New caster(Muzzle loader ?)

[jack19512]

Hello all, not been casting long. Just received my Lee 360 gr. .500 mold. This will be my first cast bullets for my muzzle loader. I am not quite sure about the lead hardness that is best suited for muzzle loader bullets.

I have a lot of wheel weights and mixed in with them is a small amount of the stick on weights. I have no access to any other lead sources.

Am I correct in that straight wheel weights are too hard for the muzzle loader bullets? If so what does everyone else use. The help is appreciated. Thanks.

[44woody]

Jack19512 I have been using the stick on ones for years to make my ml bullets with 44woody

[mooman76]

Soft lead or pure lead is the best for muzzle loaders but if WW lead is all you have it will work fine, I've used it for years also!

[shooter575]

Jack go down to the botton of the M/L page and set to look at the threads to the beginning.LOTS of info there and WW in M/L has been brought a number of times

[jack19512]

Thanks to all.

[Blammer]

Jack-WW will work just fine for MZ bullets.

you're shooting 50 cal right?

[jack19512]

Yes, 50 cal.

[Rattus58]

How fine will wheel weights work? I've never been able to get a wheel weight down my bores, so I'm not sure I'd be listening to that advise.

Aloha... Tom

[jack19512]

I cast a bunch of the bullets and they are good looking bullets but have run into one problem. I ran a bunch of them through my .459 sizer and now they are too small.

Looks like I will have to shoot them as cast. If it doesn't rain tomorrow hopefully I will get to see how they are going to do.

[jack19512]

How fine will wheel weights work? I've never been able to get a wheel weight down my bores, so I'm not sure I'd be listening to that advise.

Aloha... Tom

There has to be one in every crowd.

[Rattus58]

Hey .... cast away...... I gave you my experiences with wheel weights. Period.

Oh, and I did what they all suggested about looking for the experts on wheel weights and conicals.... and dang... have to say I'm probably just stupid... couldn't find a single article on wheel weights and conicals... but these other guys will be able to point you right to it I'm sure.

Oh.... the two articles I did find reference to were about wheelweights and sabots.... personally I think you could used depleted uranium in a sabot... the other... round balls... again housed in a patch and of little consequence to accuracy.... but I'm sure you'll get outstanding performance from your wheelweights in your gun, I should have known better actually... pure lead really is too soft anyway... probably lead your bore on the first shot, throwing off your accuracy anyway.. better to have harder lead to be sure anyway... that way you'll minimize yer problems.

Oh... and I'm certain that your use of wheel weights will actually provide you with increased accuracy... that is important I think.. we don't want to be spraying bullets all over the target now do we...

Please forgive me for misleading you. I do not have anywhere near the experience of the rest and really did speak out of turn. I promise, it'll never happen again.

[jack19512]

Shot my first group yesterday. They shot same poi the other bullets I had been using. I used 70 grs. powder. Not the best group but considering this is the first 3 shot group I am happy and confident they will get better. I wanted to wait and set up my chronograph for the next shoot. Group was shot from 60 yards. Bullets fit fine when not sized.

[jack19512]

I ran a bunch of them through my .459 sizer

My mistake, it was a .501 sizer.

[Rattus58]

What size target is that?

This group is offhand or off a bench?

If this is offhand at 60 yards... I wouldn't be do concerned. What type of rifle are you shooting?

Aloha...

[jack19512]

The target is a 100 yard smallbore rifle. The group was shot from off the hood of my pickup. The rifle is a Rossi. I managed to get off two shots today before the rain started coming down. According to my chronograph the velocities of the two shots were 1508 fps. and 1543 fps. with 70 grns. of powder.

As stated in an earlier post, when the bullets were sized to .501 they were too loose fit in the barrel but fit pretty much like all of the other bullets I have used in the past when used as cast. I hope to obtain some lead in the future but have to use the wheel weights for now. I am confident I can improve on my groups.

[Rattus58]

Is that Lee Mold the "improved" Minie? If it is, then there are a couple of things you might want to do.

The skirt on that minie is quite thin and won't take a large load without either cutting the pin or cutting it off.

One thing I would do if I was you, would be to put lube into the the cavity to help your "indefined pedigree" lead swell into the bore grooves to seal the bore quickly.

Another thing I would do would be to cut some cardboard the groove to groove diameter of your barrel. I don't know rossie, but it could be anywhere from .0035 on each side to .012 on each side, so if the latter, cut it to .75 of an inch and push it down onto your powder before you load the bullet. This will help with gas cutting and should give your bullet more time to expand without blowby melting anything. It will definitely help protect that thin base. If the cardboard works, then go to Midway/Midsouth or wherever to get some cardboard wads or you could use felt I guess, but I prefer the cardwad.

Actually bein a bettin man, I venture a quarter that you're groups will improve with the wad no matter. I'm not telling you how to shoot, but if I was shooting off the hood of my car, I'd make a large pillow or a bag of rice or beans or something elevated to where I'm not leaning on the car across the hood. Two, I'd be using a smaller piller at the back to hold the butt UP against my shoulder. I wouldn't breath, then squeeze the trigger till it went off. Hoods of vehicles is almost no better than offhand usually so since I do it alot too, have found that a throw away blanket over the hood, a bag of rice for me on blocks and a squeeze bag for the butt all work together to keep things as tight as I can and I don't lean over the hood no more... just enough to hold the buttstock in my shoulder.

If your group doesn't improve with these changes, I'd say try softer lead.

Aloha...

[mooman76]

Rattus,
Interesting read. I've heard of some taking the improved Minnie mould apart and taking a little off the end that forms the skirt to make a thicker skirt and re riveting it on to improve accuracy with higher pressures.

[Rattus58]

Hi Mooman....

I actually had LEE do this for me on about four of my molds... then i got someone who said that would make it a custom mold and wanted to charge me 100 bucks for it... but a friend of mine has a lathe and fixed the last couple I got of this mold... I have them from .45 to 58.

I know of one fella who chucked it in a drill and took a file to it... I'da prbably done that too... but another good buddy of mine suggested emery clothe as a better media fer the do it yerselfer and the drill angle. With the heavier skirt, they can take a hell of a load without coming apart, but I've mostly fast twist rifles, and they don't work too well past about 70 grains of Pyrodex P... but they still harvest game. My very first buck taken with my voluntee was with that bullet and I was impressed.... walked about 3 steps and fell over walking..

Aloha...

[Moose]

Jack, with a proper patch you could shoot ball bearings with good results, since the ball never touches the bore. Patches are just do-it-yerself sabots. Now, where minie/maxies are concerned, any lead that you can autograph with your thumbnail is probably ok. Some minie balls benefit from some tin, as otherwise they have been known to leave the skirt in the bore. Pretty rare, but it does happen. Big mess to clean up. As far as stuffing the hollow base? Don't do it. Will have a lucky thing to keep 'em on the paper at 50 yards. Reason? No two gobs of grease blow the skirt out the same way. or rather, to the same degree. The original Minie folks discovered this back before the War of Northern Aggression - IMHO the grease in the base idea is one way to get lube in the bore - which it doesn't do all that well. What it does do, besides make wonderful flyers, is splatter hot nasty grease out sideways from the muzzle. Say as much as 10 feet, or more. Now where Maxiballs are in use, you need two things - the alloy has to be soft enough to get down the bore with relative ease, and the fit of the maxi with respect to the lands is pretty important. Within .001 of the "sweet spot" for your barrel, whatever that is. And Maxieballs don't work as well with deep-cut (.08+) grooves. Wow, that's long winded- anyway, use ww, and check your local building supply -Not HomeDespot et al- for lead sheet, used for roof flashing.. Good luck and keep up the fine work!

[Rattus58]

Hi Moose....

You say here "Will have a lucky thing to keep 'em on the paper at 50 yards. Reason? No two gobs of grease blow the skirt out the same way." and my question to you would be why wouldn't they? The cavities of the minie are of exact dimension, and a filled base with the same mixture should weigh the same, and if you have ever done this yourself, you know that filled or unfilled, the bullets wind up weighing within just a few grains of each other.

As to flyers, you may be correct that certain minies will give flyers, but I wouldn't attribute it to the lube in the base, especially when the bullet is near bore sized. Skirt thickness and integrity with a minie is in my opinion, far more likely to cause a flyer than is the lube. I have only been using lube in my guns for 15 years, and in the case of the 315 grain Lyman or Rapine minies for the 58 caliber, I can attest that these bullets will fly exactly the same with lube, without lube, lube stuck to the nose, every kind of situation you can figure cuz he pointy nose seems to always find its way up the rear end of the bullet next to it. These 315 wadcutters are about the most accurate bullet I've seen for a minie.

The 58 caliber version of this very same minie is indestructible. Now its true, that my skirt on this for is about .100, as thick as is the Lyman 577611... and THAT bullet with our without lube shoots all day.

Benefits of lube are that you can shoot all day without swabbing in my zoave, though the barrel gets hot and you need to slow down a bit sometimes.

You have me at a disadvantage with these bullets. I've modified every single one of them except for the 315 grainers. The .454 version of these bullets, sized to .452 are accurate in some of my guns up to only 70 grains of powder, and even there, wouldn't be winning any matches.

I do have a Rapine minie that I've filled with lube that has a thin skirt to it, that we can't keep on paper. I've not shot that bullet without lube, and I'm not sure whether Underclocked shot it with or without lube either, but that bullet was dismal for both of us, so much so, I trashed the mold.

Like anything else, I would experiment first. My experiences with lube in the bases has been positive, so much so, in fact, that I've not bothered to try to shoot them without. I just make sure their filled and scraped flat. Freezing them till solid makes the process easier over the long run with lube too.

Aloha...