Extra Heavy TL309-230-5R Boolit in .308 Winchester – Good Results

[MUSTANG]

Late Last Year I ordered a Lee TL309-230-5R mold. My goal was to cast some 230 Grain .308 boolits for a few friends who build AR’s and tend toward the 300 Blackout, including subsonic loads. The mold arrived this spring, but was put aside until a couple weeks ago when I cleaned it, fired up the casting pot and ran a few dozen through the mold to break it in. I threw the obvious “Terrible” boolits out and kept a couple dozen that were flawed but improving as I seasoned the mold (Some seem to have good results out of brand new Lee Dies; but nearly 50 years in casting using Lee molds, and I have found that I seem to have to cast several hundred in a new mold before I get good to great results.

I decided to powder coat the 230 Grain Boolits. Used Eastwood HotCoat PC in green and blue to powder. I wanted to be able to distinguish easily at the Range between the two test loads. Boolits were air cooled after PC’ing (I usually water drop my PC’d boolits). Alloy was 96% Lead, 3% Antimony, and 1% Tin.

The TL309-230-5R boolit has a Boat Tail; but I opted to use a gas check. I make my own gas checks. For this application I used a Pat Marlin .308 gas check die and .014 thick AmeriMax Aluminum flashing. Gas checks were placed over the Boat Tail and seated while sizing to .309 in a Lee Sizing Die. I got the gas checks for this Test from my Reject - But maybe OK small pill bottle that was on the reloading bench. Discovered that if the edge was not perfect on the Gas Check, then the check might not lock onto that small diameter Boat Tail Base. Now know to not use any questionable checks for this boolit. That long boolit will sit below the neck of the short .308 Winchester Neck, so I do not want a check to be loose.

Although the 230 Grain is significantly heavier than found in most current load books for cast and jacketed; there are references in older manuals for heavier bullets in the .308 Winchester. One of these is the old Lee Modern Reloading 1st Edition by Richard Lee that has load data for jacketed bullets in the 200, 220, 225, and 250 grain weights for the .308 Winchester. I did some analysis of the load data provided, extrapolated some ideas on starting for the 230 grain Lee Boolit, and settled on Winchester 760 powder as I have a goodly supply of it on hand.

I loaded two test loads; keeping them visually identifiable by using Green PC’d boolits for one load, and Blue PC’d boolits for the other. Powder charges selected for the test were 35 Grains and 40 Grains of Winchester 760. Primers were Remington 9 ½ Large Rifle Primers. Brass was a mix of commercial and surplus military from the .308 Winchester “Odds and Ends” box that had been sized, trimmed, and primed. Mouths were all belled using a Lee die. I set the Overall Length of the TL309-230-5R loaded in the .308 Winchester cases at 2.875 Inches.

[MUSTANG]

Tested the loads Thursday. My wife has friends in town and they all wanted to shoot pistols; so after we were done we went to the Rifle Range so I could do the testing. Test Rifle was a Remington 700 ADL Varmint set in a Boyd’s laminated stock, and a imported 8 to 16 Power scope with MilDot reticle. Rifle sights adjusted for 200 Yards using a 175 Grain RBT .308 Winchester Bullet I swage myself.

I shot two rounds of the 35 Grain W760 loads and had both impact on the card board at 7 O’clock about 12 inches or so below the Black Bull on the 8x12 copy paper printed target. I was surprised that the recoil was very light; and the ladies all wanted to shoot the rifle; so the rest of the test rounds for this 35 Grain lot were “Fun Gun” tested. They were shooting at 100 Yard and 200 Yard Orange steel square 12 inch targets. They did not hit any of the steel “Gongs”, but all impacts were either slightly high or low and vertically centered generally at the center of the Target. This warrants further testing with more control and less “Fun Gun” testing.

I tested the 40 Grain W760 loads at 100 yards and was quite surprised. Recoil was pretty stiff. My test group was 7 rounds (other rounds previously expended in setting up to test). The Test group was 2 ½ MOA, at 7 O’Clock on the card board about 3 inches below the 8x12 copy paper with a Black Bull on the printed target.

Pleasantly surprised, this warrants further investigation.

[Rainier]

Have that mould, a 308 and some W760 - Thanks for posting!

[6622729]

I have that mold too. Powder coating saved it. It drops undersize and a little out of round. I powder coat which allows sizing to .309 and forces them round. It is a boat tail and I do not use a gas check. I’m shooting Ruger American Ranch 300AAC inside of 2moa at 100yds @1200fps (chronoed).

284852

[MUSTANG]

Refreshing my testing of the nominal 230 Grain Lee L309-230-5R boolit in a 308 Winchester. These were cast last summer and have sit on the shelf. Boolits are Powder Coated using Eastwood Blue and an Aluminum Gas check made from Ameri-Max 0.14 aluminum Flashing using my Patmarlins Gas Check Die. Boolit was sized and Gas Check attached after Powder Coating (Water Dropped after 30 minute curing) in a Lee 0.310 Sizing die.

Note - The Ballistic Coefficient was computed using an online calculator. It output an 0.717 BC based on a Spitzer (Gas Check fils the Boat Tail on this boolit); seems high to me. Anyone know a BC for this boolit?

Group is disappointing; but we can start to control experiment and see where we go from this session as a baseline.

Rifle: Remington 700 ADL Varmint .308
Barrel Twist: 1 in 12
Wind: 5 Mph left to right.
Temp: 26 degrees F.
Boolit: TLC309-230 5R
Ballistic Coefficient: 0.717
Brinnel Hardness: 20
Bullet sized: .309
Alloy: 96% Lead, 3% Antimony, 1% Tin
Bullet Powder Coated: Eastwood
Gas Check: Ameri-max Aluminum 0.14”
Powder: Winchester 760 - 35 Grains
Primer: CCI-34
Case: Mixed military and commercial Brass
OAL: 2.875 inches
Distance: 100 Yards.
10 Shot Group Size: 11.223 MOA

296266

I had better luck in this rifle with other Boolits that were sized to .309. See:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?438593-PC-311644-in-308-Win-using-BLC-Powder&highlight=

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?438595-RCBS-200-Sil-Powder-Coated-in-308-Winchester&highlight=

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?435579-311041-in-the-308-Winchester-using-BLC2-Powder&highlight=

I still have about 40 of these cast, Powder coated and Gas Checked/sized on the shelf. Thinking I may seize to .309 for 10 and reshoot this one again.

[Forrest r]

Lee's website lists that bullet with a BC of .688.
https://leeprecision.com/bullet-casting/rifle-bullet-molds/

I played around with that bullet for a little while in a 1 in 10 twist 308w. I really couldn't get it to do anything at lower velocities & that long unsupported nose gave me nothing but fits when I tried to push them hard. Hopefully you do better than what I could do with that lee 230gr bullet.

FWIW:
I have a cramer 2-cavity mold that casts a sp and a hp bullet. I'd do head-to-head testing with them
https://i.imgur.com/yl6sLkT.jpg?1

At lower velocities they both shot equally well. When I started to push them harder the sp nosed bullet would always have larger groups. (+/- 15 head-to-head tests with hv loads)
https://i.imgur.com/uLdIPcZ.jpg

I believe the nose has to do with the groups opening up along with the same thing affecting the long-nosed lee 230gr bullet.

Hopefully you get it sorted out, a lot of people ask about the lee 230gr bullet on this website.

[MUSTANG]

I went back to the range today to test the Lee RL-309-230-5R in my .308 Winchester Remington 700 Rifle. Analyzing the boolit; I tried to improve chamber fit by extending the overall length of the Cartridge by seating the boolit out as far as possible. An OAL to 3.040 was the longest the round can be and still be able to extract a loaded Round by cycling the bolt. Any longer and the case binds with the brass case still held by the extractor and the boolit tip will not able to come out of the Ejection port. I sized the boolit at .310 inches, and used a Dacron filler.

Unfortunately; the group was even worse than that shot in post #5 above. Currently the only idea that comes to mind is to "Double Powder Coat" the boolit to try and expand the body and ogive area. If I continue this effort; it will be late spring before I come back to this one.


Rifle: Remington 700 ADL Varmint .308
Barrel Twist: 1 in 12
Wind: 10 to 15 Mph left to right.
Temp: 26 degrees F.
Boolit: TLC309-230 5R
Ballistic Coefficient: 0.717
Brinnel Hardness: 20
Bullet sized: .310
Alloy: 96% Lead, 3% Antimony, 1% Tin
Bullet Powder Coated: Eastwood
Gas Check: Ameri-max Aluminum 0.14”
Powder: Winchester 760 - 35 Grains
Primer: CCI-34
Case: Mixed military and commercial Brass
OAL: 3.040 inches
Distance: 100 Yards.
10 Shot Group Size: 14.459 MOA

296506

[MUSTANG]

Wellllll. A little over a year later and I was cleaning up the reloading bench and found ten of the TL309-230-5R boolits that I had Paper Patched a year ago; but never got around to "TRYING IT" as a Paper Patch. So; loaded up the 10 rounds in "Mixed Brass" .308 cases that were all shot multiple times in the past.

Load Specs were:

Paper patch was .90 Inches wide.
Sized the Paper patched Boolit to .310 inches
Used a Silicone Spray lube on the Patched boolits
Mouth was opened using an RCBS .310 mouth stem before seating boolits
Loaded with Remington 9 1/2 Large Rifle Primers
Powder was 36 Grains of BLC2 powder. I had found an old Manual listing a Max Load with 225 Grain .308 Jacketed bullets in .308 Winchester of 38 Grains BLC2. So I reduce to 36 Grains for this test.
OAL seating depth was 2.815 Inches.
100 Yards - 7/8 Inch diameter Black Spotter.

Results: FAR LESS THAN IMPRESSIVE

311667


This Boolit is "JUST NOT PROMISING" in the .308 Winchester.

[charlie b]

First, that 40gn load is probably near max and around 2200fps?

At 2200fps it is probably barely stable in a 1:12 twist barrel. So, when you decrease the load you may be going below that. Which kinda explains the results of smaller group with the heavier load than the lower vel groups. Obviously not enough to see keyholes, but, the enlarged groups are notable.

I see a lot of people have trouble with cast bullets that have long ogives. Not sure what that means but it does have an impact when trying to shoot longer ranges and suffering with lower BC's. I have wanted to try a longer ogive cast bullet and may still do so.

[Pirate69]

Agree with charlie b. Berger calculator says the break between margin and comfortable stability is 1900 fps for the TL 309-230.