 is another matter. Way easier to do and you can have a combination that is accurate and viable for hunting.

[Dancing Bear]

I also tried with the Lee Bator mold. Finally worked up to loads that cycled (most of the time). Accuracy was so so. Oh well, I'll save these for the bolt action.

[Harter66]

I have 225-55 NOE which drops at 62 gr . I drive it 2050 fps and get groups on par with most of the other FMJ I've shot .
16" carbine gas .

It takes 15kpsi to function the AR at GI STD . 20 gr of H322 gets it done for me in the 1-8. I get 2620 and reliable groups on 19 gr in the 1-12 222 with the same bullet .

I recently changed a M4 bbl to an ARP on a 6.8 and I think I can talk it into paper patched .

An AR still has no soul but they seem to grow on you after a while .

[RogerDat]

NOE 225-70-RN in a 1:7 twist Ruger mini-14 with 24.5 gr. Varget is as accurate as the gun is with j-words, I do powder coat and use Lyman #2 alloy and that with the GC allows shooting not plinking loads. No one will ever claim that the skinny barrel mini-14 is a long range tack driver but at 100 meters it can sure scare the bejesus out of a coke can and put a hurt on a paper plate using factory sights. With the faster 1:7 twist the gun was like a shotgun on 55 grain ammo. Call it minute of Pizza box. With 70 grain cast a whole lot of improvement. Cover 20 rounds on a paper plate with a hand, with maybe a few flyers due to operator having too much fun.

It isn't all about saving the pennies. I know as long as I have mold, lead, powder and primers it won't take all that long for me to have a guaranteed 1,000 rounds. Don't have to care what the price or availability is in stores or at gun shows. That 100# of lead is 10k worth of bullets and no way I'm going to put that kind of money into a single caliber of store bought j-words. Heck brass prep takes longer than casting for sure and probably covers a good bit of the time spent on powder coating. I set timer and do other things while they bake so that reduces it.

[TenTea]

It's easy and with no problems!
Saeco 221 gas checked and lubed around 65 grains in weight, sized .225"
Around 20 grains of IMR4895 or 14 grains of RL7 and ~2060 fps (carbine barrel) is bliss.
Fully functional rifle with mild recoil and reasonable iron sight adjustment to zero at 100 yards.
This in a 20 inch rifle barrel with 1:14 twist or a 16 inch carbine barrel with 1:12 twist.
This feat was one of my projects, last summer and could not have turned out any better!
I fired around 400 rounds with nary a malfunction of any kind, after expending a small amount of rounds in experimentation.
There is a thread or two about all this, here somewhere.

[blikseme300]

Lazy twist barrels for the AR15 is ticket if serious with cast. The 1:7 & 1:8 stock barrels, not so much. Part of my expense to get cast to work acceptably for me was to buy a 1:14 20" barrel. Yes, I'm that hard headed.

I bought another complete AR-15 upper in 5.56mm today for $199 from Midway on their Black Friday special sale just to have a stock upper for guests to use. It will be fed with bulk bullets in reloads.

[marek313]

I have to agree with many others here that 5.56 isnt worth casting for. Too many issues and FMJs are really cheap. I also was very interested in casting for my AR but after reading many posts I decided to buy another upper in 300 Blackout. Its my favorite round to load and shoot right now (maybe not the brass forming part but hey :) ) So much easier to cast 30cal boolit and after PC I dont even GC for plinking at steel plates and paper. Also because 300AAC uses heavier projectile it uses less powder so I'm shooting my cast 300AAC even cheaper then 5.56. I think my 300s ends ups being under $0.10 per round.

I would def reconsider if I were you before you drop $$$ on 5.56 molds etc.

[Dragonheart]

Ditto on not worth the effort. Why fool around with low velocity short range loads out of an AR, just shoot a 22 LR instead.

[gpidaho]

I have my Ruger 556 1 in 8 twist running using the Noe 60gr RN (Saeco clone) powder coated and gas checked over 19.5gr H-4895 19gr will cycle but not hold the bolt open on the last round, 19.5 does hold the bolt back. Gp