Need some help and suggestions - casting for in-line

[Rattus58]

I have always wondered how gas checks on a muzzleloading boolit would work. Are they easy to load? I have thought about making some PB checks for my .50 boolit that I am working with. I could see where a little more grip at the base of the boolit would be a good thing. I have never had problems with leading, which is what gas checks are normally used for. But my mind does wonder if they would be beneficial in other ways.

Two or three things about heavy bullets in muzzleloaders and gas checks.

Heavy bullets. I've had many people ask me how much powder do I use for my heavy bullets, thinking that like sabots, we are using 120 grains or so. In actuality, I use 70 or 80 grains max for all of my shooting with a heavy bullet. Muskets were using duplex loads of 70 grains at the most as far as I know and using 500 grain minies.. It only takes getting them off the powder, the bullet will do the rest.

It's more important to find an accurate load rather than how much your shoulder will handle. The reason I don't use more powder is that I discovered completely by accident that a deer shot with 70 grains is just as dead as one shot with 90, and in some cases, 70 was most accurate... that to me is the key.

You touched on another thing, twist. Big bullets that are also long bullets, require a fast twist.

http://kwk.us/twist.html is an interesting site I found surfing around over the weekend to help with this and for example with my .451 caliber volunteer that shoots a bullet at roughly 1200 fps with a 1.2" - 1.3" bullet max, you see my 1-20" works at low velocities, and that is key, can you stabilize the bullet. I can get bullets up to 1400 to 1450 with a little more powder, but I'm hunting close range so for me its "why?".

Gas checks. I love gas checks in a muzzleloader bullet. I had one experience where I was at the range with my favorite bullet and shot a 90 grain load for my first shot with a 470 grain bullet and hit the black. My second bullet I don't remember even hit the paper. I had forgotten to bring my walters wads and had no reasonable way to make wads so in frustration, shot up my supply of lead bullets... and out of 20 ... hit the black twice...

While packing up, I found a box of some Mose copper cruisers, a 470 or so grain gas check bullet. Just to spite myself, I loaded one of them (they load slightly harder than lead) and took a shot at a fresh target... and hit the black.... and no... wasn't using black construction paper as my detractors like to charge from time to time ...

This revelation was a surprise and my second shot was also in the black... as was the third forth and 5th. Was it the gas check cleaned up the leading? That would be my assertion.

Back to the leading in the first place. That was a consternation to me. I have never had that situation develop prior, nor since shooting bare based bullets... I don't usually shoot 90 grains, but that was a particular effort to compare an experimental load with a Pyrodex P load and maybe I had some debris in the bore that started the leading on the first shot.. don't know... but I usually use powder, walters wad, bullet.

Gas checks... I prefer them now to a basic bullet but in the manner that I'm making bullets, is a more tenuous process if you are using a lubrizer in my case... but that could be cuz I'm self taught.... and that isn't always the best course of construction...
I'm not dissing bareassed bullets. I shoot them as much as my gas checks and due in large part to superstition, shoot them more often for hunting than the gas checks, but they are fun to make, great to shoot (and this too has a lot to do with the guys who designed the gas checks I shoot) and I'm convinced anyway, eliminate leading.

My story... one of many... and I'm trying to remember if I should stick to it...

Much aloha...

[skullmount]

I just want to add that the "slip-fit" system as described above and advocated by Doc White works great in most Knight rifles.

UC,

Got to thinking about my "knight" ............. did the early "mml" ( name before knight) marked ones have deeper grooves. My caliper is at a friends on his reloading bench right now so I can't measure the gun. I have only shot the gun to set others up to hunt with it since I bought the White....................

[skullmount]

By day they poured their lead, by night they held communion
The hunts were sometimes planned, a sort of White reunion
The tube was grooved precisely, to guide the heaviest lead
By day a pound of powder, a smile at night to bed

Come on UC, he needs a platform.................do ya think the rat forgot where he was when he entered his verse here ??

[Rattus58]

UC,

Got to thinking about my "knight" ............. did the early "mml" ( name before knight) marked ones have deeper grooves. My caliper is at a friends on his reloading bench right now so I can't measure the gun. I have only shot the gun to set others up to hunt with it since I bought the White....................

Back in the day, I shot a MK85 with some of Docs Super Slugs and I was impressed that it, the MK85 at least, was amazingly accurate when you could figure out how to make it go bang.. (safety)..

Aloha...

[Underclocked]

Carl, I can't answer you about the groove difference. As to Rattus' poetry, there probably is no good answer. Come on Rattus, credit to where it's due, Mose turned us on to this gas check thing with some real beauties. I was pleased to be the first to try the particular bullet shown below that Mose made and sent me to test in my White. Not bad for the first three shots. I do believe annealing the checks is necessary for use on the conicals but I've never manufactured any myself.

[Bullshop]

UC
If you remember I also sent you some .504" gas check bullets to try. I think you posted some targets fired with them as well.
Yes absolutely the gas checks were annealed so as to obturate at lower pressure.
I do also remember someone on the DWBs site that tried some .451" in a 45 cal White I think they were Hornady 300gn XTPs. Fueled with T-7 they worked good and the recovered bullets showed engraving so did indeed obturate. I dont remember if they were annealed or not though.
The GC bullets I sent you were a 550gn round nose gas check from an NEI mold for the 505 Gibbs. I sized them to .504" and installed the annealed gas checks. They shot very good for me too.

[Underclocked]

newton, to more directly answer your question - I found the gas checked bullets to be a skosh more difficult to start correctly than those without the check. The precision of the sizing is critical with a gas checked bullet so far as ease of loading. A lot would also depend upon how your bore is crowned. I found the sound the checked bullets make when going down the bore to be different enough to make me wonder what the heck I was doing - but it worked and worked well. I think Rattus garnered more info from John Moseley about his process than did any of the rest of us so he could probably tell more about the annealing and total process. You may at times need an interpreter though.

[Underclocked]

Dan, I honestly don't recall the 550 grainers but notice in the top pics I posted - the green Remington target - shows results with some 620 grain gas checked bullets you made and sent me. Those shot very well.

And I do recall (very roughly) the testing someone did with the 300 grain XTPs. I've since read of a lot of other testing where folks use similar bullets to that XTP and knurl them up to achieve a nice fit by rolling them between two bastard files. You can do it with one but I guess two makes it go a little faster. Carlos (from Ed's Gun Shop in Vass, North Carolina) has done a lot of testing with such altered bullets out of various rifles and has achieved some amazingly accurate results.

For the group below, he used a CVA Apex .50 caliber with barrel shortened to 20" length. The bullet used was a 300 grain SST in .500 caliber - no sabot. The target distance is 300 yards and his comment, "Apex at 300 yrds. four shot. the low left was trying to figure the POA, and once I did the other three are there."

[Bullshop]

You may be right on the weight of the gas check bullets I sent. I am most likely mistaken on that.

[Whiterabbit]

Selmerfan, what's your status on this one? I can help you a bit. Have a 250 REAL im not using plus I have some neat sabots for boat tails (read: GC boolit without the GC) you can play with. Pop in chat sometime after dinnertime.

[Rattus58]

Carl, I can't answer you about the groove difference. As to Rattus' poetry, there probably is no good answer. Come on Rattus, credit to where it's due, Mose turned us on to this gas check thing with some real beauties. I was pleased to be the first to try the particular bullet shown below that Mose made and sent me to test in my White. Not bad for the first three shots. I do believe annealing the checks is necessary for use on the conicals but I've never manufactured any myself.

"Come on Rattus, credit to where it's due, Mose turned us on to this gas check thing with some real beauties"

While packing up, I found a box of some Mose copper cruisers, a 470 or so grain gas check bullet. Just to spite myself, I loaded one of them (they load slightly harder than lead) and took a shot at a fresh target... and hit the black.... and no... wasn't using black construction paper as my detractors like to charge from time to time

You were sayin?

[cwskirmisher]

How did these same rounds perform w/o the GC? In my experience, GC's only really serve to allow faster MV without leading above around 1800 fps or more. No real purpose in BP applications. If the lube is functioning properly, should have soft fouling, and if boolit is sized to barrel correctly, shouldn't be getting any leading at BP speeds. I've been wrong before - this may be a perfectly good working solution - just not convinced that the boolits won't perform perfectly well and accurately without the GC.

[Rattus58]

How did these same rounds perform w/o the GC? In my experience, GC's only really serve to allow faster MV without leading above around 1800 fps or more. No real purpose in BP applications. If the lube is functioning properly, should have soft fouling, and if boolit is sized to barrel correctly, shouldn't be getting any leading at BP speeds. I've been wrong before - this may be a perfectly good working solution - just not convinced that the boolits won't perform perfectly well and accurately without the GC.

I shoot gas check bullets all the time without the gas check over a wad. What to you is perfectly well and accurate? A properly fitted gas check is going to overall perform the job it's meant to do, where an unchecked bullet is subject to the vagaries of your loading process, your ignition process and though I've not checked it, I'm told that gas checks retain velocity variances better...

A gas check in my opinion probably suffers the same fortunes that a properly patched round ball does... constistency. But I can tell you this, I rarely suffer leading with my bullets and the condition to my memory has ALWAYS been the same... an uncarded shot with an ungaschecked bullet.

To me a gas check bullet is just another advancement that works. I'm not a ballistician, but bullets are bullets and some are good for your gun and some aren't. Those that I wound up with were tediously designed and my 50 caliber Austin Hallek .499 gas check bullet was a system a friend of mine had built up from me from a .45 sizer to .499 I believe with emery cloth... that is love of service and ultimately it demonstrated itself on the target fields.

this is the resident opinions of the three of us... and hard to argue with...

[Underclocked]

cwskirmisher, I can't answer your question as I've never shot those same bullets minus the check. I don't bother with the gas checks for my my own home brew as the accuracy and performance I get is certainly on par. I don't own a chrono so can't even speak to the velocity issue.

Tom......, nary.

[Rattus58]

cwskirmisher, I can't answer your question as I've never shot those same bullets minus the check. I don't bother with the gas checks for my my own home brew as the accuracy and performance I get is certainly on par. I don't own a chrono so can't even speak to the velocity issue.

Tom......, nary.

You don't shoot GC's without the GC cuz you be a discriminitating sort... us of lesser caliber on the other hand.... course we attempt to refrain from peein on fences anymore... you not bein real clear about what you meant by "well the bestest remedy for you is to go pee on that fence over there... "

[Newshooter]

Like the op I too am looking into casting my own bullets for my CVA accura. I just bought it last year and found that TC shockwaves at 250 grains shoot great out to 200yards. Being me I am way to tight to pay the price for them to many times, anyway just wondering what you guys think of designing a mold real similar to that (smooth sides and pointed) to shoot with sabots? I am kinda curious why no one has made a mold like that as well or am I just missing somthing here?

[Whiterabbit]

hard to find someone who can make a spitzer mold. wfn's dont have issues with nose slump, are easier to lubrisize (most don't got for PP molds). One option is ski binding plugs in a hollowpoint mold, but those aren't cheap either.

All for an inline that most of us don't shoot to distanced past those where a pistol bullet would work just fine? It's kind of a special case.

I'm not saying it doesn't have merit, but were I in the case of wanting smooth streamline bullet, I'd have one made that used BPCR features from a 45/70, have the mold sized to fit my sabot, pull the GG, and move on. I suspect that would be FAR easier to have made from the cost competitive moldmakers than to find a spitzer maker.

But that's just my thoughts off the top of my head.

[Whiterabbit]

BUT.

If you want to try it, check out the lee 459-500-3R. You can cast it soft or even air cooled WW and size in the lee sizers however big you want. By the time you approach 452 there wont be much grease groove left, and will be a good simulation of what you want. Cheap.

[plinky56]

Don't know how technical you want to get, but I use either a .44 or .45 cal pistol boolit in a sabot in my t/c and it is plenty accurate and will take deer out to 150 yds. I use 80 gr of 777 and as long as the mv is around 1200 fps, you'll get one hole in and out. I usually get shots on deer of 75 yds, zero 1" high at 50 yds and i'm 3" low at 150. Just my 2 cents worth, so I don't have to buy more all the way around, but use what I allready have. Just match the sabots to your caliber and it works fine.