Upside down gas checks under PB boolits?

[ghh3rd]

I just cast some 405 gr Plain Base bullets that dropped at .457 which I'm afraid will lead in my Marlin.

I read that someone was using gas checks, upside down, under plain base bullets. I believe that they were seating them in the case a bit, and then seating the bullet over the upside down gas check.

Has anyone tried this? Are there any pitfalls/dangers?

Thanks,

Randy

[mooman76]

Why not just use a filler. It sort of acts like a gas check.

[ghh3rd]

I'm not familiar with using fillers, although I've read about them. Isn't cream of wheat one of them? Do you add enough on top of the powder to slightly compress the powder? Does it help much with leading - if so, I guess it depends on how big a layer you are able to add between the boolit and powder.

[clintsfolly]

have used them that way in my 450marlin. you MUST make sure that the GC stays TIGHT to the base of the boolit!!!!!! i did this by using a powder that filled the case and by just setting the GC upside down on filled case and using the boolit to push the GC in as i seated it. it can be done on loads that do not fill the case but you must make sure that the GC is tight in the case. if it drops down it may become a bore obstruction and BAD thing may happen. using this method i can get 457122 to shoot at 2100fps and hold a 3" group at 200yds Good luck and be careful!! Clint

[405]

clintsfolly,
That's a very good explanation of how I would approach it... with caution.

ghh3rd,
Since that combo will be shooting two projectiles out the muzzle be aware of the extra "bullet". I wouldn't shoot it thru a chronograph or the GC might shoot "thru" the chronograph :)

I don't do that and don't plan to. So my inclination would be to either use the PB with lighter charges and/or the right filler or just get a GC bullet mold, seat the GC correctly for the higher vel, higher pressure loads.

[Doc Highwall]

ghh3rd, you are approaching this problem all wrong and it will only lead to disappointment and dismal results. The three hard fast rules to cast bullet shooting are bullet fit ,bullet fit and bullet fit. You have to slug your barrel and find out what your groove dimension is and shoot a bullet that is .001" to .002" larger and there will be no problem with leading no expense of gas checks and no fillers.
I shoot plain base bullets in 30-30 Win 38-55 and 45-70 with no fillers, just dump the powder and seat a bullet load and fire.

[Bullshop]

A word of caution! When I tried chronographing with the turned GC it separated from the boolit and took a little bite out of my Chrono screen, more than once. Some of us are hard learners.

[qajaq59]

I just cast some 405 gr Plain Base bullets that dropped at .457 which I'm afraid will lead in my Marlin. It might be best to fire some of them before you start doing upside down GCs and fillers. They may not lead at all.

[mooman76]

I don't care for the COW as a filler. It can be slightly heavy and I had pressure issues once. Not saying it can't be done safe. Just saying I would rather use other things. I didn't concider early your using 45-70 and possibly using BP. For that type of load I would use either a felt wad or you can cut out your own wads from styrofoam like the trays meat comes on or egg cartons. Even the paper egg cartons would work.

[Blammer]

I would see if I get any leading first before doing anything.

[HammerMTB]

I've been following along with your new Marlin setup, but haven't commented *yet*
Guess it's time to change that.
I got a 1895GG about 6 months ago. Read all kinds of comments here about what others had experienced. While those were generally valuable, I am finding I need to do all the basics with mine to evaluate what will work and what won't.
The ballard rifled bbl in mine will shoot .457 boolits just fine. I shoot 'em either pp'd or lubed up to 1500 FPS. I have shot 'em faster, but find this gun kills at one end and maims at the other, so have set the recoil threshhold at 1500 FPS and my Lee 340 gr PB boolit for the time being. If/when I get to go brownie hunting I will put on a better recoil pad and see if I can tolerate a few more rounds from this light gun. I plan to go deer hunting with it in a week. I believe all I have read that it will send a boolit thru a deer end-to-end at these vels, and tho it could leave a good blood trail, it won't be necessary.
Good luck tuning yours!

[44man]

First you must know what a gas check is for and what it does, then you can answer your own question.
I can only say your thinking is wrong.

[btroj]

I can tell you this, I sure wouldn't do it.

I'm with 44man, a gas check is misnamed. It should be called a driving base or something like that.

[mpmarty]

I HATE GAS CHECKS!!! end of rant.
I use a Ranch Dog mold for my 45/70 and prefer the 350gr boolit. I load mid range with RL7 and Varget as well as 3031 and enjoy no leading with tumble lubed boolits. My problem with gas checks is I cast at .460 and have a star sizer in .460 that will "seat" gas checks but won't crimp them worth a darn. As far as I'm concerned a gas check that won't stay on a boolit is worthless. I don't like trying to lube a LEE TL boolit in a Star with BAC as it winds up a greasy mess. Conversely the 50/50 LLA / JPW tumble lube dries nicely and is much easier to work with.

[buck1]

Check with pat marlin about a tool to gas check a plain base boolit.

[ghh3rd]

I know that boolit fit is king, but I got this Lee mold to tide me over while waiting for a group buy mold. Naturally the Lee is dropping small boolits.

I've only put 40 rounds through my new Marlin 1895GBL so far, and really want to get to the range with it again tomorrow.

I just lapped out one of the two cavities and am getting .458 on the base and .4585 on the bands, so I'll skip the gas check notion and see how these boolits do.

I thought that the lube grooves would get deeper since I had lapping compound in them, but they are more shallow than when I started, so hopefully there will be enough Felix lube on the boolits.

Anyway, the thought of hurting myself, or heaven forbid, my rifle, is too unnerving and not worth the risk.

Thanks,

Randy

[Bullshop]

Undersized boolits can work good if you have two things working for you, soft alloy and fast powder. In my experiance you will need an alloy not harder than about bhn-8 and a powder not slower than 4227. A little softer on the alloy and a little faster on the powder wont hurt a bit.
The guys shooting conicle in ML do it all the time. I did a test once with some .451" jacketed bullets in a .458" groove barrel. I put the bullets on a wood stove to anneal them and coupled them with a fast powder and they worked fine. I have even done the same with a 50 cal ML using gas check boolits with the checks annealed and loaded with 777. Shot most excellent groups at 100 yards. 777 is basically a fast burn smokeless powder.
I think when BP was king most 45 cal factory rifle ammo used .457" diameter unless they were PP then they were closer to .450" or .451". Now that aint gospel so dont nobody get on me about it, I said I think it.
Anyway if all I had was a .457' boolit for my 45/70 I am absolutely certain I could get it to work just fine with those two things I mentioned.

[rockrat]

I use a card wad on top of the powder, and then I use grits as a filler. I want about1/8 to 3/16 compression of the grits when I seat the boolit. This is the load I use in my 1884 trapdoor. It shoots well and doesn't lead. Tried it without the filler, but groups were about twice the size.

It will do about 6" at 300yds and has done 8" @430yds, with my old eyes and issue sights using the 460420 PB boolit. Not too bad for a 116 yr. old rifle, about twice my age.

[trk]

Yo RockRat --

Thanks for menitoning that! I thought I was the only one who used grits! COW is ok, but the COST!

Do you measure the grits (I've got two Lyman 55's set up - one for powder, one for filler.

[home in oz]

I think I would use the GC in the normal manner.

Life has enough excitement.

[rockrat]

Yep, I use a lyman 55 when I am using grits. Not as dense as COW. Also use it when loading my 50bmg and cast. You can smell the toasted cereal.

Was going to make some grits for breakfast yesterday and was out. Had to raid my stash in the shop:)

[tommygirlMT]

Yes --- it can be done --- and done safley

The way to d it is with a nitro card stack --- regular filler just fills --- nitro cards are much more rigid and will hold the gas check in the correct position and orientastion --- and ensure it leaves the barrel and doesn't become obstruction --- and then bad boomba

For 45/70 you would use as many 45 caliber cards as you need --- with the object being the right height stack to just compress the powder a little when you put the boolit in and crimp. For the final layer take the gas check and put a sub-bore smaller (41 or 43 cali) nitro card inside the hollow base of the check and then load the check and the nitro as a single unit as the final top layer on the stack with the nitro down and the flat face of the check up

This can be done for any straight walled or gently tapered shell with no shoulder --- For true BP loads you put a lube cookie as the bottom laier --- lube cookie being like an Oreo cookie --- nitro cards are the hard black chocolate cookie part and a goober of BP lube is the cream in the middle.

Yes --- using a gas check in the stack as explainoed works better then just the nitros by themselves --- but --- you need to use the sub-bore card that fits inside the hollow base of the gas check or in some cases you can compress the column tight enough to force the full bore size cards up inside the hollow base cup of the gas check but usually sub-bore card much easier to do. Using check in the stack without filling the hollow base will make it so you are adding an additional randomizing variable to the loads final balistic --- namely --- inconsistent wad column crush.

You can also do this for full size diameter shotgun slug loads --- let a penny spin up against a grinder wheel and you can have a nice thick hard 73 caliber coper/zinc disk --- pennies start out at 75 caliber dont take much off to make them 73 caliber

What people have said about chrony killing with such loads is true --- thick plywood armor is enough to protect against the regular gas check imbeded in a nitro stack type loads --- but not enough to protect against the big 12bore penny loads --- you need plate steel armor to protect chrony from those !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :groner:

[Char-Gar]

Ok.. I will bite! Yes, I have done it! Back in the early 60's, I loaded the old 330 gr. Gould HP cast 1-20 in the 45-70 over about 52/4895. I would have to check my records to be certain about the charge weight. The speed to was fast for the soft bullet plain base bullet, so we attached a GC upside down to the bullet base with Duco Household cement, loaded and went our way.

That load was pure poison on Texas whitetail out of my Win. 86 rifle.

I never lost a gas check and doubt I could, due to the resizing of the case. I fired about 100 of these with zero problems. Of course, the gas check seperated from the bullet, but who cares! The old Lyman slip on checks were designed to come off in flight.

Would I do it again? Sure, but I would top off the powder charge with PSB and attatch the check with Superglue or epoxy neither of which was avilable in 1961. I would set the check in the case mouth, add a drop of sticky and seat the bullet until it compressed the PSB a tad. I would not lose a moments sleep over doing so. That gas check is going no where and the gas pressure will keep it firmly against the bullet base until it exists the barrel.

[XWrench3]

here is an idea, that may or may not work. i used toi have a mold that cast undersize, which is wehen i thought of this, but it also cast out of round, so i sent it back. anyway, my idea is wrapping the base of the boolit with a couple of wraps of teflon tape. make sure it is pulled tight as you wrap. that would add a few thousanths, be soft enough to do not harm to anything. but, i would check the bore after every shot to be certain none was left behind. if there was, it may, or may not cause a problem. but that kind of trouble no one needs.

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

I'm with Rockrat here, having fired thousands and thousands of rounds with grits filler and the up-side-down GC ~ We call them "IGC" - for "inverted gas checks".

I would mention that the typical Hornady check will be considerably oversize for a sized and expanded-back 45/70 case.

This means that if you seat such an oversize check into the case it will partially expand the case as it is seated under the bullet. The affect is two-fold #1: the check will certainly NOT move away from the bullet base and become a projectile inside the case; the interference fit is far too great for it to move around once seated. #2: The partially expanded case neck then may or may not be small enough to retain the bullet securely - depending on what size the bullet is of course and how much the oversize check expanded the neck .. You get the picture.

My solution is to size the checks before seating them under the bullets. The method is a bit tedious but then again you can do it while watching the NL play-offs or a football game or such during commercials ..

I have an old Lee 0.458 hammer-sizer for this work. I place each check into the tool, place the tool on a lead ingot that rests on my knee and smack it with a plastic mallet. In an hour you'll have plenty of checks for some extended shooting.

The resulting cartridges will be accurate and totally dependable. I'm only a fair shot and it isn't the rifle/load that causes misses.

Once these procedures are established they are easy to use, although a bit tiresome after a summer's season of shooting. ~ I'm always kind of glad to go back to relatively simple stuff like regular 30 caliber bolt gun shooting with no fillers, no sizing of checks, and certainly no IGCs.

Good afternoon,
Forrest

PS There are additional details; if you really want a run-down post me a PM.

[FAsmus]

trk;

My!

Now, I know that there is nothing new under the sun but to have another reloader measuring powder first, then grits into his reloads EXACTLY like I do with the same measures is spooky.

The only (detail) difference is that my powder measure is a Bonanza.

~ Once I ran out of grits in the kitchen so I went in and poured off some from the Lyman 55 and proceeded to cook them up. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until my son, his eyes bulging, came up and asked me: "Dad! are you really going to eat gunpowder!!?"

~ He had thought for years that the grits were just white gunpowder.

Good afternoon,
Forrest

[ghh3rd]

Good one Forest! My 13rd old son is watching over my shoulder and got a good laugh too.

[x101airborne]

A word of caution! When I tried chronographing with the turned GC it separated from the boolit and took a little bite out of my Chrono screen, more than once. Some of us are hard learners.

Ummmm.........

[FAsmus]

x101airborne;

My story along those lines is that one day the wind was blowing hard enough that we were having a hard time spotting hits/misses because our spotting scopes were vibrating too much in the breeze.

We moved behind a shed and then, thinking he'd improve the wind break even more, a fellow parked his truck some 20 - 30 feet out in front of the firing line, upwind, to give us a bit more wind-shadow.

Shooting went on. After we were done the owner of the truck noted that his windshield was showing several hits by what appeared to be gravel-strikes. These were of course hits by my shed IGCs - I was in trouble for the replacement of his windshield.

Fortunately I found that, of all things, my home-owner's insurance would pay for the new windshield.

Good morning,
Forrest

[ghh3rd]

FAsmus - I would think that whoever was brave enough put their truck in the line of fire was taking their own chances. Here in Florida no matter what causes the defect to your windshield, the owner's auto insurance picks it up with no deductable.

Funny that your homeowners would pay for a someones windshield that you shot at the range :)

[NSP64]

Just don't shoot it over your crony. Don't ask me how I know.:-(

[NSP64]

Funny that your homeowners would pay for a someones windshield that you shot at the range :)

Not if the range is on your property.

[FAsmus]

Gentelmen;

I don't know exactly why State Farm picked it up - I was just very grateful. You guys all know how much windshields cost these days ~

Since then nobody puts anything of value ahead of the firing line.

Good evening,
Forrest