Conventionally lubed boolits in a 300 BLK AR

[imashooter2]

The overwhelming preference for cast in the 300 BLK seems to be powder/Hitek coated. Has anyone shot conventionally lubed and gas checked boolits in their rifle?

I plan for a target velocity around 1,600 FPS. I have no issue driving conventionally lubed and checked boolits to 2,000+ FPS in lever actions, but this will be a first for me with a gas operated rifle. Cleaning isn’t an issue. Even "really dirty." Rifles need cleaning no matter what you shoot and patches are cheap. Heavy leading or some functional problem on the other hand…

I’ll powder coat if I have to, but I’d like to get away without that extra equipment and process. What are your experiences?

[7br]

I shoot conventionally lubed boolits through my ar15 in 6.8spc with no issues. They are gas checked.

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[pacomdiver]

after having lubed bullets (alox) collect dirt and other grime like it was velcro if not shot right away (you have to have all grooves in the case and not loaded to max length for accuracy or else the lube collects crap), i tried powder coating and never looked back in all my calibers, even the 50/70, which looks cool with purple bullets in that big case

as a side note, with the 300 b/o, my loads (both super and subs) became way more consistant and not smokey anymore and got tighter groups with the same loads when i pc'd them and i even dabbled with pc in the garands, the yellow and red heads kinda look cool in the enblocs and shot almost as good as fmj. i will never go back to conventional lubing

[jimb16]

I have to agree. I PC everything now. I still use the sizer, but just don't use the lube.

[imashooter2]

I have read up on the powder coat process and watched a number of videos. The process looks slow, tedious and messy and requires a nice pile of dedicated bins, trays and racks to be added to my current pile of bins, trays and racks. I don’t want to do it if I don’t have to.

So… does anyone other than 7br have experience shooting conventionally lubed and checked boolits through the AR platform? I would like to hear about your experiences, whether failure or success.

[Texas by God]

I have used straight clip on wheel weight bullets with gas check and LLA lube in my .300BO and 7.62x39. I've also used PC.
My .300BO with its 1-7" twist did not shoot well enough with either type to keep me interested- so I just use jacketed bullets in it. The 1-10" twist 7.62x39 shot great with both types.
I only tested at 40 yards- if it won't group at that range, I don't bother trying it at 100yds.

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[imashooter2]

Thank you for the report. I’m hopeful that I can get the Lee C312-155-2R to work. The long body binds on the forward rib in .223 magazines. I have a couple of dedicated 300BLK Lancers on the away. Fingers crossed.

[popper]

I push 145gr GC BLL (2 coats) to 2k fps. in BO. No problem. No problem with PC either. Use a good lube, not straight LLA. Bore is shiny with either and BCG is no more dirty than jacketed. You can also sand down the Pmag ribs. Pmag ribs only contact the next 2 rnds in the mag, may work without jamming. You may need to tinker with seating depth on the lancers to get feed right.
PC is not messy. Do the shake&bake, cook on a decent hot plate. I stand them on the base, use a 45acp plastic holder (bottom of holes sanded out) to load, then pull it off to cook. No cooking racks. No 'transferring' to an oven. 100 fit on my hot plate easy.

[beltfed]

for the 300 BO try the 311299.
beltfed/arnie

[imashooter2]

That’s a little heavier than my preference, but I will certainly keep it in mind if my first choices don’t work out. Thanks!

[imashooter2]

I push 145gr GC BLL (2 coats) to 2k fps. in BO. No problem. No problem with PC either. Use a good lube, not straight LLA. Bore is shiny with either and BCG is no more dirty than jacketed. You can also sand down the Pmag ribs. Pmag ribs only contact the next 2 rnds in the mag, may work without jamming. You may need to tinker with seating depth on the lancers to get feed right.
PC is not messy. Do the shake&bake, cook on a decent hot plate. I stand them on the base, use a 45acp plastic holder (bottom of holes sanded out) to load, then pull it off to cook. No cooking racks. No 'transferring' to an oven. 100 fit on my hot plate easy.

I usually go with Lar's White Label Carnauba Red in rifle loads. I have it in the sizer, so that is what I’ll try first.

Good tip on the PMag modification. I’ve been using USGI 20s.

If I have to go to PC, shake and bake is the way I’ll go. But I still want to avoid it.

[charlie b]

If I had a good lube/sizer I probably would not have gone the PC route.

I would say to just use the lubed bullets and see what you get.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive done it but its messy. Works if you dont mind cleaning guns in the middle of shooting. REAL dirty if your using a can.

[Boolseye]

All I shoot in my 300 AAC AR carbine is the Lee/Harris TL-312-160-2R. Tumble lubed, zero issues at standard velocities (16 grains of RL-7 if memory serves)

[imashooter2]

That is EXACTLY the load I was hoping to work to, but with the traditional lube groove boolit.

[imashooter2]

A couple of Lancer 20 round 300BLK magazines came today. I have a bag of the Lee C312-155-2R that a friend gave me. They load and feed through the dedicated magazines without binding. Guess I will soon have my own experience.

Thank you to all that responded.

[Frank H]

I tried it but my PC bullets are so much easier to keep clean and work properly. For some reason accuracy with my 8” 1:7 twist was much better with pc as well.

[yovinny]

Been using the Lee 312 160gr cast in hardball, checked and dip lubed with strait mini crock pot warmed LLA for close to a decade... and while I dont like to give loading recipes,, I push them pretty stoutly,, at like a grain under the powder manuals max for 168gr jacketed.
I've experienced no gumming up of anything and no smoke I've ever noticed shooting outside.

[imashooter2]

I put 20 rounds on target today in proof of concept. The load was 16 grains of RL7 and the Lee bullet that was 165 grains lubed and checked. The book says it should be 1,500 FPS, but I didn’t bring my chronograph, mostly because I don’t care. [smilie=l:

Feed through the Lancer magazines was flawless. Function including last round hold open was perfect. Not a ton of shots, but the barrel is clean, and no excessive dirt anywhere else. I do need to do some tuning on the loads/group with 20 shots into 3.6 inches at only 50 yards.

Looks like I have another cast bullet shooter. Thanks everyone for your replies.

[freddyp]

I shot a couple hundred of the NOE 247 with a GC in my 10.5" Ar. Everything ran fine but the bolt carrier was full of lead at the bottom of the hole, where the bolt is inserted. It appears the gas port was stripping a tiny amount of lead off and sending it down the gas tube to deposit in the carrier. I powder coated them now and hopefully, that will fix it.

[TyGuy]

I put 20 rounds on target today in proof of concept. The load was 16 grains of RL7 and the Lee bullet that was 165 grains lubed and checked. The book says it should be 1,500 FPS, but I didn’t bring my chronograph, mostly because I don’t care. [smilie=l:

Feed through the Lancer magazines was flawless. Function including last round hold open was perfect. Not a ton of shots, but the barrel is clean, and no excessive dirt anywhere else. I do need to do some tuning on the loads/group with 20 shots into 3.6 inches at only 50 yards.

Looks like I have another cast bullet shooter. Thanks everyone for your replies.

Curious of your barrel length and if you were shooting suppressed or not.

[imashooter2]

16 inch 1:8. I don’t own a suppressor.

[Thumbcocker]

I have an AR that appears to have a burr at the gas port hole in the barrel. It gets lead there but still cycles with lubed and checked boolits. It is a .223.

[Abert Rim]

Nice and useful thread. I just received a 16-inch 1:8 twist upper from Palmetto yesterday. Now to just find some RL-7 and the Lee mold.
You guys sizing to .309 or .310?

[yovinny]

I size at .310 and expand cases first with the lyman .310 expander..
But they only chamber in 2 of 3 blackouts I have.
My PSA 10.5" pistol seems to have a tight neck and wont take .310 expanded brass or anything over a .308" bullet before the neck fit gets very sticky.
Different brass might make it possible, but I have and use strictly reformed LC.

[imashooter2]

The Lee C312-155-2R drops at .314 from my buddy’s mold. My rifle slugs .3075 with 5 very wide grooves and skinny little lands almost as if it was purpose designed for cast. I sized to .310.

There is a seller on eBay that has the mold at a reasonable price. I have never dealt with them and make no endorsement. The RL7… good luck!

[pacomdiver]

i size to 309, powder coat and then resize to 311, runs thru all the 4 blackouts (rem 700 AAC and 3 ARs) i load for with converted LC brass

[beltfed]

Attached are pics of 50yds groups I quickly shot in initial testing of
conventionally lubed bullets in my 8 twist /16" AR. Pistol length gas system.
These are first loading at 15 gr IMR 4227 for function and initial zeros. 2-7x old Weaver.
Bullets were sized to .309 and lubed with MTL.
Note I was shooting off a bipod from bench. You can see I lost one here and there out of groups. Function, ejection and hold open were good.
beltfed/arnie


287464287465

[Abert Rim]

Arnie, there is always one wise guy with a mind of his own when shooting for group, eh?

[milsurpcollector1970]

Like others have said, I would get leading around the tail of the bolt. Powder coating is kind of a PITA but if its setup right its much faster than convetional lubing

[35 Whelen]

I don't own a 300 BLK, but do own several .30 Carbines, and I think it and the .300 are close enough to make the comparison.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool lube buy. I own a Star lubrisizer which not only lubes/sizes bullets incredibly fast, but because of its push-thru design, makes for concentric, accurate bullets. But earlier this year I found a company offering a 115 gr. cast RN plain-base bullet, Hi-Tek coated for less than $40 per 500, and I figured "what the heck", and ordered some.

They came in a few weeks ago....

https://i.imgur.com/0Lx5zFHm.jpg

....and I immediately set about testing them. First of all, I ran them up to a bit over 1900 fps with zero, zilcho, NO leading whatsoever. Impressive. I'll say here and now that every carbine I've tested, and that'd be at least a half-dozen, and probably more, shoot cast better than jacketed. So when I tested these in a couple of carbines for accuracy at 100 yds., they did pretty well-

https://i.imgur.com/QGLlgybl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lAO0tn0l.jpg

But things fell apart at 200 yds. My 200 yd. target is a 24" gong and the best I could do is keep 5 of 10 shots on the steel. With some 5 shot strings, I did good to keep 1 of 5 on the target. Close examination of the bullets showed two potential problems; an off-center sprue, and more importantly, inconsistent coating on the beveled portion of the base of the bullets-

https://i.imgur.com/DlKrckul.jpg

I've always wondered how a person could roll bullets around in powder and get consistent thickness of the coating. As a comparison, these same carbines pretty easily groups traditionally lubed/sized/checked bullets into 6" at 200 yds., with the commercial examples often grouping tighter.

I will definitely continue to use these bullets for 100 yd. and less plinking, but that's it.

So there's my 2¢ on the subject.

35W

[imashooter2]

I’m not even remotely interested in buying coated boolits. The whole point of the exercise is low cost and ease of manufacture.

[35 Whelen]

I’m not even remotely interested in buying coated boolits. The whole point of the exercise is low cost and ease of manufacture.

I wasn't even remotely trying to sell you on coated bullets, just passing along my experience. I'll continue to use my own traditionally cast lubed & sized bullets. The coated bullets, at $35.00 per 500, are simply an inexpensive, but less accurate alternative.

35W