New guy needs advise on magnum velocity casting.

[mikenbarb]

Hello, Im a new guy here but have been reloading for a while and need advice on casting for magnum velocities for a .300Win.Mag. Im having great results with my pistol and 30-30 boolits but not sure where to start with anything over 2500fps. If anyone can give advice, I would appreciate it. Im shooting a Remington 700BDL in .300Win.Mag. and have 99% lead, WW, and lino type lead to cast with. I am using a Lee production pot with a ladle and an older Lee bottom pour. Thanks in advance and if more info is needed, Please let me know.
PS- The mold im going to use is a Lee 90369 with GC.

[docone31]

I might consider sizing down, and using two, or three wraps of paper.
I get good velocity with paper in my .303, with three wraps of Meade.

[Linstrum]

The upper velocity limit to cast lead alloy boolits is right around 2000 feet per second. A few casters have gotten well beyond that with special lubrication selection, and as posted above, paper patching will also get you well above the more-or-less 2000 feet per second lead alloy ceiling.

I personally don't bother with trying to push the limits, if I want a particular load to go faster than what wheel weight lead alloy can support without having to jump through hoops to do it, then I just go to something like a Sierra Game King or Match King. With that said, about 90% of what I shoot is cast since balls-to-the-walls hot loads do nothing for me since every species of North American game can be safely taken with cast loads, although when I was in Alaska I did not load my Browning .338 Winmag autloader with cast loads since I was not hunting brown bear, they were hunting me and I wanted to take no chances with my autoloader not performing as expected.


rl440

[mikenbarb]

Im going to have to load down for it and see how it shoots around the 2000 fps. range. It loves 180gr. Ballistic Tips and Partitions but want to try some cast thru it to see how well it shoots with them. Getting too expensive to keep shooting factory ammo every weekend. Thanks.

[docone31]

Definately slug the barrel for cast. My .308 is NOT happy with .309. .310-311 and we smile....
With paper for the .30, I size .308, then two wraps of Meade Tracing Paper, size to .311.
Pretty dang accurate.
My -06 likes that load. I load to minimum starting load. I can get 3" at 100yds.

[Bass Ackward]

Mike,

The key is to fit your throat. You can't fit your throat cause you can't see it. So you need to do a throat cast with some method that can be found here by searching or reading the stickys.

Once you know what you have, you get a slug that will fit and seat it into the lands for centering. Pick a slow powder and come up from a starting cast level load. The point that your hardness and lube fail you will be where your accuracy leaves you.

So that should tell you to use a harder bullet and a better lube. If you want the highest possible velocity, use the lightest slug to fit your throat and reach the lands. Stay away from the bore ride designs as they are the hardest to fit and they lose bore center the fastest with the lack of bearing area.

What's a good design? Search for LBT molds and cruise his designs.

[shotman]

you can push pure linotype GC and moly lube up to about 2300 but i dont see the reason for the recoil. I asked a while back if all these guys that were shooting a 45-70 with a 500gr were from the desert it must have kicked the good sence out of them or the heat got to them. shotman

[anachronism]

2600+ is doable. You need to get your sizing correct, & you'll probably need to experiment with lubes to get where you want to be. The only advantage high speed has is to get the bullet to the target quicker. There is no real performance advantage to going that fast. Really hard bullets fragment at high speed. Your rifles barrel twist rate could be critical too. Most of the speed demons I know use bigger calibers like 375 H&H. The case necks are longer & the twist rates are a little more favorable. Don't forget to clean all of the jacket fouling from your barrel before shooting cast in it.

[mikenbarb]

I already have my chamber and throat castings and going to work on some data tommorow and put it to the test next weekend. I have a couple different lubes but one im not familiar with using and would appreciate comments on it for around the 2000 fps range. Its an older lube and its made by IPCO and its Colloidal graphite 160. Has anyone ever heard of this? Its a black lube and im quite sure it needs to be heated for lubing with it. I got a bunch of it from an oldtimer(89y.o.) and he said he used it for his 06 loads long ago but couldnt remember much because his brain was getting bad in his old age and its a shame because he had 60 years of casting knowledge in there.

[Junior1942]

Hoppes #9 worked well for removing lead from rifle bores back in my hotrod days. You should get a bottle.

[Boerrancher]

2600+ is doable... Most of the speed demons I know use bigger calibers like 375 H&H. The case necks are longer & the twist rates are a little more favorable. Don't forget to clean all of the jacket fouling from your barrel before shooting cast in it.

Also remember that a larger dia boolit has a couple of things going for it for cast over a smaller dia one. First is surface area of the base of the boolit. There is more surface area on the base of a larger boolit for more of the propellant gasses to push against. Also you have more bearing surface of a larger dia boolit to grip the bore of the gun with. With all things being equal, except boolit dia, the larger bores will naturally shoot cast faster, that being said, as you increase your boolit weight because of increased dia., you eventually reach the point of diminishing returns, which is why the 375 cal rifles tend to be your best choice for high speed cast shooting, as they seem to fall at that optimal boolit diameter, and boolit weight.

If you can successfully shoot your 300 win mag at 2500 fps with cast, stick with that velocity and increase your boolit weight if you want to put more energy on target. Speed is not everything as I have found out over the years. I would much rather use my 30-06 that shoots sub MOA groups with a velocity of 2100 fps, and know beyond a doubt it is going to hit exactly were the sights are, than jack it up to 2600 fps and be shooting a 4 MOA group. At a distance I can compensate for boolit drop by being good at judging distances and by knowing my rifle. If the rifle shoots all over the map, because I am trying to squeeze a few more hundred fps out of it, there is no way to compensate for it.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[Bass Ackward]

I already have my chamber and throat castings and going to work on some data tommorow and put it to the test next weekend. I have a couple different lubes but one im not familiar with using and would appreciate comments on it for around the 2000 fps range. Its an older lube and its made by IPCO and its Colloidal graphite 160. Has anyone ever heard of this? Its a black lube and im quite sure it needs to be heated for lubing with it. I got a bunch of it from an oldtimer(89y.o.) and he said he used it for his 06 loads long ago but couldnt remember much because his brain was getting bad in his old age and its a shame because he had 60 years of casting knowledge in there.

Excellent. You are 75% of the way to achieving what you desire.

Not sure about the lube, but Lyman used to sell a lube that was fairly stout without heat. It was black. Worked fairly well too in some applications. Casters back then called it banana lube. I guess from the smell and the color.

Highest velocity applications I have had success with are lithi-bee and LBT Blue or Blue soft depending on time of the year. (temperature) LBT is apparently having a sale on his molds if you want something he has made up. Just so you know.

[Echo]

Lots of good advice here. As an additional variable, consider your alloy. High MV means high RPM, which means high centrifugal force. Lead alloys aren't particularly strong, and centrifugal force puts the alloy in tension, and larger diameter bullets have more tension on their surface than smaller diameter bullets. Since you have lino available, try casting your bullets out of that. I have seen a chart relating RPM to alloy, but can't put my finger on it now. Then, paper-patching seems to be suggested. I haven't done this myself, but it seems to work.
So. Hard alloy, paper-patched.
On the other hand, if used for hunting, the hard alloy might shatter on contact with the animal, so not TOO hard. In other words, no foundry type...
All of this is pure rationalizing, of course.

[45 2.1]

Not sure about the lube, but Lyman used to sell a lube that was fairly stout without heat. It was black. Worked fairly well too in some applications. Casters back then called it banana lube. I guess from the smell and the color.
Lymans name for that lube came from the fact that it was an old formulation for the Banana lube from the Schuetzen era. The last banana lubricant that was properely formulted was from Axle Peterson. He gave the formula out, but not the methodology on how it was made. Late Schuetzen shooters said it wasn't "right " after Peterson stopped making it. Banana lubricant was well regarded back in that era. It was also the lube that Elmer Keith used.

A lot of opinions have been expressed here on this thread about alloy. The main thing to remember is that you are shooting an undersize boolit to the throat of the firearm used in most all cases except for fitted boolits. All of the problems come from out of axis bending and deformation in relation to the bore centerline. Inaccurate boolits are not going down the center of the bore and are not inline with it either.

[Just Duke]

Hey Mike I have a brand new 300 Ultra Mag Remington barrel I can send you with the funds for the pot if you want to bump up a notch.

[Just Duke]

Here you go. 2700 to 3000 fps
http://www.lsstuff.com/lube/index.html
http://www.lsstuff.com/index.html

[AzShooter]

Duke Nukem sent you to the right man. I've been using LsStuf lube for months now and it's great stuff.

[mikenbarb]

I going to order a couple samples on Monday and give it a run for the money. I will post what I think of it. Thanks Duke.

[jahela]

Pick a slow powder and come up from a starting cast level load.

This ist the point I'm working on since a longer while (not for the 300WM but for the Swede,
some "boolit Master" aready knows my question).

What in this relation is a "slow" powder? The .300WinMag is a large case.
Can the "slow" powder used without filler when load-density is under 50%?
In between I read all the threads I could find with the word "filler" but cold not find a satisfying answer.

Lately I bought a box of fine white polymer-powder-filler from a german CB-dealer, he proposes it for more constant vel. That really works as I tried, but my central question is still:

Must I use the filler to avoid SEE in a "underloaded" case??

I emailed this question to VV but they only answer "...sorry, we have no data for CB..."

And I have reasons not to load the published 2400 or unique loads...

Is this white powder I bougt shotshell-buffer? Has anybody a cheaper source for it?

Dirk,

just returned from a hard weekend at the Oktoberfest in Munich...

[Larry Gibson]

mikenbarb

Hate to throw water on this fire but you won't get there (2500+ fps) with that bullet with anything that resembles accuracy. That also is with any lube, powder, primer, GC or other wizardry you might try. That Lee bullet is somewhat the same as a 311291 in design. RPM will, in fact, begin to cause a loss of accuracy above 2000-2100 fps because of the 10" twist of your rifles barrel. At 2500 fps with that regular type cast bullet you will be shooting patterns (most likely improved cylinder at that) instead of groups. The velocity is easily obtainable but getting the accuracy along withit is a whole 'nother story.

But don't take my word for it, go ahead and try. When you get tired of the frustration PM me and I'll explain why you can't get there with that bullet. However, if you want any semblance of an expectation of 2500 fps with accuracy find yourself a 311466 mould or cruise the LBT site for the 154 gr bullet like Bass uses. With either of those bullets, a slow burning powder and good loading techniques you just might get there. Occasional groups of 2 moa or less with 3-5 shots are possible at 2500+ fps. However, consistent 5 or 10 shot groups of 2-3 moa at 2500+ fps take some doing.

Some are claiming moa capability at 3000+ fps with PP'd cast bullets. I've not done that but suggest you check out the PP forum as there've been a couple threads on velocity capability with PP'd bullets there.

Larry Gibson