Did anyone else notice ???

[Jack Stanley]

While loading low speed cast lead for my 788 Remington I gave small pistol primers a try . Powder has been between three point five and four point five grains of Bullseye . Bullets have been the RCBS with a gas check and a old Lyman plain base lubed with Liquid Alox with a bit of Johnsons paste wax top coat .

The other day when usig the RCBS I thought it was a fluke and kept on with other loads . Yesterday I got to thinking about it and I loaded some with the Lyman plain base bullet . Winchester small pistol primers , Bullseye starting at three point six grains and going up in two tenths grain increments to four point four grains . Lead mix was one part lino to one part pure lead with a casual inspection on the finish castings .

I was rather surprised to see groups as small as I would expect from a rimfire rifle . Two different powder charges gave good groups but I think I try loading more of the three point six grain charges and see what happens with different light and targets .

I've been fussing with small rifle primers to get groups this good and haven't got close . Of course , I wouldn't use these primers with a big charge of 2400 either but what I see is encouraging . I'm sure somebody else has been on this path before , same results ??

Jack

[TCLouis]

What caliber, cartridge, boolit weight?

I use pistol primers in most of my boolit loads.

Sometimes rifle primers prove more accurate, only testing will tell.

But then, hey most of my enjoyment is in the shooting of different loads.

[badgeredd]

Jack,

Many fellows here have mentioned that small charges of fast powders and pistol primers seems to be THE way to go for plinking loads. I personally found I can load my 22 Hornet to the middle teens for velocity with a plain based boolit and get outstanding groups cheaper than 22LR ammo. Kinda fun I think. Been working up some loads for a couple other small caliber cartridges to do the same thing.

Edd

[Doc Highwall]

I have been thinking of getting some of the new Lapua 308 Palma cases with the small primer pocket to try with my 20.5 grain charge of AA5744 or just using large pistol primers even though they are .010" shorter in height, I have checked the firing pin indent and it looks like it will work.

[Jack Stanley]

Thanks all , even though I've been shooting cast for many years including shooting up some two twenty-three "barn" loads . I've never got into casting and loading my own untill recently . With the fifty-five grain bullets I stayed on the reservation pretty good except for using Bullseye as a propellant . I did try one group with the RCBS bullet and pistol primers and saw the group size shrink quite a bit .

The idea for me is not to reinvent the two twenty-three Remington with cast at thirty-two hundred feet per second . I only want to drive any cast lead bullet appropriate for the twist to about twelve to nineteen hundred feet per second . Something in that area may copy the twenty-two magnum but then that type of ammo does cost a good bit more than about any cast load I can make .

With that in mind , I've been toying with casting my own to learn the ropes of something that doesn't have a lot in common with the casting that I've been doing for thirty years or more . I also hope to be able to show a friend who has a Hornet how to feed his rifle on the cheap . The loads that made the impression on me all used unsized Lyman 225353 bullets with a cast diameter of near .229" . They were cast of one part pure lead and one part linotype ( ingot for ingot not by wieght ) . Probably to hard for what I'm doing but hey , I'm still learning huh? :oops: Lube was Liquid Alox with a top coat of Johnsons paste wax and ready to load the slugs were about forty-seven grains . I forget the seating depth right now but the base of the slug was even with the base of the neck of the case .

Cases are range pickups all headstamped R-P and I believe they were fired in a Mini fourteen . They may be once fired but I really don't know I just sized them in a old Redding die on the Co-AX press and run the batch through the Giraud trimmer . The cases then spent enough time in the old Dillon FL-2000 to put a little brass color back into them .

When out of the polisher the cases were given a flare and primed with Winchester small pistol primers using the first station on a Dillon 550 and a RCBS flare die . Then , I put ten cases at a time in a loading block and adjusted the powder measure to start dispensing three point six grains of Bullseye . Other loads tested went up two tenths of a grain at a time and stopped at four point four grains . This way I had ten rounds of five different charge weights so I could shoot two groups of five . Seating bullets was done at station three of the Dillon press using the Dillon seater . Station four I used the Redding seating/crimp die to remove the flare of the case .

In a perfect world I wouldn't fool with the Dillon in such a way . Untill I learn what works right I'm not going to adjust the Dillon untill I have the Specifics of the ammo my rifle likes . When I have that , I can set the Dillon up to use cases by the bucketful that have been prepared right . Right now the way I have it all I need is a powder weight adjustment and enough components to run several thousand rounds .

While I like shooting many different rifles and cartridges , I don't really like trying to make several different great loads for each . I'm really happy if I can have one great load that peforms no matter what and there are several steel ammo cans full of that load ...... for every rifle of course . Now you may understand why I like six cavity molds of very high quality Dillon presses and lots of components . Once I'm done with this rifle load developement , I'll load enough ammo to feed it for several years to come and move on to the next project .

Lots of projects to go :bigsmyl2:

Hope this helps , Jack