stocker
06-19-2006, 10:58 AM
About 8 months ago I got a yen for a 32 special to check out the slower twist and cast boolits. I started by ordering an RCBS 170 mould and sizing dies. Their literature states both are .321 which might not have been ideal but I was hoping there might be a fudge factor.
Then part way through the winter my son located a M64 and we arranged a trade. While waiting for the mould I stripped the rifle down, refinished the wood and gave it a thorough cleaning and recut the crown enough to cean it nicely. Wipe-out preceded by Ed's Red showed a bore in pretty good condition. No serious flaws to the bore and the rifle had every appearance of having been used hard but the bore had been cared for. By the way I had also used Shooters Choice copper solvent prior to the Wipe Out. I can't say enough good things about the Wipe Out. It did remove copper that the other product left in the bore. There was enough of it left after the Shooters Choice that I had reservations about the barrel and was happy to find the improvement. The bore slugged .321 and seemed constant through the length based on "feel".
The mould and dies had still not arrived but they finally showed up about 3 weeks ago. After cleaning I set to a quick casting session using W/W and 60/40 salvage solder. Boolits actually dropped from the mould at .3235 and the picture got a whole lot brighter. The blocks dropped boolits easily but I did have to clean up some burrs on the underside of the sprue plate prior to use.
The sizing die was marked .321 but after sizing and lubing the boolits they showed a nice round .323. Got lucky again. Lubed them with some modified Beartooth Bullets lube. When that's gone I'll be using Lars45's red.
I referred to RCBS's manual for cast bullets and selected the two loads using IMR 4895 for testing. I did not harden the boolits in any manner.
After allowing a week for the boolits to normalize I hied myself to the range. The 24" barrel on the M64 showed the lighter load to be about 1950fps and the heavier to be about 2010.
At the 100 yard berm groups with either load ranged from 1.75 to 2.25 off sand bags with factory bead and Lyman receiver sight. That is really all my eyes can hold with any similar sighted rifle so I'm pretty happy with the set up at this point and certainly have a nice hunter to use and I think the reputation of the 32 as cast boolit friendly is properly deserved.
Then part way through the winter my son located a M64 and we arranged a trade. While waiting for the mould I stripped the rifle down, refinished the wood and gave it a thorough cleaning and recut the crown enough to cean it nicely. Wipe-out preceded by Ed's Red showed a bore in pretty good condition. No serious flaws to the bore and the rifle had every appearance of having been used hard but the bore had been cared for. By the way I had also used Shooters Choice copper solvent prior to the Wipe Out. I can't say enough good things about the Wipe Out. It did remove copper that the other product left in the bore. There was enough of it left after the Shooters Choice that I had reservations about the barrel and was happy to find the improvement. The bore slugged .321 and seemed constant through the length based on "feel".
The mould and dies had still not arrived but they finally showed up about 3 weeks ago. After cleaning I set to a quick casting session using W/W and 60/40 salvage solder. Boolits actually dropped from the mould at .3235 and the picture got a whole lot brighter. The blocks dropped boolits easily but I did have to clean up some burrs on the underside of the sprue plate prior to use.
The sizing die was marked .321 but after sizing and lubing the boolits they showed a nice round .323. Got lucky again. Lubed them with some modified Beartooth Bullets lube. When that's gone I'll be using Lars45's red.
I referred to RCBS's manual for cast bullets and selected the two loads using IMR 4895 for testing. I did not harden the boolits in any manner.
After allowing a week for the boolits to normalize I hied myself to the range. The 24" barrel on the M64 showed the lighter load to be about 1950fps and the heavier to be about 2010.
At the 100 yard berm groups with either load ranged from 1.75 to 2.25 off sand bags with factory bead and Lyman receiver sight. That is really all my eyes can hold with any similar sighted rifle so I'm pretty happy with the set up at this point and certainly have a nice hunter to use and I think the reputation of the 32 as cast boolit friendly is properly deserved.