First time casting for 45-70, NOE 460-350 GC RD

[cold1]

Made my first batch with NOE 460-350 GC RD mold this weekend. Using COWW and lead air cooled. It took a few sessions to start to figure out the personality of this mold. It is my first 4 cavity mold and it seems to me to be a little more "cranky" than the 2 cavity molds I have. Hitting the sweet spot of mold temp and alloy temp was a little tough, but i got over 150 pills cast. I gave them all a coating of alox.

Next was finding a load for the powder I had on hand, IMR 4227. I hit the trusty manuals and found a start load of 35gr. It should keep me below 1500FPS in my Marlin. I loaded up 6 to give them a try. At 50 yrds they did good, better than my offhand shooting. The recoil was a little snappy. I wanted to see how the bore was since this was my first cast bullets in this rifle. Alox isnt working. I had some heavy leading from start to finish of the barrel. A few minutes with a tight patch and some hoppes #9 and it was cleaned out.

Off to the net we go! I found the old NRA recipe for lube and I had everything on hand for it. SO I mixed some up on the propane burner. I pan lubed about 100 or so and they are cooling as I type. Maybe next weekend we will see how that lube works.

[flashhole]

I want to follow your thread. I cast using wheel weight lead with a Lee 340 grain, 2-cavity mold and run them through a Lee Sizer. Then lubed with Liquid Alox. No leading in my Guide Gun. The pic is the second large batch, I just shot up 48 a few days ago. I was specifically looking for leading and potential inaccuracy caused by leading. No leading and great accuracy. I was shooting my bullet over 3.1cc Lee Dipper Cup of Varget.

[WHITETAIL]

You can also try Johnson paste wax.
Use a jar and put the boolits in it.
then add some JPW and melt the wax.
Use tweesers to get them out and put them
on wax paper over night.

[stubert]

I just shot my first batch of NOE 460-350 gc. yesterday, Only shot at 25 yards, but put all of them in the 10 ring. Lube is 50/50 moly- beeswax, I am using 52. gr. of 3031 in Win. cases. No leading at all. Vey impressed with this bullet. I bought the brass 4 holer with the temperture probe. My mold likes 475 deg. with the alloy at 750 deg.

[flashhole]

stubert, how did you measure your mold temp?

[stubert]

Flashhole, NOE drilled a hole for a probe in the side of the mold block. It uses a BBQ thermometer. They are listed on NOE's web site. $32.00 for the thermometer and it comes with the drill bit. I also heat up the mold on a hot plate.

[Skipper]

Made my first batch with NOE 460-350 GC RD mold this weekend. Using COWW and lead air cooled. It took a few sessions to start to figure out the personality of this mold. It is my first 4 cavity mold and it seems to me to be a little more "cranky" than the 2 cavity molds I have. Hitting the sweet spot of mold temp and alloy temp was a little tough, but i got over 150 pills cast. I gave them all a coating of alox.

Next was finding a load for the powder I had on hand, IMR 4227. I hit the trusty manuals and found a start load of 35gr. It should keep me below 1500FPS in my Marlin. I loaded up 6 to give them a try. At 50 yrds they did good, better than my offhand shooting. The recoil was a little snappy. I wanted to see how the bore was since this was my first cast bullets in this rifle. Alox isnt working. I had some heavy leading from start to finish of the barrel. A few minutes with a tight patch and some hoppes #9 and it was cleaned out.

Off to the net we go! I found the old NRA recipe for lube and I had everything on hand for it. SO I mixed some up on the propane burner. I pan lubed about 100 or so and they are cooling as I type. Maybe next weekend we will see how that lube works.

What is your bullet diameter?

[stubert]

My NOE mold is dropping at .4605 (all cavitys) with lyman #2 sweetened with 10% pure. About 12 bhn with a Lee tester.

[flashhole]

What is magical about 12 bhn?

[Tailhunter]

What is magical about 12 bhn?

Good question.

[pjames32]

I cast this boolit with 20:1 with good results. I tried 4227 since I had it in stock. 5744 seems to work better. I load in the 1200-1400fps range with good accuracy.
PJ

[cold1]

I tried the AC COWW with the NRA lube today. I also cut the powder back by 0.5gr for a charge of 34.5gr. I made 5 and shot them. They grouped pretty good and I did get some leading, not as much as yesterday. Most of the leading was towards the muzzle end of the barrel. I did not get a "lube star" on the muzzle. That leads me to believe that the lube is not lasting the full length of the barrel. Whether that is due to not enough lube (all groves are full) or the lube is too soft I dont know yet.

I had a little while tonight so I wanted to try water dropping some pills to see how that would effect the leading. So I casted a few and water dropped them. After they cooled I did the smash test in the vise with an air cooled and a water dropped boolit. The water drop was much harder than the AC. The AC boolit deformed tremendously and the water cooled barely.

Only wanting to change one variable tonight so went ahead and placed the new water cooled boolits in the NRA lube and melted it back down. They are cooling off. Hopefully I will be able to test them tomorrow. If i still get leading and no lube star on the muzzle I think I will add a little paraffin to the lube to harden it up.

PS forgot to add that the AC boolits were dropping between .460 and .461. Variation is probably due to me messing with the temp while casting.

[flashhole]

Please post your results. Sounds to me like you may have hit on the best approach for reducing leading.

[stubert]

Nothing magical, I like a soft bullet.

[cold1]

It looks like the water quenched COWW is the answer. I made up 6 this evening and sent 5 of them down range. No Leading at all. The barrel was clean and shiny with a little powder residue. Grouping was good at 50 yards. I put one over the chrony to see what it was doing, 1660FPS. I thought that was a little high so I went to the manual. Well I dont know if my stupid kicked in or what but I could have sworn the start load of IMR4227 at 35.9grns was booked at 1670fps. It wasnt, it was in the high 1700s. SO my "reduced" load of 34.5grains is 1660FPS. I little higher than I was wanting but OK. I might pick up some 3031 and go slower.

I am still not happy with the lube. I think it could be better. I believe it is too soft for this speed. I think my next experiment will be to stiffen up the lube a little. I would like to see a lube star on the crown. I dont know if it actually means anything or not but it makes me feel better.

[725]

If you are looking for a good lube, check out the lube section here and brew some of "Ben's Red". Wonderful stuff. You even might want to follow up with some of "Ben's Liquid Lube". I tend to use both, but frequently use just the Ben's Red. You have a great boolit there and if it's sized to the bore and has the above two lubes on it, you will not have a leading problem.

[cold1]

I havent slugged slugged the barrel yet. I picked up this mold because of all the positive feedback I have been seeing about this mold and the 1895. It was about half and half of folks shooting them as cast and sizing. I am shooting them as cast. My primary concern was getting a bullet down range. Now that I have accomplished that I am going to start getting technical with them. I want to see what they do at 100yds as cast. Once I do that I will slug the barrel and size accordingly to see what that does to the group size. The last step will be to gas check them and see what happens to group size then.

Now that I have a bullet that I cast to hunt with this year, I can take my time and do the testing. There is no more rush to get it done. I am very interested in seeing how each different step effects accuracy.

[725]

It's a great hunter. Gotta love the .45-70!

[altheating]

Here is a group shot today with that NOE boolit shot at 100 yards. This is one of three groups that looked all alike. Ruger #1, 50/50 WW/Pure Lead, double thickness Lithoplate gas checks made with a Freechecks III.

[HiVelocity]

Makes me wonder what a powder coated bullet would do with 16 grains of Unique behind it............... I have this same mold, cast up about 50 this afternoon and allowed them to air cool. I do powder coat and plan to do these in black. I'm reminded that the American buffalo almost became extinct from the extended use of a 400 grain bullet at 1300 fps. What I'll try to get close to with a 350 grain RD. I'd like to see where this goes, so please continue to leave results, and comments. Thanks,

HV