my cast boolit groups went sour

[jeff223]

i got some real good groups with some Cast Performance LBT boolits last week at 50yds with my 357max Contender.i had some that were under an inch.i had high hopes for these cast boolits.today i moved back to 100yds and the groups went sour.i would have 2 that were almost touching and then there would be a flyer thrown in there.the flyer would be high and sometimes it would be low.its almost like Cast Performance put some odd ball boolits in the box and shook them up so you just never know what you were going to get.i shot all 50 that i had loaded up trying to get groups that i was satisfied with

after that ammo was shot up i got my pet loads out for the 357max just to see if it was me shooting those flyers.this load is 22gr of W296 with a 170gr Sierra JHC boolit.this load will shoot 2.5 inch groups and under at 100yds with a hot or cool barrel.after shooting a few of those i could see right away it wasnt me shooting the flyers.i had several 3 shot groups that were down near an inch.this TC barrel really likes this load and boolit.the groups that i get are those nice round groups with no vertical stringing that you get with some guns.you can shoot shot after shot with this load until you get tried of shooting and the gun puts them in there.

now my questions to all you cast boolit shooters?
why sighs of good groups at 50yds then they fall apart at 100yds?are the cast perforance boolits JUNK?what do you think is going on here with these cast boolits?

[David R]

Just a few points.

1. Don't give up

2. My 22-250 would shoot 3/8 groups @ 50 yards and 1.5 @ 100. doesn't make sense, but....

3. Try weighing your cast boolits and see if they are all within .1 ,2, or even .5 grains. Just weigh 10 or 20 to get an idea.

4. Maybe a little less velocity?

5. Is your barrel clean?

[JohnH]

If I had a scale capable, I would resort to weigh sorting the bullets. Hopefully you have such a scale. How far out was the flyer? was it consistnent in being a particular shot? (3rd????, 2nd????)

[Buckshot]

............There could be several reasons. Everything from crimp to primer, including seating straightness and depth. I have seen and had experience with the same thing and I think in my case it was boolit quality and also twist.

Once the slug leaves the confines of the barrel they are free to do their thing, and it's well known that on occasion the boolit may wander a bit until it 'goes to sleep' on it's ballistic path. At 50 yards the slugs may be at the end of their stability and begin to 'do their thing'. Set up a target at 75 yards and shoot a group too.

A friend had a 375 H&H Ackley on a Sako action with a 12" twist. Shooting the Lyman 264gr FNGC it would shoot bugholes at 50 yards. At 100 yards you needed a big piece of paper to catch 5 rounds. This was with some pretty stout loads.

In my case I had the same thing with my 375 Whelen-Ackley 12" twist, and the same boolit. Up to about 1600 fps accuracy was exceptional at 50 yards and very good at 100. Pushing the velocity up, at 100 yards the slugs were all over. I got 2 NEI designs from Beagle I think it was, for a 328gr RN and a 352gr FN. Now these did a heckuva lot better at 100 yards producing a round group of 3.5" at 2000 + fps. I suppose they just were more suitable to the twist.

Ditto a 444 Marlin built on a Martini action with a Douglas 14" twist bbl. It'll cloverleaf 265gr Hornadys at 50 yards and do 2.5" or less at 100 yards doing 2100+ fps. Yet the Lee C430-310RF won't stay on paper at 1800 fps.

.................Buckshot

[StarMetal]

Unless you have a benchrest quality firearm and use all the benchrest tricks there are to brass, loads, etc. and unless you have some really terrible cast bullets with major voids, weighing bullets isn't going to be noticeable with a sproter grade firearm.

I think Buckshot nailed it all pretty good.

Joe

[Bass Ackward]

i got some real good groups with some Cast Performance LBT boolits last week at 50yds with my 357max Contender.i had some that were under an inch.i had high hopes for these cast boolits.today i moved back to 100yds and the groups went sour.

Jeff,

I'll take a guess.

Everyone wonders why ol timers always said to shoot the heaviest cast bullets per caliber. Besides ignition, that is for ballistic coefficient.

Even the man whos name is on those bullets will tell you that they "might" have to be driven at maximum velocities to stabilize. That's the disadvantage to wide noses and why I never like to over meplat a bullet unless it has one purpose in life, hunting. Then you are driving it and shooting fairly close in anyway.

Here is where a faster twist helps some. But it has other disadvantages as well. Wadcutters crap out at about 50 yards no matter how you drivem. My guess is that your loads are starting to destabilize somewhere between 50 and 100. What velocity were you running?

But a bullet designed for slower or lower velocity purposes needs to have the smallest meplat and the least amount of unsupported nose weight possible.

[jeff223]

i dont have a scale for weighting the boolits but i will look into one.these cast performance boolits are 180gr with the big flat nose and a gas check.im shooting them at 21 gr of W296 powder and from tha data i have that would be a max load with a cast boolit.the 170gr Sierra boolit i shoot is at 22gr of the same powder and the 2nd best boolit out of this pistol is the Speer 180gr flat nose pushed at a max load of 23gr of w296.

once i get my new boolit mold will spend some time getting just the right load.maybe i can push the cast a little faster and maybe i cut them down some,i dont know.i would think the LBT boolit design would hold accuracy out past 50yds.im sure they will once i find the right setup.working with jacketed boolits has been easy for me but i see the cast are going to be alittle more work.the thing that getts me is the flyers.i will have two touching and then a flyer high about 2 to 3inch,then a flyer low about the same making group size open up to 5 to6 inches.another thing that i dont understand is after fireing 50 rounds through the gun i go back to the Sierra 170gr JHC load and the gun just hammers them in there.dirty barrel and all it just shoots that load and boolit very good.this is a max load for this boolit too at 1900fps.i dont have a chrono to check speed of my cast loads but i can borrow one on my next trip to the range.

i want to thank you all for helping me here and im sure i will have more trouble ans questions along the way.im open to all the info i can get about these cast boolits.

jeff

[shooter2]

5. Is your barrel clean?

This is the first thing I would check. Cast bullets like a clean barrel, jacketed are not quite so fussy. Otherwise, all the ideas here are good ones.

[jeff223]

yes i started out with a clean barrel.i cleaned it the day before i went to the range.

[9.3X62AL]

Make that, clean and DE-COPPERED.

[JohnH]

Well Jeff, I'm definately out of my league here, but I wold like to continue some observations. My suggestion to weigh seperate the bullets is NOT to say that some hidden void is the cause, but rather to be able to say that it is NOT the cause. If you are going for the smallest groups possible, then you must be consistant, consistant, consistant. This means weighing sorting your cases as well and shooting everything by weighed lots. It may or may not make a big difference, but you can say what the problem is not.

Second, Why the third shot????? Why not the first or second, why the third???? I don't know what this tells us about your TC but I know what it tells me....something is funky with the load.

I've seen a lot of groups over the years and if I saw a third shot out syndrome, I would change the load. Shift the charge up and down, change powders altogether, try different bullets etc. Why should it be a mystery that we see a flyer with a cast bullet when we see flyers with jacketed bullets all the time????? I'm willing to bet that if you did enough shooting with different jacketed bullets and powders you would see this same syndrome.

If this was a jacketed bullet we were talking about, we wouldn't even be having this discussion, you'd be at the bench playing with the load. Sounds to me like you have a capable barrel, you just got to find a capable load.

Granted, there are things you can't do with cast. I've sent ya some Lee 357-158-RF's. It is a plain, bevel base bullet. You can't drive this thing at 1800 fps and expect good accuracy. Won't happen. It will make really nice groups at 800-1400 fps. I've also sent you a sample of Lymans 195 grain round nose that in 2 years I;ve not been able to get to shoot anything satifactorily day in and out, your mileage will probably vary, exactly what I want to know. This is a plain base too, it shoots pretty decent at 1400 fps for me, (from a 22" barrel, think 1000 fps in that TC, but don't let that keep you from experimenting)) so if you didn't have enough to worry about over the LBT, I've given you something else to think about, as well as some 180's that DJ had passed on, a sample of the mold you have coming. Everything is all lubed up, but to keep it interesting, each is lubed with a different lube, so you'll have to clean the bejesus out of your barrel for each bullet. Don't you just love having friends????

[Buckshot]

"....................the thing that getts me is the flyers.i will have two touching and then a flyer high about 2 to 3inch,then a flyer low about the same making group size open up to 5 to6 inches."

Not to be a wiseacre or anything but you know, those 2 that clump could be the flyers?

If you are testing loads then you start low and kind of work your way up. I use 5 shot groups for this. I will accept a flyer out of the group merely because of the way I load. Ie: Visually inspected, thrown charges, like that. Also, 99% of what I shoot does not have a scope and most carry rudimentary factory sights. Ditto the trigger that they were born with, and many with 29" barrels.

The barrel length amplifies followthrough oopsies, and 52 year old eyes and sight alignment on target doesn't take too many thousandths of an inch here, to be off more then you'd like, out there. So yes, I will not be troubled by a flyer in an otherwise roundish nice group.

Once you have identified a batch of loads that are doing what you want (pretty much) then you come back and fire 10 shot groups as the larger population will make it easier to see which way things are going.

I have a groups that I shot many years ago with a M96 Swede and the Lyman 152 gr 268645 slug that put 4 rounds in 7/8ths inch and the 5th for 1-1/4" at 1825 fps. That HAD to have been all 5 flyers flying together. The very next week with 20 rounds loaded exactly the same, in the same brass and boolit batch they were pretty bad. I couldn't duplicate it.

.............Buckshot

[David R]

I don't shoot factory cast boolits. I did weigh 300 of my 22 cal "55" gr boolits toinght. This was before sizing or lubing. They varied by + or - .5 grains. I kept the ones that were + or - .3 grains. they come out to 57 grains. I ended up tossing 47 out of 300 or so.


I was just wondering what the + or - would be for store bought cast.

[beagle]

I'm going with Bass on this one. In testing a bunch of heavy .45 loads last spring, I'd get good results at 50 and then accuracy would go sour at 100 yards to the point of gross flyers that no way was my fault. I'd tweak up the velocity and they'd come right back in. This was plinking mind you and not shooting groups.

Being as you're using LBT bullets, the blunt noses and lower sectional density are probably causing a high loss of velocity between 50 and 100 yards to the point where the bullet goes unstable. This happens with wadcutters in the .38 Special unless you're using high velocity .38/44 loads out of .38 Special cases in a .357 Magnum. Then any launch speed over 1,000 FPS will usually stabilize them for 100 yard plinking.

If you have room, open the throttle a notch on your loads and see if they don't come back in. May not shoot as good as you want but should produce acceptable accuracy.

This is one reason that we have the proverbial age old arguments about the Keith versus the LBT designs and the respective accuracy of each. The LBTs are great bullets for hunting but tend to go unstable quicker at lower initial velocities than the Keiths.

Not starting any flames here but I'm a Keith man myself./beagle

Jeff,

I'll take a guess.

Everyone wonders why ol timers always said to shoot the heaviest cast bullets per caliber. Besides ignition, that is for ballistic coefficient.

Even the man whos name is on those bullets will tell you that they "might" have to be driven at maximum velocities to stabilize. That's the disadvantage to wide noses and why I never like to over meplat a bullet unless it has one purpose in life, hunting. Then you are driving it and shooting fairly close in anyway.

Here is where a faster twist helps some. But it has other disadvantages as well. Wadcutters crap out at about 50 yards no matter how you drivem. My guess is that your loads are starting to destabilize somewhere between 50 and 100. What velocity were you running?

But a bullet designed for slower or lower velocity purposes needs to have the smallest meplat and the least amount of unsupported nose weight possible.

[felix]

Typical Keiths have 60 percent meplats; LBT LFN 70 percent; LBT WFN 80 percent. Stands to reason you need more speed as the point becomes flatter, as well as more twist. However, the twist is the biggie like one more inch in twist is roughly equivalent to 500 fps with a pistol boolit. In other words, shoot LBTs hard with a rifle and you will be OK out to a 100 or so, for beer can accuracy, that is. ... felix

[Bass Ackward]

Working with jacketed boolits has been easy for me but i see the cast are going to be alittle more work.
jeff

Jeff,

That one statement right there will determine if cast is for you or not. If the word work is not replaced by challenge or fun, then we'll lose ya. Take things at a rate where the word work never enters your mind.

And yes. LBT bullets will stabilize out farther. Sure. Or they would be off the market. There are two components to stabilization, twist rate and velocity. Many people don't realize just how fast you can cross the stabilization barrier if you slow velocity. Then there is how fast the bullet slows down and crosses through the sonic barrier. Surely you have seen the old movie about how planes shudder when trying to cross the sound barrier. Wide meplats don't do that very well. Neither do bullets with a large amount of unsupported nose weight. Beagle is right about Keith type bullets because they don't have either weakness.

So longer range can be more .... of a challenge. There are exceptions, but bullet flight should be linear. 1" at 50 should be 2" at 100 unless something goes wrong. If there is something wrong with the load or the condition of the launcher, the same two and flier pattern should exist at 50. Once launched, it either comes down to bullet defect that affects stabilization or stabilization itself because every other factor is gone. That bullet is on it's own.

[jeff223]

boy there is alot to think about here.what im going to do here is this.
1.clean the barrel and i will make sure there is no copper left in the bore
2.load up some more LBT cast boolits and push them alittle faster
3.go to the range and shoot them again
4.then come back here with a report

i will keep a look out for the boolits John and thankyou

i did have some trouble with one jacketed boolit out of this barrel too.from what i have read its the go to boolit for the 357max and it didnt shoot worth beans.this boolit is the Hornady 180gr XTP.i tried loading it from the start load up to max with no results.i gave up on that bullet.im lucky to have found the 2 boolits that shoot so good out of this barrel.im sure there are more that will shoot for me and i wont give up on the a cast boolit.handloading and shooting is fun not work and is real satisfying when things work out.im sure its just a matter of time and i will have a pet load with a cast boolit

thanks all for the info and the ideas and i will keep you all informed
jeff

[7br]

Just out of curiosity, did you examine the holes very closely on the 100yd targets? Were the oblong or showing other signs of becoming unstable?

Someone step in here and correct me if I am wrong on the next item.

Odd things happen, someone mentioned that groups can actually tighten up (smaller moa measurement) at longer ranges which sounds very wrong. However, imagine a top being spun. Sometimes it hops about in a circle until it finds its sweet spot on rotational velocity. It stays in one place for a duration, then looses its stablization as the rotational velocity falls off. Basically, my understanding is that bullets will do the same around the axis of the bore.

[jeff223]

no signs of keyholing at all.also no signs of leading too

well i just got back form the range where i shot three 5 shot groups at 100yds.i loaded up the 180gr cast performance LBT style boolit at max for a cast boolit if not above max depending on where your getting the data from and the results were very poor to say the least.group sizes were between 8 and 10 inchs.now these 8 and 10 inch groups were round groups with no sign of vertical stringing.

this load was 22gr of W296,i forgot to list that above.

i think i must go back to square one on these cast boolits.i must go to my smith friend and get the barrel slugged and then go to the proper size boolit for the bore.these Cast Performance boolits are sized at .358,thats what the box says.maybe i need a bigger sized boolit?i was just hoping the .358 would shoot for me.what do you think?i know the .358s with the loads used so far dont shoot worth beans

[David R]

I only shoot cast boolits for groups at 50 yards when 100 will not get me anywhere. I think boolit seating depth (OAL) is the most important thing, Lyman says powder choice is most important. Try different powders with the same OAL, then when you find a powder your gun likes, try different OAL with the same powder charge.

I was "spoken to" for not slugging my bore because I was having problems getting good groups @ 100. I ended up with just barley over an inch @ 100.

You can do it too.

I just noticed I have been through 500 primers finding a good load for my 22-250 in both cast and J***et**.

Don't get me wrong, but it seems to me you have tried one powder and one boolit possibly at one OAL. There are many combinations.

"be the boolit" Think like the Boolit