shooting gc profiled boolits without the gc

[bkbville]

Inspired by the "Cast Bullet Loads for Military Rifles" and the "Practical Dope on the 7.62x39" stickies, I'd like to put some loads together for upto 100m for some of my milsurps.

The idea is plinking loads, but with 4MOA accuracy and sub 1600fps. The sub-1600fps driver being to avoid the gas check costs.

All the molds I now have in 308-312 cal are gas check molds.

Is there a substantive difference in boolit performance using gas check profile boolits without gas checks?

[felix]

I would consider paper patching if you are not going to use gas checks. There is a substantial difference between naked boolits and protected boolits. ... felix

[Larry Gibson]

You might want to do a search of this topic as it is a commonly asked question.

I have tried this several times over the years and the results are always the same - poor. By poor I mean that accuracy in the 1200-1600 fps range has always been much worse than pull down milsurp bullets. Usuall I was lucky to atain 4-5" groups at 50 yards with any consistancy. However, if I used a fast burning powder (I always recommend Bullseye because it always works for such loads) and kept velocities under 1000 fps then passable accuracy could be had.

If you want to shoot a PB'd bullet to save on the cost of GCs then I advise either altering one of your moulds (Lee's are easiest - do a search for a recent thread) or getting a PB'd mould to begin with. The flat based true PB'd mould cast bullet can deliver the kind of performance you are asking for.

Larry Gibson

[RU shooter]

In a nutshell some barrels will shoot a unchecked boolit well some won't I have been blessed with two milsurps a 1903A3 and a K31 that do very well without the check both with the same boolit the Lee 312-155 spitzer designed for the SKS/AK doing the best. Using fast burning pistol powders in the 22 LR vel. range both will do better than your 4 moa requirements at 100 M The 1903A3 likes 5.5-6.0 grs of Bullseye and the K31 loved W231 in the 7.0-7.5 range both are in the 1000-1100 fps. range These are actually my 100 yd informal CMP match loads and will shoot quite well even out to 200 yds but vertical stringing is starting to be a problem but will still have acceptable plinking accuracy at the longer distance.

Tim