Expanding sub sonic .308 thoughts

Hey Yall!

I shoot tons of 300 aac subs. TONS! Mostly at pigs, some at targets to get better at shooting pigs at varying ranges with subs. I recently acquired a super cool set of .308 dies and a ton of 1.3 J4s from a gentleman on the boards and am considering if I can make heavy (220ish) 308 expanding bullets.

I was considering using dead soft lead and then annealing the jacket after point form. I know the bullets would have to be stood upright during annealing. I could leave a reasonably wide meplat, though my bolt gun is meplat finicky. It hates the .311-247 NOE bullet Ive been shooting. That fact almost got me ran over by some pigs a week or two ago. Im considering building a new bolt gun anyhow so thats not an issue really. I could also acquire one of BTs XTP dies if necessary.

Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

I'm not sure what you are trying to do but I would anneal the case prior to seating core. If the lead is not going to extend much past the mouth of the jacket you can place the core in the jacket and heat the jacket till the core melts and then form the point.

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Originally Posted by adanymous

Hey Yall!

I shoot tons of 300 aac subs. TONS! Mostly at pigs, some at targets to get better at shooting pigs at varying ranges with subs. I recently acquired a super cool set of .308 dies and a ton of 1.3 J4s from a gentleman on the boards and am considering if I can make heavy (220ish) 308 expanding bullets.

I was considering using dead soft lead and then annealing the jacket after point form. I know the bullets would have to be stood upright during annealing. I could leave a reasonably wide meplat, though my bolt gun is meplat finicky. It hates the .311-247 NOE bullet Ive been shooting. That fact almost got me ran over by some pigs a week or two ago. Im considering building a new bolt gun anyhow so thats not an issue really. I could also acquire one of BTs XTP dies if necessary.

Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts?

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I recently bought this mold. And I fired it through two blackouts so far and it's been the absolute most accurate bullet I have ever fired as a sub! At 50 yards it's about the same as any other good shooting sub for me shooting 3/4 to an inch and a quarter, nothing to write home about. But the bullet stabilizes in the other 50 yards and shoots often touching holes at 100 under an inch. Out at 200. I'm able to smack the 4 inch target most times! I have never achieved that with a sub before. My bolt gun shoots supers,that it likes, well under half an inch. So the gun shoots really good to start with. But I've shot at least a half a dozen different 220+ grain cast bullets and not one of them has shot 3 inch 100 yard groups.

I've never tried it in a 308 or 3006, but I only just got the mold a few months ago

I swage a 250 grain lead tip boattail that shoots great in my AAC /H&R singleshot. I have shot inch groups at 100 with it. I made bullets with 3 different ogive shapes, 6S, 8S and 12S. The only one that would shoot is the 6S bullet, but it is very accurate. The bullets have a large lead tip but they do not expand at subsonic velocities. I have tried pre-fragmented cores and other potential solutions but they still don't expand. Skiving the jacket may be a viable solution, perhaps in conjunction with prefragmented cores. That 250 in the 300 Winchester is a smasher though!

I have just started experimenting with a cast lead paper patch bullet 170 grains in the Blackout. Preliminary tests look promising.

I was thinking of making the projectile as soft as it could be made right before loading. But then I guess they would harden up over time wouldnt they.

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Originally Posted by adanymous

I was thinking of making the projectile as soft as it could be made right before loading. But then I guess they would harden up over time wouldnt they.

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As long as you use dead soft lead you should get pretty good expansion. The attached pictures are of .44 mag bullets I recovered.

Attachment 320996Attachment 320997Attachment 320998

How abut a soft lead core and a short jacket just longer than the bearing surface. So it just rolls over the ogive a very short length

How about trying the scoring option. Corbin has those scoring dies. They really help the jacket to petal peel on impact. Another option is BT's BTX die and you'd possibly want to build a bullet with a larger open tip, leaning even more toward a hollowpoint paired with that BTX die to enhance the expansion since you're not shooting for big time distance. I'm off this weekend and may play around with some options using the BTX and subs.

That would be super cool SSG. I dont have the BTX yet but have an inquiry out regarding. I would think a dead soft jacket and core with the scoring would likely expand at least a little at 1000ish fps. The hornady sub-x bullet expands to probably 1/2 inch or just under. I dont know why we couldnt achieve similar results. Let me know what you find out. Im very interested!

Who's swaging dies do you have? If it is Dave Corbins, you can get the core seating punch that creates the star pattern. I am not sure if there is a hollow point core seater for .30 cal.

Haven't gotten jnto the shop yet this weekend but I was also thinking about the possibility of a thinner walled jacket for subs. There'd be a fine line in there though due to the small twist rate ratios of 300 blackout but as long as it's subsonic velocities you could definitely get better expansion by thinner walls. I've got about 10 various 308 blackout firearms so I'll definitely be into figuring this out.

Now that Sasquatch mentioned the core seat and crimping action in one shot, I think I'm gonna have to get onto the lathe to try and turn one of these myself. I actually made a core seat punch that allows me to core seat and creat a cavity within the core to make steel or tungsten core supersonic 308/300 aac, but that's a whole other animal.

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Originally Posted by Sasquatch-1

Who's swaging dies do you have? If it is Dave Corbins, you can get the core seating punch that creates the star pattern. I am not sure if there is a hollow point core seater for .30 cal.

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How would this work with a 30 cal rifle bullet? The core is seated inside the jacket and then point formed in the next step. What you wrote makes sense for pistol bullets, but not rifle.

I was told that it is most likely a Simonson setup. And it looks like his in an article I have that he wrote.

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Originally Posted by cwlongshot

I recently bought this mold. And I fired it through two blackouts so far and it's been the absolute most accurate bullet I have ever fired as a sub! At 50 yards it's about the same as any other good shooting sub for me shooting 3/4 to an inch and a quarter, nothing to write home about. But the bullet stabilizes in the other 50 yards and shoots often touching holes at 100 under an inch. Out at 200. I'm able to smack the 4 inch target most times! I have never achieved that with a sub before. My bolt gun shoots supers,that it likes, well under half an inch. So the gun shoots really good to start with. But I've shot at least a half a dozen different 220+ grain cast bullets and not one of them has shot 3 inch 100 yard groups.

I've never tried it in a 308 or 3006, but I only just got the mold a few months ago

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It shoots fine, not great in my experience, but fine. But I have a super ridiculous custom bolt gun in 300AAC and it doesnt feed well. The wide meplat tends to stick just on the edge of the chamber.

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Originally Posted by garandsrus

How would this work with a 30 cal rifle bullet? The core is seated inside the jacket and then point formed in the next step. What you wrote makes sense for pistol bullets, but not rifle.

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I don't know if it would work with rifle. But with pistol it put 5 crimp section on the jacket when seating the core like on a XTP bullet. Actually you seat the core than change out to the plug that puts the crimp in before forming the point.

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Originally Posted by SSG_Reloader

Now that Sasquatch mentioned the core seat and crimping action in one shot, I think I'm gonna have to get onto the lathe to try and turn one of these myself.

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I don't know if these will help, but here are some pictures of the top punch that forms the creases in the top of the bullet. This is used after seating the core but before forming the point.

Attachment 321114

Attachment 321115

Attachment 321116

The name of the punch on Dave Corbins site is Saber Tooth Punch.

Attachment 321117

Also for helping the jacket open on impact he has a Serrate/Draw Die
This is a die that puts shallow grooves along the axis of a bullet or jacket, so it will open up along these weakened areas on impact. SDD-1- type dies can be made to serrate before or after a bullet is made, or serrate the entire jacket length from tip to base. The SDD-2- type dies allow partial insertion and ejection of the jacket, so that the ogive section can be serrated before it is formed into a curved bullet nose.

Ah ok the saber tooth die. I knew of that one. I thought you were saying there was a core seating punch and crimping all in one action.

The serrate/draw die is interesting if you have not seen it. It actually scores the side of the jacket to assist in it pealing back.

Yeah those were what I was referring to in my first post. I have one from Dave but prefer BT's notch die mainly cause it's clear to see the work being done. I havent done any real testing with the serration die though. Have you?

I have the Saber Tooth punch but rarely use it. I don't hunt so I really don't need the extreme expansion.

I made a serration die for my sub 308 stuff years ago. I used a lee push through I drilled and threaded, used hardened sharpened bolts to serrate and BT Sniper ejection on my RCBS to get it out once in the sizer. Worked like a charm. Just don't score the whole jacket.

Can you explain what you mean by hardened sharpened bolts?

Dave Corbin’s saber tooth works ok on pistols but I’m dubious in rifle. I have a couple “saber tooth” punches that I have been very disappointed in. A common hollow point in pistol preforms better than the saber tooth design I don’t see how it would fare any better in a 30 caliber rifle. Richard made me one that had a hollow pointing node in it but still not very good. I think if I were looking to swage a reliably expanding boolet at subsonic speeds I would use pure lead as my core and leave the open tip larger than I normally would. Guilding metal jackets like Sierra or Berger J4 will reliably expand even at subsonic speeds

I have had no luck with J-4 or Sierra jackets and pure lead cores, even with large amounts of exposed lead in 250 grain bullets subsonic in the blackout. Also did pre-fragmented cores with little success - certainly not worth the time and effort. I have shot some of the 190 grain Hornady Blackout ammo - Its the best expanding I have worked with. I have not tried Lehigh and some of the other fragmenting style bullets so I don't have an opinion there. About the best I've come up with is swaging a 250 grain flatnose with exposed lead. Still not great expansion but at least a flat tip to supply some shock. I haven't tried them for expansion yet, but I cast some pure lead bullets for 30 cal paper patch. I'm thinking that will work but it obviously doesn't help for semi-autos etc. They shoot pretty well in my single shot blackout.

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Originally Posted by BadgerShooter

I have had no luck with J-4 or Sierra jackets

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Same. Below is a thin jacket Sierra fired into water bottles at subsonic velocity out of my .300blk. Zero expansion.

https://i.imgur.com/LoB2NBY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/UYU2vwq.jpg

Maybe try annealing your jackets to soften them? Just heat them with a torch until the mouth just starts to get red. My .358 tubing jacket are quite soft after annealing.