.458 Win Mag sanity check

[offshore44]

I'll keep that in mind pdawg_shooter.

So, I took to my seating die sleeve with a chunk o' drill rod (7/16" is just right for a .458) and wet & dry emery paper. Hogged it out with 180 grit until a paper patched bullet of the right size would just go in a little farther than was needed. That was with a semi-firm thumb push. Polished it up with 600 grit. Man what a difference that made. I test-seated some bullets that I had on the bench. The PPB's seats beautifully. Lots of good "feel" and the die adjusts like it is supposed to. I ended up taking about 0.003" out of it, most of the way through the guide bushing. It even made a huge difference with the gas checked 350 and 465 grain bullets that I had sitting on the bench.

Oh, and I was out at a toy store with the oldest grand son looking around. Tucked back in the corner was a rack of wood, aluminum, steel and brass for making models. I snagged two nice strips of brass that are just the right width and thickness to make a paper patching template, and a nice size straight edge. 98 cents each.

On top of that, I stopped by one of the local tire shops to check out tires for the truck, and the owner gave me about 30# of wheel weights for nothing. Even let me take the bucket that they were in, if I promised to bring it back. (already did) He told me to come back for more. One of his buddies is a muzzle stuffer, and does Civil War reenacting...so he knew what I was up to anyway.

...and to top it off, a local salvage yard sent me an e-mail and is willing to trade me wheel weights or scrap lead for the pickup brass that I collect anyway, when I'm out in the woods. I hate to see that stuff just laying there out in the middle of nowhere, so I pick it all up. (Heston! You go police up that brass!) Now I have a good use for it.

All in all, a good day at the homestead. Oh, and I got a lead on a pretty good short term job.

[leftiye]

Don't bore riders lose it (deform) at high acceleration (pressure)?

[pdawg_shooter]

Don't bore riders lose it (deform) at high acceleration (pressure)?

Yes they do. That is why I size mine to bore diameter +.001/.0015, then run the patch from ogive to base. The paper supports the nose (the whole bullet really) during acceleration in the barrel.

[windrider919]

leftiye wrote: Don't bore riders lose it (deform) at high acceleration (pressure)?

.02 - thats a yes or no or maybe question. It depends on nose shape and bore size. I have some old 308 cal moulds with fairly pointed noses that WILL deform under high acceleration, guaranteed. and I have moulds that have blunter, more rounded ones that have never given bad accuracy so apparently are NOT slumping under acceleration. I also noticed that caliber has a lot to do with it, the bigger the caliber the more resistance but that is actually because fewer big bore designs are 'pointed' and the thicker cylinder of lead is stiffer.

On my custom bullet the 'bore rider section is only .100 and I wrap the patch past that onto the nose so that when chambered, the rifling is cutting into the patch to within a few thousands of the bullets shoulder/diameter increase.

I think if you are evaluating whether a bore rider will work for you or not. 1st, how wide are the land tops. If you have wide lands and narrower grooves then bore riders do great. An example is rifling that has equal width lands and grooves. But if you have narrow lands and wide grooves then the bullet is not supported and will cock /slump over. An example here would be where the groove is 3 or 4 times as wide as the land width. It cant get accuracy if it has nothing to ride against! I think that is why those old two groove 303 barrels do so well, 50% of the bore is supporting the rider, even if the wide lands are really doing a crush and distort number on the engagement section of the bullets rear.

I guess what I am saying is this is especially one of those cases where you cannot say what will happen, just try it. By the way, the barrels I am using are Sheilen 'match' .458 but the land width is 1/4 the groove width. If I were to patch only to the shoulder, when chambered the small width lands would only touch a small area of the bullet and probably not do much. It is the presence of the patch, extended up to the curve of the nose that contacts and really rides the barrel, as it was designed to do.

Like pdawg shooter wrote: The paper supports the nose (the whole bullet really) during acceleration in the barrel.

In my case, yes the nose is supported and there is a .004 engagement through the paper on the rest of the bullet.

PS - and I too have had excellent results with the Lovern designs but I think the 'new' Postel has given me the best results as a cast grease groove, 500gr bullet. Cast with WW, 3% added tin and sized to .459.....1 1/4" groups at 100.
Got it from http://www.brooksmoulds.com/bullets.php

I will note that the pointed just never worked well in any rifle I have had. Never. If I remember right, down through the years I bought five or six 'pointed' bullet moulds, tried them and then sold them down the road, always telling the buyer that I did not get them to work, but they had to try it for themselves. If I had kept every mould I have bought , I would have over 50 moulds. Instead I have a tried and proven seven moulds.

[303Guy]

I think that is why those old two groove 303 barrels do so well, 50% of the bore is supporting the rider,

That'll be a typo. The two-groove has 80% bore area.

[windrider919]

Mea Culpa - My Bad

I KNEW that, just did not catch it in the 'flow'

[offshore44]

Success! I got a chance to head out and do some shooting today.

102 rounds of 458WM went down range, along with a few misc other rounds. All cast. About 85 of them, or more, from the bench.

I was disappointed with the accuracy of the 350 grn cast in all three flavors. Fun for plinking, just not very accurate. The 350 grn paper patched wasn't any better than the gas checked. Powders used were 5744, Trail Boss and H4895.

Now for the 405 grn paper patched that I have been working on. First the bad...the one's patched with velum and seated to reloading manual specs shoots about 3-4" groups with occasional fliers off to who knows where. I am guessing that they were too far off the lands and too small. Not all of the paper patches came off nicely either. I think that the velum is just to tough for this use.

Now...the 405 grn cast from wheel weights and patched with printer paper show some real promise. I made up 25 of those. Seated a 1/4" into the case, and just barely off touching the throat. They were putting holes in the paper that were consistently touching at 70 yards. Nice "poof" of confetti about 4 - 5' in front of the muzzle. The patched were coming off in strips and were very consistent. The velocity was right at 2450 fps. The bullets weigh in at 420 grns patched and ready to load. The size of the bullet was 0.452" before paper patching. The bore riding section is 0.450". The patch goes from just past the ogive and folds over the base. I loaded with 75 grns of H4895, which is a full, but uncompressed charge. The rifle had beat on me some at that point, so I was using the set trigger and wasn't holding as steady as earlier in the day.

I'm impressed. Without working out all of the small details to make this consistent, it is shooting way better than hunting accuracy. Even way better than the target that came with the rifle from the factory. The wheel weights are more accurate than the straight lead. I'll double check that later just to make sure.

All I can say is "Wow!".

Thanks for the help guys!!! I'm calling this a good start...

[windrider919]

Another tip that 'might' help.

You might want to play with alloy a bit too, some rifles prefer just lead, some WW and a few like a little tin mixed in.

On my Weatherby actioned .458 it has a Douglas barrel that for some reason likes bullets a little harder. So when I have 10 lbs of molten WW, cleaned and fluxed, I put in about 8" of 1/8"dia. lead free solder (which is pure tin) I started to do this because the moulds fill out a little crisper on the corners with a dash of tin. Then when I shot the bullets with the same load - I got slightly better groups. But with my Ruger 77 n Shilen barrel, it does not make an accuracy difference. I still do it every casting time because the bullets are a little more consistent in weight in a batch with a couple % tin.

And try a quicker powder on those 350 grainers, I mentioned before that PP have less bore friction and the lighter boolets do not always give full burn with the slower powders. Did you look in the barrel and see if you had any unburned powder grains with that bullet weight?

[303Guy]

They were putting holes in the paper that were consistently touching at 70 yards.

Great!

[pdawg_shooter]

I am a fan of heavy for caliber bullets in all my rifles. I do load some light 150gr in my 30s for coyotes but as a rule I get my best accuracy with the heavies.

[offshore44]

Another tip that 'might' help.

You might want to play with alloy a bit too, some rifles prefer just lead, some WW and a few like a little tin mixed in.

On my Weatherby actioned .458 it has a Douglas barrel that for some reason likes bullets a little harder. So when I have 10 lbs of molten WW, cleaned and fluxed, I put in about 8" of 1/8"dia. lead free solder (which is pure tin) I started to do this because the moulds fill out a little crisper on the corners with a dash of tin. Then when I shot the bullets with the same load - I got slightly better groups. But with my Ruger 77 n Shilen barrel, it does not make an accuracy difference. I still do it every casting time because the bullets are a little more consistent in weight in a batch with a couple % tin.

And try a quicker powder on those 350 grainers, I mentioned before that PP have less bore friction and the lighter boolets do not always give full burn with the slower powders. Did you look in the barrel and see if you had any unburned powder grains with that bullet weight?

I'm thinking that I am going to start with sorting bullets for weight, and see what that buys me. Then I'll work on alloys, to see what changes that makes. Then powders, to see what that does.

If anyone has a better idea on how to proceed, I'm all ears.

As a side note, I only had two patched go bad on me. One was crimped a little hard and got partially cut from where the wrap entered the case to about 1/4 the way around. One came partially unwrapped, so I smoothed it back down with my fingers and shot it anyway. It hit the backer board just outside the 6" target.

I didn't check the bore for unburned powder on the 350 grainers windrider919. I know that I am getting a complete burn from H4895 with the heavier bullets. Pretty clean as well. For the moment, I think, those are getting loaded with Trail Boss for the wife and daughter to shoot. One thing at a time.

[offshore44]

I am a fan of heavy for caliber bullets in all my rifles. I do load some light 150gr in my 30s for coyotes but as a rule I get my best accuracy with the heavies.

I'll give that a try later on pdawg_shooter. I know that the 465 grn GC (not heavy for caliber) gave a discernibly greater thump than the 405's PP'd. Those were loaded with 5744 powder. I'm guessing that if I went to 550 or bigger, it'll be even more noticeable. I did notice that the 190 grn gc's in the 8mm were pretty consistent.

Once I get the 405's dialed in, I'll be back for something heavier to paper patch and shoot slower. Maybe a lovern or postell design? I didn't end up with any bruises from this session, but I am a little sore today. Shooting this thing off the bench is a non-trivial exercise.

The next time out I'm going to work on improving the consistency of the bullets, and shooting slung up from different positions. I haven't done that yet. Shooting standing and unslung is no problem.

[offshore44]

Great!

I thought so... One string of ten with the velum patched bullets chewed a hole in the backer board that was about 2-1/2" wide and 2" tall. Looked like a small angry beaver got out of a wooden box. There was a small rock on the berm behind the target that I didn't notice. It was about the size of my fist. It got hit with one of the shots and looked for all the world like a chip shot out of a sand trap. These bullets sure do hit with authority, don't they.

[offshore44]

Here's a question...and, yes I'll do a search for the answer as well...how much does bullet weight effect accuracy for all practical purposes? I just went through about 25 bullets, and they varied by about 2 grains min to max. The vast majority were within about two or three tenths of a grain plus or minus. I'm guessing that it makes a bigger difference the farther that you are shooting.

[pdawg_shooter]

I weigh and inspect all my cast bullets, even hand gun. I allow + or - 1% total. A 400gr bullet is accepted from 398 to 402. Works for me, but then I consider 200 yards long range shooting. If I cant stalk closer than than that I dont take the shot. Exceptions are prairie dogs and coyotes.

[offshore44]

Cool, thanks pdawg_shooter. So what I'm casting are already within that tolerance range. Most are much closer.

Another question for the experts... I am starting to process my brass from this weekends session. The chamber on my rifle is "generous" to say the least. It is a safari gun, so that is to be expected.

I made up a couple of paper patched bullets to do a checking, and the bullets that mike out at 0.463 - 0.464" after the patches dry are a firm thumb fit into the fired cases. That's good, in that if I don't resize the cases, they will last a lot longer. Just put a slight flare on the case mouth and thumb seat them. I made up a dummy round and it cycles and chambers just fine. The down side is that putting five in the magazine is a non-starter. That is not enough neck tension to hold everything in place under recoil. If I single shot the rifle, it is no big deal. I used a Lee factory crimp die to put a crimp on, but unfortunately the crimp falls on a lube groove. Plus I'm thinking that if I put enough crimp on the case to hold the bullet under recoil it is going to cut the paper patch.

When I cycled the dummy round through the action, I did get a nice mark around the paper on the ogive from the leade. This falls in line with what windrider919 was telling me earlier. I think that I'll adjust the seating depth a little to get the crimp to fall on one of the ridge and see what happens.

Oh man, I'm seeing two new dies and a new bullet mold in my future. A Lee universal de-capper and a Lee universal flare die. Then a mold for something like the "windrider bullet" or equivalent. Anyone got a favorite cast paper patched bullet mold for a 458WM? 400 - 450 grn or so. I'll do some looking for a postell or Lovern that drops about 0.452 with wheel weights.

[Just Duke]

Bullet specs: Saeco 405 grn. non-gas checked with lube grooves
As cast: (unalloyed lead)
Bore riding nose dia.: 0.449"
Diameter over the lube grooves: 0.4575"

I have the same mould and it performs exceptionally in all my 45-70's. I also have a Winchester New Model .458 Safari I'm going to try this in for Whitetail deer at around 1500fps.
Great thread by the way but,

[offshore44]

I have the same mould and it performs exceptionally in all my 45-70's. I also have a New Model .458 Safari I'm going to try this in for Whitetail deer at around 1500fps.
Great thread by the way but,

Ouch! I knew that someone would eventually hammer me on the picture thing...

Thanks for the compliment on the thread, but I'm just asking the questions. (...and trying out the responses) Windrider919, pdawg_shooter, 303Guy, et al are doing all the heavy lifting on this one.

How about this: Once I get all of the bugs and details worked out, I post a series of pictures and details on what worked. It would only apply to my rifle and what not, but it would be pretty complete and may serve as a good guide to others.

Sound like a deal?

[Just Duke]

Ouch! I knew that someone would eventually hammer me on the picture thing...

Thanks for the compliment on the thread, but I'm just asking the questions. (...and trying out the responses) Windrider919, pdawg_shooter, 303Guy, et al are doing all the heavy lifting on this one.

How about this: Once I get all of the bugs and details worked out, I post a series of pictures and details on what worked. It would only apply to my rifle and what not, but it would be pretty complete and may serve as a good guide to others.

Sound like a deal?

Sounds like a plan and thanks for the polite answer back sir.

[Just Duke]

Hope my testing works out as good as yours. I have 600 empty cases most new screaming for bullets.